On Monday, September 21, 2015 at 1:57:27 PM UTC+1, Michael Chare wrote:
I recently hire a VW Golf. It had an automatic transmission and an
automatic hand brake. The instruction manual was in French which did
not help matters.

When the car was on the flat the automatic hand brake was not much of a
problem except that it occasionally came on when not needed, and had to
be released manually so that the car would roll forward when in drive
(or reverse) without touching the accelerator peddle.

What was much more hazardous was trying to reverse the car a few inches
up a steep hill as you might need to do to park.

Starting with the handbrake on the accelerator had to be pressed quite
hard before the brake released and the car went backwards, making me
think that if anything was close behind, I might have shot into it.

I did try putting the car in reverse, holding it on the foot brake and
then pressing the accelerator. This did not work as the engine computer
had obviously told the engine not to rev up.

Anyone had more success with these devices?

Another rather silly feature was the door mirror which I lowered to see
the rear of the car as I parked. When I then put the car in gear the
mirror promptly moved back to where it was before.

We had to read the instruction manual to find out how to open the boot!
You have to press the top of the VW sign on the back of the car if you
don't want to use the remote key.

Another problem was lowering the back seats. I had to pull some strap,
at the bottom of the seat back. This released the seat back. The seat
was spring loaded, so it came forward and hit me on the side of the head.


--
Michael Chare

My Astra has an electrically activated handbrake - just a control that can be pushed or pulled to apply or release the brake. But it releases automatically if you start driving. I did find once using this function whilst attempting to reverse slowly, that the brake released in a rather awkward manner. If reversing near another vehicle I think I would release it manually first.

The car also has a automatic foot-brake hold function - on hills it will hold for 2 seconds after you release the pedal. Good for pulling off on hills, and fills in a nice niche between riding the clutch and applying the handbrake.
However there is nothing to indicate if the incline is steep enough to activate the function, so on mild slopes you are not sure if it will hold or not. The hold function status should be indicated in the display.

Another thing with 6 gears, sometime you can confuse 6th with 4th, etc. Since the car knows electronically what gear you are in (it has gear change advice) why on earth can they not display the current gear for the user ?

Simon.