evlgreg

Hello all,

Does anyone know if I can remove the hill holder function without using a VAG-COM tool? I've read there is a "secret" menu in the MMI (MMI without NAV) and was hoping I could simply turn this "feature" off. It drives me nuts and it caused me to stall my car twice in traffic yesterday. I have been driving a manual transmission for 3 decades, and never had an issue until the computer tried handling the forward motion.

Essentially, the engine force required to overcome the hill holder is too high and causes my car to lurch forward if I give it enough gas to break free of the hill holder. If I try to pull the clutch out slowly, the car just stalls without moving. It's not a benefit to me and I want it gone. I've managed well without it for a long time and this is not an improvement. My ideal car would have simply had a manual hand brake instead of the electro mechanical BS.

The other contributing factor is that i still have my 1.8T Passat manual, and it does not have a hill holder feature, so trying to re-learn to drive a manual differently every time I get in my new A4 is less than ideal as I never have to use the parking brake in the Passat to "hold a hill"

Any help?


2014 A4 S-line 6MT Volcano Red
1999 Passat 1.8t 5MT K04, FMIC, APR, TT, etc. (it's faster than my new A4 for now)

evlgreg

As I suspected, the dealer claims the hill holder can be disabled electronically. The dealer wants to charge me $65 to disable it, and then said that every time I have it serviced and the computer is updated, they would charge me another $65 to disable it again because it would automatically be updated back to the default setting of "on"
I need a better dealership that actually cares about my safety. Rolling a couple inches backwards on very rare occasions is nowhere near as dangerous as stalling at an intersection when the light turns green.

audi8k

I think it's safe to say that updating the SW will not happen every service. During my 5 years with Audi A4 it only happened once (the airbag issue). Maybe buying a VCDS PC-I(F can be of interest for you. I don't think you can brake even only for this usage but VCDS is good to have also for checking for failure codes.

Det. Mickylaren

evlgreg - There are two separate, similar braking features. I'm curious which one you're referring to.

(1) The electromechanical parking brake. As long as the driver's seatbelt is buckled, the parking brake will automatically disengage when there is enough forward force to move the car in the intended direction. All B8 A4s have this feature.

(2) A hill-hold feature that prevents the car from rolling backwards while facing uphill. When this feature is operating, the car uses the ABS pressure pump to hold the car still, and it releases the brakes once there's enough forward force to move the car in the intended direction. My car does *not* do this. I assume that only a subset of A4s do.

It's easy to distinguish between the two features above.
* You can hear the parking brake's motor disengage when you're encountering #1, whereas #2 is almost inaudible because it relies on hydraulic actuation.
* The only time you'll encounter #1 is if you're trying to move while the parking brake is engaged.

Which one are you referring to? I'm especially curious because I have a '13 6-speed, and mine *definitely* does not do #2. I live in San Francisco, and I think it'd be tremendously useful in some extreme hill situations.


P.S. For the sake of completeness --- and to make things more complicated --- some non-US A4s are equipped with an optional brake hold feature that, when enabled, holds the brakes *every* time the car comes to a stop, regardless of incline. This allows the driver of an auto transmission A4, for example, to sit at a stoplight without the car 'creeping' forward. It's easy to identify the vehicles that have this feature because they have a toggle switch for it below the parking brake: http://www.audizine.com/gallery/data/500/Hill_hold.JPG. This feature is completely different than #1 and #2 described above.

ccA4SEA

To me this sounds like the #2 as its a manual. I've had my own negative experience with this on my 2015 A4 6MT that I've had for just over a month. The only time I've stalled was first time I was on a pretty steep hill with it due to it holding on too long before the brakes released. I've since learned to anticipate it but its still annoying and means you can't really 'launch' the car from a stop on a hill. Aside from that this car is seemingly stall proof compared to my B6 which was already a pretty easy manual to drive so this feature to me is almost not needed.

A friend of mine with a GTI has complained of the same thing where as my brother has an Impreza with a manual and a similar feature but its nearly transparent comparatively.

I too will be checking to see what my dealer says about disabling it.

evlgreg

Thanks for the input.

I have option #2 as listed above. I don't know for 100% certainty if the brake is holding using the electronic brake or the abs system, but the car will not roll forward or backward after taking my foot off the brake after a complete stop even with the clutch pushed in.
To me it feels more dangerous because I have to rev the engine and apply more power than I normally would when taking off from a stop while in between cars in traffic on a hill. i could see getting behind a car in trafic on a hill, when the car in front of me rolls back at the same time I am applying more power than normal and we could bump. It's more likely that I will not apply enough power, since most of the traffic signals here are on flat ground, and will stall it with cars behind me and potentially in an intersection waiting for oncoming traffic to clear before turning left. If it was my only car and I lived in San Francisco or Duluth, I would simply adapt to the new movement, but I still regularly drive my Passat with 5MT and the car before that was a Jetta with 5MT, so unlearning what I have done for a combined 450,000 miles would be more difficult than switching a 1 to a zero in the computer.

i am 95% sure I can change the appropriate 1 to a 0 myself with the right VAG-COM tool. I don't plan to log any data or map any fuel or anything more than turning a feature on or off on occasion and running the diagnostic on my older 99 passat to diagnose issues that come up. Is there any VAG-COM tool that has limited features like this that will not break the bank?

Det. Mickylaren

I've done some searching about this. I think the VAG-COM setting we're talking about here is "Enable Automatic Hill Hold Assist 'lite'". I don't have an authoritative thread to point to, but if you Google that phrase, you'll see some discussion about it.

sly1

I have a Porsche 981S and on all Porsches the hill hold function can be easily disabled by selecting the sport button. Are you a stranger to your service department? I would expect that it would take a tech less a couple of minutes to disable the function, and most dealers would offer this service for free for customer "good will". As an example when Porsches are locked, the parking lights flash and the horn beeps to acknowledge that the lock command has been executed. I found the horn beeping to be annoying, so I took it to the dealer to be disabled. I cite this example because I'm certain that the effort required to disable hill hold or the beeping horn function are the same. My dealer did not charge me to disable the horn beeping, and I believe that it's short cited of your dealership to charge you for a service that takes no more than a minute or two.

evlgreg

It's not so easy on the Audi. My Service guy has called the regional guy and now they say they CANNOT disable it because the code lies in the ABS and ESP module and the factory will not allow them to access or alter it because of the potential to alter a code incorrectly. they are saying it's "for safety" but in reality, it's "to prevent them from being sued if the tech switches the wrong digit"

I also noticed that many people are saying that the parking brake will disengage automatically if you apply throttle and try to move the car. Mine does NOT do this. With the parking brake on, that car is not budging until I push the button and release the parking brake.

I am likely going to have to purchase a VAG-COM tool and find the right block and code it myself. I just need to figure out what tool I really need for this job. i MAY call a local aftermarket shop and see if he will do it.

audi8k

As someone posted earlier; if you have your seatbelt on, the manually activated Parking Brake shall release automatically (at an enginge force that sligtly overcomes what is needed to move). This is true also with the manual transmission. If it doesn't you should first have the dealer fix that problem.

Perhaps the problem you have with the "hill hold without the extra button" is related to the parking brake release malfunction, so that hopefully you could live with this "feature" if it would work as it should. (My S-tronic has the extra button that controls the break hold feature and it doesn't activate until I press the button.)