Newbie- basic Q's on me new motor!

[Zoot]

It might be worth trying to set off on the hill using the handbrake to hold the car until the clutch is biting (unless you are already doing that?)

Does it happen when you are on a flat road? If yes then that would indicate the gear linkage issue.

Hi Dan,

no it only happens on an incline. Now, this would of course suggest I'm being inept. But not so.
If the incline is steeper, then one would of course use the handbrake. So I'm referring to a gentle slope only.

It is very difficult for me to explain it seems, in boxes of text, but I have no alternative. So I'll try again, clearer:

1) I've pulled over on the LHS of an empty b-road. It has a gentle forward slope.
2) The car is running, my indicator on.
3) My foot is on the brake, I've only pulled over after all.

Right this the bit where the "issue" happens:

4) I put the car into 1st gear
5) I transfer my Right foot off the brake over to the accelerator
6) At this RH foot transfer, the car remains stationary
7) I find & feel the bite point using the clutch + accelerator (as I've been doing so, in every car I've had since 1989, all manuals, all bar one VW too)

Now this is the crux. This is where this car is acting differently to any I've had, or driven..

8) I indicate R, check mirrors, & gently squeeze the accelerator
9) Whilst gently squeezing the accelerator, I of course gently release the clutch
10) The car moves backwards.

I have initiated this move by using the two pedals. This is not a question of momentarily being in neutral, nor is it a momentary situation of the car not being in gear whilst my two feet are to-froing between the clutch & accelerator.

11) The car moves let's call it 1 yard backwards
12) I continue to gently squeeze the accelerator (I have not lifted my R foot at all)
13) The car switches from reverse momentum, to forward momentum.
14) I am now in familiar territory: the car is working normally
15) Off I go

So I am without question, innitiating this reverse momentum with the accelerator pedal, if for only 1yd before it changes to forward momentum: I can't call it "reverse gear" because I'm not in reverse gear.

Thanks, Zoot

 

[DanMCGARRETT]

Got you, I can't really think of anything else that would explain it, unless there's a fault with the hill hold assist - it should only activate on a significant gradient but if there's a fault it might be activating/releasing early

 

[Zoot]

Got you, I can't really think of anything else that would explain it, unless there's a fault with the hill hold assist - it should only activate on a significant gradient but if there's a fault it might be activating/releasing early

It doesn't feel like any assist thing not working. Although tbh Ive never heard of such a thing, so actually don't know what you mean!

I still don't think Ive explained it properly yet still. If I can maybe get my Ma to hold my iPad while I video a brief clip, of me driving the bloomin thing, stick it on YouTube. Do a link. That'll sure as likely get 3m views.

In the meantime, maybe at the least I might win a prize for the most boring series of posts, on any forum by a human. But maybe I'm 3/4 neanderthal.. I've always suspected I might well be.

Thanks, Zoot

 

[DanMCGARRETT]

Hill hold assist just holds the brake pressure for 3 seconds when on a gradient to allow the driver to move from brake to accelerator. From the sounds of it, there doesn't seem to be any issue with that so I can't think of anything else that may indicate a fault or issue.

 

[Zoot]

Hill hold assist just holds the brake pressure for 3 seconds when on a gradient to allow the driver to move from brake to accelerator. From the sounds of it, there doesn't seem to be any issue with that so I can't think of anything else that may indicate a fault or issue.

Aha I get it. It (my issue thing) might just be an idiosyncracy of diesel cars. You might not recognise it, due to sheer familiarity.

When one get's a new car, you're always extra gentle with the accelerator just bc of getting used to it/ where it's bite point is/ how sudden it is all being unfamiliar.. especially so for me coming from a 1.4i to a 2.0tdi. So I suspect I -might- be overtly aware, of just the way it is. You for eg, might inherently step on that pedal more immediately, kinda muscle memory, to overcome this brief shift backwards/ ironing it out pronto as it were.

 

[SuperV8]

It doesn't feel like any assist thing not working. Although tbh Ive never heard of such a thing, so actually don't know what you mean!

I still don't think Ive explained it properly yet still. If I can maybe get my Ma to hold my iPad while I video a brief clip, of me driving the bloomin thing, stick it on YouTube. Do a link. That'll sure as likely get 3m views.

