Stop Start and Hill Assist

[Timothy Nathan]

At first I really didn't like Stop Start, because you have to take your foot off the brake to restart the engine and then there is a heart stopping moment during which there is no engine and gearbox to hold you, but no brake either.

I have discovered that Hill Assist is perfect for this. It cuts in when you stop and goes off when you accelerate, just like the handbrake, but is still armed to come on again. It works a treat.

[nealeb]

On mine, I can relax (most of) the pressure on the brake and the engine will start but without releasing the brake. Means that you are confident the engine is running just before the lights go green instead of just after!

But I am a bit confused about how all this works. Without hill assist turned on, is there an anti-creep feature that keeps the footbrake on until you actually accelerate, even though you have taken your foot off the brake? And what does hill assist add - just auto-operation of the parking brake as well? I know that turning off hill assist helps when doing any forwards/reverse manoeuvring, but I'm not sure that there isn't something funny there that might inhibit auto-brake operation when it thinks that you are doing that kind of thing.

I'm starting to think that in any reasonable intelligence test, I'm going to score several points less than my car...

[Guest 2]

Is Hill Assist standard on cars? Particulary on autos?

The Stop/Start is a good feature, the A4 I had on loan had it fitted and it just shows how much fuel is being wasted when sitting in traffic.

[Timothy Nathan]

Hill Assist is standard on all C7s, manual or automatic.