Auto Question

[V6Dan]

Hi,

This is just a quick one for those of you with a pre-facelift Auto. There's a button next to the shift lever (whatever its called on an auto) marked "Hold".

What does it do? It doesn't seem to do anything on mine other than light up a "Hold" light on the dash... Or maybe I just haven't noticed. The manual for mine is post facelift you see and so only mentions the INVECS-II.

[strapping young lad]

it explains it in the manual as being a button to use for smooth moving off from start

so if you are towing something you arent jerking owt

but i could be way off the mark cos i cant remember much

[Roadrunner]

Hi,

This is just a quick one for those of you with a pre-facelift Auto. There's a button next to the shift lever (whatever its called on an auto) marked "Hold".

What does it do?
It should allow you to hold the car in a selected gear (i.e. 1 or 2 without the box changing up or down). In D it won't do anything.

[strapping young lad]

not sure i follow

ive got L 2 3 4 i think and D so whats the point of the hold button if i can put it into any of those gears cos if you select one of them then you wont go into another gear anyway?

[I-S]

Right... ignore the explanations given so far. Here's the definitive...

http://www.askisaac.com/images/shiftpattern3.jpg

Hold will change up a gear at very low revs, and change down at low revs also. For example, if you're driving down a hill, foot off throttle in "D", the car may downshift because it detects you're on a hill. If you put it into hold mode, it won't.

Next point is that hold mode starts the car in 2nd gear, not 1st. Obviously useful for snow.

On the non-tip box, selecting "3" rather than "D" just means it can use 1, 2 and 3 rather than 1, 2, 3 and 4. Hold mode alters the shift pattern and locks out 1.

If you used hold and "3" then it would be limited to only using 2nd and 3rd, and it would use the low-rev shift points of the hold pattern.

Basically "3", "2" and "L" are used to keep a low gear at high revs, while "hold" is used to keep a high gear at low revs.

Edit: By the way, it's still an INVECS II box, but just not tiptronic, which is separate.

[strapping young lad]

ah nice one

yes ive heard a lot that its best to ignore what i say! ;)

[V6Dan]

Ah I see, thanks Isaac, surprisingly that makes perfect sense :o

Cheers for everybody's responses. Give yourselves a coconut!