In the meantime, maybe at the least I might win a prize for the most boring series of posts, on any forum by a human. But maybe I'm 3/4 neanderthal.. I've always suspected I might well be.

Thanks, Zoot

If you are on a gradient and take your foot of the brake, to the accelerator and the car doesn't move then the hill hold assist is working.

The Leon hill hold assist will hold all the brakes on for a few seconds (when on a hill) while you find the bite point and pull away. It doesn't activate when on the flat - and I do find some slight gradients which must be on its threshold of working or not, like my drive, sometimes it holds and other times it doesn't.

My guess would be you were on a slight incline, enough for hill hold to activate, you took your foot off the brake and onto the accelerator to find the bite point - but didn't manage to do this in time and the hill hold released letting you roll back a meter.

There is no way anything mechanical in the gearbox could ever cause you to drive backwards, and then forwards.

 

[Zoot]

If you are on a gradient and take your foot of the brake, to the accelerator and the car doesn't move then the hill hold assist is working.

The Leon hill hold assist will hold all the brakes on for a few seconds (when on a hill) while you find the bite point and pull away. It doesn't activate when on the flat - and I do find some slight gradients which must be on its threshold of working or not, like my drive, sometimes it holds and other times it doesn't.

My guess would be you were on a slight incline, enough for hill hold to activate, you took your foot off the brake and onto the accelerator to find the bite point - but didn't manage to do this in time and the hill hold released letting you roll back a meter.

There is no way anything mechanical in the gearbox could ever cause you to drive backwards, and then forwards.

Hi V8, this makes alot of sense.

But still your guess isn't tallying with what I experience: that being I drive backwards exactly in conjunction with my pressing the accelerator. Exactly in conjunction as you'd only ever expect it to move forwards. Whist you instinctively feel the bite point I mean (& release clutch whilst pressing accelerator). No movement a fraction before, or afterwards, suggesting something else is interacting (ie hill assist) correctly or incorrectly.

I think then, it's either this hill hold assist is not working properly.. or as I'm seemingly beginning to think, that the car just does this/ that there is no fault/ why it should is just unanswerable.

It is incredibly confusing, & was very alarming: should a car have been close behind I'd have backed into them, should a pedestrian have been there I'd have possibly knocked them over (unlikely yes, but feintly feasable). Your instinct isn't to continue pressing the accelerator, so then it travels forwards, it is instead to put your foot on brake > neutral > go into full confusion & slight panic > put into 1st & try again, gentler this second time. If the car gods backwards again... all these natural reactions are heightened.

It drives backwards by pressing the accelerator whilst in 1st or 2nd, from a gentle incline start. There's no question about it. It does so only for a yard, meaning I can get used to it mostly by memory to -always- put handbrake on, on any incline, & not trust this hill assist whatsoever. But does this mean there is a fault.. or there isn't?? This is the (rhetorical) question you can't answer. My dealer didn't even look at it, so what do I do (again I ask rhetorically) take it to a main UK Seat dealer at my considerable expense to find the answer??

Absolute head f*** which my dealer should have resolved, or at least aleiviated my concerns about.

Thanks, Zoot

 

[SuperV8]

Does it do this with the handbrake - in a normal hill start?

 

[Zoot]

@SuperV8

Drove it again today, & for first time was able to feel what the hill assist does. So again, I found myself on a slight backwards gradient, foot on brake at a T-junction p. I took foot off & usually, in my old golf for eg (plus any car I've had or driven too) I'd expect the car to shift backwards once I took foot off the brake. I had no-one behind me, so took foot off brake... car usefully stayed solidly put: so now I was conscious of the hill assist, what it does, how useful & well-designed it could be considered, & also whether it seemed to be working (which it seems, it was at this juncture).

So I find the bite point whilst releasing clutch, I can feel the bite point, all perfectly intuitive.. & gently press the accelerator whilst backing the clutch out, again all intuitively. It goes backwards a yard. Then goes forwards correctly. I have innitiated this backwards shift, by my use of the two pedals either side of the brake; there is absolutely no doubt about this. It is not suddenly going into neutral either: I'm in fwd gear: I feel the bite a split-second before the car moves backwards.

