You may have heard that hill starts can be tricky. They can be in a manual car, as it
requires good coordination and a lot of practice. However, hill starts are far easier in an
automatic car - as it’s almost impossible to stall the engine or roll backwards. In
this video we will show how to do a hill start in an automatic car, so you can feel confident
next time you’re pulling away uphill at a busy junction. Before we get started, please
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Most automatic cars have a creep function built-in once Drive is selected - however,
some cars do not. To test our car we press the brake pedal, select Drive, and then release
the brake. If your car has ‘creep’ like ours, it will gently start rolling forward
on its own - we don’t even need to press the accelerator! It’s really handy when
manoeuvring, in traffic jams, and also to prevent the car from rolling back when pulling
away on a hill. Don’t worry If your car doesn’t creep forward on its own like this,
as we will show what to do later on in the video.
We’ve parked our car on a hill, and need to pull away. After turning the car on, we
press the brake pedal, select drive, and then release the parking brake. After a quick blind
spot check, we release the brake pedal gently and feel the creep engage to stop the car
rolling back. Now that the car’s creep is holding the car on the hill, we press the
accelerator and drive away. The car is impossible to stall and does all the work for us. It’s
pretty much foolproof - so much easier than balancing the clutch and gas pedals in a manual
car! Let’s watch that again in slow motion: We press the brake, select drive, release
the parking brake, and after we check it’s safe, drive away. No problem. One extra tip
- if you have a car that has an electric parking brake, like this car - you might find that
you don’t need to release the parking brake yourself. As soon as we press the accelerator,
the parking brake releases automatically and allows the car to move away smoothly.
Next, let’s practice stopping for a moment on a hill - like we often need to at a traffic
light or Give Way line. We stop the car and keep the brake pedal pushed down to keep the
car stationary. There is no need to apply the parking brake whilst waiting to go, just
keep the car in Drive and our foot on the brake. When we want to go, we lift our foot
from the brake pedal and accelerate away. The car moves away smoothly, without any drama.
When pulling away on a very steep hill, or in a car that has no creep function, we will
need to adjust our technique slightly. Sometimes the hill can be so steep, that the car’s
‘creep’ isn’t strong enough to prevent the car from rolling backwards. There are
two options to get around this problem. One method is to move our foot quickly from the
brake to the accelerator so that the engine power provides forward drive before the car
has time to roll back. However, if your car has a small engine it might roll back before
the engine responds - so there is another option. We can use our left foot to press
and hold the brakes on, whilst pressing the accelerator with our right foot. Once we feel
the drive from the engine, we release the brakes and allow the car to move forward and
continue up the hill. If you prefer you could use the parking or handbrake to hold the car
stationary, instead of your left foot on the brake pedal - either method would work OK.
Downhill starts are generally easier in any type of car, but we must be aware that the
car will move off much more quickly when we release the brake pedal. The combination of
the downhill gradient and the car’s creep function will allow the car to move before
we even press the accelerator. When we do accelerate, the car will gain speed faster
than usual, so we must be very careful when following other traffic down a hill.
We hope this short video has shown you how to do hill starts in an automatic car, just
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