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How well does the Hill Start Assist work, especially for you manual tranny drivers?

According to Chevy, the HSA is supposed to engage for a max of 2 seconds when the car is stopped on any angle (front or rear facing up or downhiill) when you release the brake to prevent the car from rolling when you get it into gear.

I have played with this and not so much for me. At what point does the HSA actually engage and hold a manual drive Spark car from rolling?

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It needs a pretty steep hill to engage, I find the parking brake to be more accurate and predictable if I need hill hold function. The auto trans. does not have hill hold, the transmission is always trying to push the car, so it doesn't need hill hold. Also I have never felt this working on a downward facing slope.

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I have the 5 speed on my car. I do not understand the technical nature of the system, but I have felt the system working when I take off from an sloped incline. The only thing I notice is that I do not have to rush when I move my foot from the brake to the gas pedal. There is about 2 seconds of time that my car will not roll to allow me to move my foot to the gas pedal. If you hold hesitate and go past that small increment of time, I have felt the car being released and rolling. It is an interesting system. I wish I had this when I first started to learn how to drive stick.

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  • 8 months later...

Mine definitely engages at some times but not others. I've driven a manual transmission for decades so it is easy to notice when it works (but not so obvious when it doesn't). It has worked in both directions (backing up when pointed down hill and going forward uphill). I've noticed there seems to be some minimum stop time before it engages, since I can stop momentarily and intentionally roll back into a parking place without shifting into reverse. When I start up the car in same parking space, it does not engage and I will roll backwards when pulling out. Still not sure about the degree of incline--seems as though I have felt it work on both gradual and steeper hills. Trying to figure out if it is working as designed, and if so, what the specific parameters for engagement are. If anyone has more info, I'd be interested. Thanks.

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  • 2 months later...

I have the manual tranny and I've never felt it kick in. I've tried it on what I thought to be a steep hill and as soon as I release the brake it rolls back as though nothing is hindering it whatsoever. Maybe I need to try a steeper hill, or maybe mine is malfunctioning?

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At least with mine, it only works if the hill is extremely steep. I personally don't like it. Since it's not consistent, it throws me off when I try to accelerate and the hill brake is keeping me from moving!
My driveway is steep enough, that it will kick in. I've tried it going both ways, and it definitely doesn't work going forward down the hill.

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Mine definitely doesn't disengage when I try to accelerate and it's active. The first time the hill assist kicked in, I almost stalled. I figured I would roll back, so I was quick to hit the gas, and the hill assist kept me from moving at all. That's how I found out it worked.

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  • 1 year later...

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