So. Whether this is the 'hill assist getting slightly carried away' I am kinda hedging my bets on. IE I get the feeling, now, that it has something to do with the hill assist. It is in conjunction with it.

Whether that is a fault.. I could only say by comparison to another identical car. Which isn't gonna happen. So I'm rather left in limbo. And left considering things until my head hurts. Is it yet still a linkage issue?? Is it a sole capacitor polarity wrong?? Is it a hydraulic fluid brake thing?? Or is it entirely normally functioning??

Urgh. Anyway what can you do. Zoot

 

[Zoot]

Does it do this with the handbrake - in a normal hill start?

No. I can use car perfectly normally in a hill start situation. Which is what you simply do, if the gradient is above a certain degree, IE again the word intuition is apt to use here.

The difference with a hill start, is you tend to make that bite point REALLY felt solidly 1st, before releasing the (hand) brake. With my situation, the brake pedal is off beforehand, then you go to feel the bite point more gently. The car may briefly roll back in neutral whilst you transition your R foot from brake to the accelerator (on a normal car that is: on a car that doesn't have "hill assist").... but that is distinctly NOT what I'm describing as happening.

Thanks, Zoot

 

[Zoot]

Bingo! I think. Hill assist..

I've trawled hill assist online, & note two comments (on t6forum I think a vw van): I emphasise the last bit in italics..

1. "One thing to watch is I find the release point a bit early, especially when it's a backwards slope"

& another person posts:

2. "Well you can configure the release point a little bit via VCDS/OBD11 - I have mine set to release on more throttle than normal as it was fine with forward slopes but always rolled back a bit on upward slopes"

--

So. This seems to both clear things up regarding a cause, & even suggests a solution too. The main thing is that I think I can finally --rule out-- that it's a fault. It might be the release point is set a bit early, but I don't deem it to be a car fault. Thank goodness.

Very grateful chaps- reassurance when I needed it. Zoot

 

[Zoot]

Hi again chaps,

Have a few more general "newbie Q's" if anyone can help. Rust being a conern.

Firstly, having come from my golf4 I do notice the slight body quality difference, I can feel the steel is a thinner guage easily.. & hear more underneath. I live in a silly-wet area here, & car not kept in a garage.

So already worrying about RUST. Now, I did a visual inspection at sale underneath, & the main area looked fine: but although no advisory on the MOT I did notice some minor rust on the rear black 'beam' between back wheels (subframe? I'm not sure). Axle section?

So can I get advice: wondering if it's feasable to treat the underneath, by hand? IE without lifting car up. I have a useful sharp slope on edge of drive, that I can back the car's rear wheels up to/ to get reasonable access to beam.

Thanks Zoot

 

[nd-photo.nl]

Apparently, the rear control arms are prone to rust. I have just replaced them, the weird thing being the control arms in the front are fine, but in the rear they were closed to perished (at least, thats what I told myself so I could slap on some shiny new parts )

Both my subframes had some slight rust areas. I treated them with rust converter/protector and sprayed them black afterwards with rust protectant paint (rattle can).

The beam is a torsion beam, more info below:

Twist-beam rear suspension - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I used this stuff:

Rust Converter Epoxy Aerosol | 400ml

Easy to use, simply spray directly onto rust and watch it work, transforming rust into a ready to paint black / purple surface. Resistant to water vapour, oxygen and carbon dioxide, once treated, the surface can be painted directly over, without the need for a primer. Next day delivery available.

www.jenolite.com

 

[nd-photo.nl]

Some pics from a year:

Front subframe

Rear control arms (my ST has the multilink rear suspension)

 

[RUM4MO]

One thing to watch out for is the heat shields, they are aluminium and so "fight" a lot with any steel in contact with them, so, what might look like rusted steel retainer "washers" might disappear when you wire brush them - ie turn into rust dust along with the surrounding aluminium.

You can buy kits of retainers and aluminium patches on ebay, typically coming in from China as it seems like no one in UK or even mainland Europe is attempting to provide these patches - I'd prefer to use genuine VW Group retainers as aftermarket steel parts like these galvanised steel retainers and chemi blackened screws tend to rust very quickly or at least a lot quicker than the VW Group parts do. As for the aluminium repair patches, buying and using them, for me, beats cutting up aluminium food/drinks cans!

