Driving automatic car uphill

Help!!!!

Driving an automatic 1.0 uphill should you be in 1 or 2 gear or is it ok to just be in drive?

Atlantic Dawn

Drive should be fine, how steep is the hill?

SpaceTime

Just drive!

Depending on how the gearbox / drive system works you may need to hold the foot brake down to achieve a hill start and avoid rolling backwards initially on very steep hills.

Help!!!!

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Drive should be fine, how steep is the hill?

Went up one today, it wasn't too steep but say if wanted to go up quite a steep hill?

SpaceTime

Help!!!! wrote: »

Went up one today, it wasn't too steep but say if wanted to go up quite a steep hill?

Makes no difference just drive up it. The car will automatically be in the correct gear for the speed and torque requirements. That's the whole point of having an automatic in the first place.

Help!!!!

SpaceTime wrote: »

Makes no difference just drive up it. The car will automatically be in the correct gear for the speed and torque requirements. That's the whole point of having an automatic in the first place.

Yeah thought that was the case.....thanks for the info

SpaceTime

Help!!!! wrote: »

Yeah thought that was the case.....thanks for the info

Only issue is with hill starts as you've often got no manual handbrake on modern cars so check what the technique is for your car. Some have hill start assist that will not let you roll backwards others will rollback if the hill is steep enough to overcome the car's forward creep.

On a 2nd generation Prius for example, on a very steep hill you have to hold the foot brake down and accelerate until the point that the forward motion is strong enough to overcome gravity and rollback.

It's a bit disconcerting if you never driven one before but becomes second nature after a while.

Help!!!!

SpaceTime wrote: »

Only issue is with hill starts as you've often got no manual handbrake on modern cars so check what the technique is for your car. Some have hill start assist that will not let you roll backwards others will rollback if the hill is steep enough to overcome the car's forward creep.

On a 2nd generation Prius for example, on a very steep hill you have to hold the foot brake down and accelerate until the point that the forward motion is strong enough to overcome gravity and rollback.

It's a bit disconcerting if you never driven one before but becomes second nature after a while.

Its a Suzuki Alto

Falcon L

SpaceTime wrote: »

Makes no difference just drive up it. The car will automatically be in the correct gear for the speed and torque requirements. That's the whole point of having an automatic in the first place.

Not necessarily true.

If the hill is very steep your car might reach a point where it wants to select 2nd gear, even if it's not appropriate for situation. The car can bog down in a higher gear where it would be fine in the higher revs of a lower gear. This is why the facility is there to hold a lower gear.

I've had very few occasions where I've needed to hold a low gear, but when I needed to it was very handy.

colm_mcm

Holding 1st or 2nd is generally more useful going down a hill.