silberrosa

Driving my AT '04 C Wagon the other day I noticed a cool feature which I did not know about. I was at a traffic light on an uphill incline. I removed my foot from the brake and noticed the "hill holding feature" of the auto trans. I then noticed this only works in C-Comfort mode - (used to be W for Winter). If you change to S, the car will roll backwards but in C it is rock solid. Anyone else use this feature - Is this something they have always had?

dswildfire

yes. our 97 e420, and 98 s320 both do that when in winter mode.

tberry

hmmm thats interesting as i was at a fairly steep incline at a light as well and when i let go of my brake mine started to move forward slowly (i was unsure of whether i was in S or W). I rem in my audi it will actually hold it instead of starting to inch forward.

Kar don

thats not a feature, any automatic will do that. The reason it does that in comfort mode is because the transmission is engaged in 2nd gear.

FrankW

yep...on slight uphill because of the low idle speed of MB if you put it in W mode which starts at 2nd gear, the ratio is not low enough to push the car forward. if you try it on a steep hill, the car will roll back no matter what.

lars

AFAIK the hill holder has been offered only in conjunction with a manual transmission and never by MB. A hill holder is activated when all the following conditions are true: car stopped, brake applied, clutch depressed. It acts to keep the brakes applied until the clutch is released. an obvious benefit on uphill starts with a three-pedal car. I think it was invented for Studebaker and currently appears only on some Subarus.

SteveS

I would think anyone trying to use this as a hill holder is damaging their transmission.