Reversing up hill with an electronic handbrake?

Darryn

Darryn

Darryn

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
4,448
Location
Colne.... Up Norf.
I know this is going to make me sound stupid, so lets get past that please...

Ive today been given a 2012 Vauxhall Insignia SRI 1.8 petrol hire car, its got an electronic handbrake, I live on a steep hill and need to parallel park into a kerbside parking space. In all my other cars its easy, hold on the handbrake, select reverse, balance clutch and accelerator to take the weight, slowly release the handbrake and clutch and increase throttle, to smoothly reverse up the hill from stopped. Simples.

Now in the Insignia, I stop, engage the handbrake, select reverse, then i seem to need 3 feet, as the handbrake wont release unless im holding the brake pedal down, but that means i cannot use the accelerator... Help me please.
 
I don't know about that particular system but a lot of electronic parking brakes auto deactivate when you try and move the car forward or backward....
 
I remember the electronic handbrake on a Laguna can be manually disengaged by pushing the switch down, rather than up to engage. Don't know if that is the case with yours but worth a try.
 
Hxc said:
I don't know about that particular system but a lot of electronic parking brakes auto deactivate when you try and move the car forward or backward....
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Certainly the case with the Audi system. Although it's worth noting that you have to have your seatbelt on otherwise it's a no-go without foot on brake. With foot on brake you don't need your seatbelt on.
 
Insignia one does release when you start to move, had one as a hire car a while ago.

I find it amusing however that the ones on our Astra pool cars don't auto release.
 
jamesfly said:
I think that electronic handbrakes in car is not more useful.
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I do! I don't want to go back to a car with a mechanical handbrake now, the electronic one just works how you want it to, holds you on hills without you having to think, and auto-disengages when you reach the biting point.

Why would you NOT want that?
 
Do cars with electronic handbrakes not come with hill holding systems? I have hill holder in my car and it completely voids the need for a handbrake unless parked.
 
I hate electronic hand brakes, I do not see the point of changing the engagement system when the core principle of the system stays the same.

Either do away with the conventional system entirely and have it electronically controlled in all situations where it is required or keep the manual engagement on the conventional system.
 
I miss my car with electronic handbrake. After 3 years it was great that it always came on wherever I stopped and on hills and then when off once you had started moving.

The only thing wrong is that for the electronic handbrake on my car to disengage the engine needed to be running...............bad design flaw if you ever break down as you have to drag the car onto the breakdown truck with the rear wheels locked.
 
Sin_Chase said:
I hate electronic hand brakes, I do not see the point of changing the engagement system when the core principle of the system stays the same.

Either do away with the conventional system entirely and have it electronically controlled in all situations where it is required or keep the manual engagement on the conventional system.
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My car has a foot operated parking brake (bit archaic but it works fine), auto hill-hold, and it has a manual hold function (operated by pressing the brake pedal sharply). The 2 latter functions disengage automatically, whereas the footbrake operates manually. For me this is the best of both worlds - an electronic handbrake is always going to have deficiencies.
 
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