I was driving a few friends on Saturday in my HCHII on Taylor street going towards the top of the hill. I got stopped at the light near the top, had to e-brake to prevent rolling backwards (not to mention the mercedes behind me got pretty close). Then when traffic moved again I got on gas a little, dropped e-brake and gave it more gas. NOTHING. Floored it, maybe went 2mph for the last 15 feet of the hill and cleared it luckily.

Anyone else had this problem? How bad did I just kill my transmission? At least I have the 120k warranty on it. It seems our transmission doesn't like to be below 3mph or so in these cars, I think that was the problem. If it's below 3, the ratio seems so high it barely moves, then once it clears 3 it sets to a normal ratio? I could have had my friends get out of the car until I made it up, that should have helped.

A co-worker just said Taylor is one of the worst streets in SF. It's worse on the wharf side (I was on the south side of the hill) but still very bad where I was.

 

1st or 2nd gear may solve your problem when taking off on a hill..

 

Never even thought of that - just figured if I gave it a lot of throttle it would know not to change the gear ratio lower. Thanks for the tip!

 

Low doesn't do too much to help since it has the same ratio, but if you have your momentum up a little going into the hill, Low will allow you to keep a higher RPM. Momentum is the key and stopping on a hill like that is really hard for the CVT. I've done some steep hills that I didn't think I was going to make it up, but it hasn't let me down.

 

There's only one gear.
...

This is the 2nd time I've heard this exact SF story. You should prob just find an alternate route.

The sacrifices we make!

nf

 

I had the same problem on *** Hill a few weeks back. I kept rolling backward after the stop, had to stomp on my brake (I didn't think of using the E-brake). Once the hybrid battery fully depleted, I was able to go forward, but my average MPG for the tank really suffered!

 

I think Taylor Street is about the third steepest hill in S.F. They used to have a pro cycling race which included riding up Taylor St. about 17 times. As I recall, most of the riders dropped out about half way through. Also, I think there are stop signs at each cross street, which would make building up momentum very difficult.