I've found at all underbody parts that have been painted black do not resist rusting for long, I'd love to trust "rust convertors" but they say that turning black is proof that they are converting rust into a stable compound - but if you paint some of these products onto a piece of wood - the treated area turns black, hum!

Hammerite black satin paint is meant to be able to be applied over lightly wire brushed rusty areas - and hold back rust, not in my world, "on one year" then "vanished next year" replaced by more rust. So I've resorted to applying a wax product, currently Waxoyl although I'm sure that there are many better wax products out there.

It is not fun living in an area where salt is applied to road surfaces to keep the surface safe for driving on, but it is needed to keep us safe.

 

[Zoot]

Apparently, the rear control arms are prone to rust. I have just replaced them, the weird thing being the control arms in the front are fine, but in the rear they were closed to perished (at least, thats what I told myself so I could slap on some shiny new parts )

Both my subframes had some slight rust areas. I treated them with rust converter/protector and sprayed them black afterwards with rust protectant paint (rattle can).

The beam is a torsion beam, more info below:

Twist-beam rear suspension - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I used this stuff:

Rust Converter Epoxy Aerosol | 400ml

Easy to use, simply spray directly onto rust and watch it work, transforming rust into a ready to paint black / purple surface. Resistant to water vapour, oxygen and carbon dioxide, once treated, the surface can be painted directly over, without the need for a primer. Next day delivery available.

www.jenolite.com

Hi nd.. fantastic information there, appreciated.

I'll have to get underneath & take some snaps, as I can't recognise my "black beam thing" between two rear wheels as being quite the same as yours there.

Anyway, great you guys are on the same page as it were, & have addressed this rust aspect. I'm in good hands finding this website/ forum. Gives me just the reassurance I need at this early 'newbie' stage.

Many thanks indeed. Zoot

 

[Zoot]

One thing to watch out for is the heat shields, they are aluminium and so "fight" a lot with any steel in contact with them, so, what might look like rusted steel retainer "washers" might disappear when you wire brush them - ie turn into rust dust along with the surrounding aluminium.

You can buy kits of retainers and aluminium patches on ebay, typically coming in from China as it seems like no one in UK or even mainland Europe is attempting to provide these patches - I'd prefer to use genuine VW Group retainers as aftermarket steel parts like these galvanised steel retainers and chemi blackened screws tend to rust very quickly or at least a lot quicker than the VW Group parts do. As for the aluminium repair patches, buying and using them, for me, beats cutting up aluminium food/drinks cans!

I've found at all underbody parts that have been painted black do not resist rusting for long, I'd love to trust "rust convertors" but they say that turning black is proof that they are converting rust into a stable compound - but if you paint some of these products onto a piece of wood - the treated area turns black, hum!

Hammerite black satin paint is meant to be able to be applied over lightly wire brushed rusty areas - and hold back rust, not in my world, "on one year" then "vanished next year" replaced by more rust. So I've resorted to applying a wax product, currently Waxoyl although I'm sure that there are many better wax products out there.

It is not fun living in an area where salt is applied to road surfaces to keep the surface safe for driving on, but it is needed to keep us safe.

Hi RUM..

thanks for this reply too. Ah, to choose the product wisely then.. & not to just paint over the rust masking it & kidding yourself it ain't there. Do a proper job is the order of the day. Good advice there.

Yup the salt thing: thankfully very low population here, & b roads & lanes mostly so only done occasionally with the gritters. And then I tend to get stocked up, & just hunker down at home, when very cold patches arrive in jan-march.

I'm just aware that A) I got lucky with my old golf (brutally scrapped off my drive last week by bigass claw thing!) when it came to rust, she was such a fab car/ never one prob with rust.. & 2) the steel clearly isn't as good quality on the Seat.

Thanks, Zoot

 

[nd-photo.nl]

I assume we are in a very similar climate (wet sea climate in the Netherlands), although the winters have become super mild and it looks more like a continuation of autumn instead a real winter (with snow and ice). If we get any snow, its only for a small number of days.

You probably have a rear beam setup, see the difference below