Diesel Outback 6MT Electronic Park Brake

[scrubby]

After 15 months and 25000 km I have become more or less accustomed to the electronic park brake fitted to the diesel Outback in Australia.

But I have found myself in the situation, a number of times, where I am parked on a steep slope with another car in front of me such that I have to reverse out. Basically the brake releases too early, such that the car rolls forward before you have enough revs, hence torque, to get moving.

So to avoid rolling forward or stalling you need lots of revs before you drop the clutch. But as soon as the revs are up enough to get moving the torque is enough to smoke the clutch.

The same manoeuvre when moving forward seems to work reasonably well but in reverse it becomes a nightmare.

Yesterday I parked on a slope, not too steep, and subsequently another car parked about a metre in front of me. I managed to get out without hitting the other car but it surely wasn't good for the clutch, and it stinks terribly as well.

Anyone else with the Diesel and elec parkbrake care to comment? I find myself longing for a manual handbrake.

At the moment the only solution that comes to mind is to leave my seatbelt off and hit the brake release button manually at the appropriate time...

[Knopey]

I have experienced a similar thing to you a few times. I think it's a combination of a few factors:
- Reverse is a bit too highly-geared
- The engine has far too little low-rev torque so you need to rev the crapper out of it to get going
- The clutch take-up is abrupt (and the clutch is stiff also making it harder)
- The electronic parking brake is ridiculous because it's all-on or all-off. Stupid and doesn't have the subtlety to deal with anything other than gentle slopes properly.

Basically yeah I feel your pain and it sucks but we have to live with it (or trade in on a Skoda Superb - I decided to do that a few months ago but the $ didn't add up ).

[tibug]

Shiite guys, that's a horrible "upgrade!" A lot of people, including myself, learned the clutch by setting the parking brake and see-sawing the gas and clutch until they could snap to the engagement point right away. But even worse than that is what you're talking about. Manual control of the parking brake is so much better.

[scrubby]

It occurred to me this morning to try something:

At home I have some fairly steep dirt & grass slopes on the property. If I park on one of those then reverse back, the brake releases, there's a tiny forward movement then a slight clunk and away we go. No major drama at all. You only need about 1500 revs; the clutch still protests slightly but at least you don't need to rev the crap out of it to get going. I can cope with that. And its the same up-hill or down-hill.

But on a sealed road or concrete driveway the bloody thing rolls forward every time as soon as you pop the clutch and you need full torque and a lot of clutch slip to catch it. And with an obstacle just in front, it is, as I said, a nightmare.

Until today I'd never thought to try this reversing problem on dirt. Having done so the question arises: Why is it so? I wondered if the clunk I heard was due to wheel slip being processed by the computer and a wheel being locked as a result. The locking of one or more wheels would halt the initial roll forward that normally occurs when the park-brake releases. But turning the ESC off makes no difference so the clunk must presumably be only the LSD "locking". Unless there is more to the ESC operation than I know about?

And for what it's worth, The "Hill Holder" actuation of the PB does not work when you are pointing down-hill, only up-hill. Go figure.

I have to find me a tame sealed slope to play with now, with no obstacles in front, to see if I can nail the problem down.

But if I ever run into something while trying to reverse away from it I will not be happy...