Winter Driving

[mor48]

Question about winter driving.

Imagine the scenario...

VERY steep icy/snow covered hill. The vehicle is a C5 allroad with Goodyear 4Season (snow marked & M+S) marked tyres with the tiptronic auto box.

If the car was just left in first or second the hill is so steep that engine braking alone is not sufficient and the car goes too fast.

So my thinking is to put it in to apply the brake, put the car in to 1st gear via the manual tiptronic selection and release the brake a fraction (not touching the accelerator) so that there is still some braking force, but so little that the wheels can still rotate very slowly.i.e. the engine is pushing the car forward but the brakes are fighting it a little resulting in the car going down the slope in a controlled manner.

My question is been as the engine/gearbox wants to move the car forward but the brakes are fighting it, how much strain or potential damage is/could this be doing to the gearbox/1st gear?

Hope this makes sense.

 

[jojo]

I would use the foot brake personally, using the handbrake, you are just braking the rear, and most of the braking on road cars are done by the fronts, you may even lose the back end using the handbrake technique.

 

[mor48]

I would use the foot brake personally, using the handbrake, you are just braking the rear, and most of the braking on road cars are done by the fronts, you may even lose the back end using the handbrake technique.

Sorry if I didn't make it clear, but i was referring to the foot brake.

My concern is whether the torque at idle wanting to push the car forward vs the brake trying to slow it causes strain on the gearbox.

 

[jojo]

Sorry if I didn't make it clear, but i was referring to the foot brake.

My concern is whether the torque at idle wanting to push the car forward vs the brake trying to slow it causes strain on the gearbox.

I doubt you'll be putting strain on the gearbox itself, but maybe some strain on the torque convertor(I'm guess your car has one of these being a tiptronic type auto?). It will just waste power away in the form of heat based on my knowledge of automatics.

 

[mor48]

I doubt you'll be putting strain on the gearbox itself, but maybe some strain on the torque convertor(I'm guess your car has one of these being a tiptronic type auto?). It will just waste power away in the form of heat based on my knowledge of automatics.

Yeah, when I said gearbox I meant transmission as a whole. So it could be doing damage to the TC?

 

[jojo]

Yeah, when I said gearbox I meant transmission as a whole. So it could be doing damage to the TC?

Not damage, it's designed to sap power anyways, I guess it depends on how long you are doing it for? If it's for a minute or two, I can't see it getting damaged, but if you are talking about a few miles and 10 minutes worth? Who knows?

 

[Ste_Nova]

no worse than being sat in D with the handbrake on at a set of lights

 

[jojo]

no worse than being sat in D with the handbrake on at a set of lights

If you have to put your handbrake on in an auto, you're suppose to put the gear lever to 'N'.

 

[Ste_Nova]

for small stops manual says its fine