When parking facing down a steep hill and after putting into park, has anyone ever noticed it being a little difficult to pull back on it and put it back into gear? It’s like it’s liading up with pressure when facing downhill. I have had a few pdk cars and don’t re all having that issue. It goes into gear, just with a little force and it kinda pop lose.

 

You never want any auto type transmission to take the weight of the vehicle. Always engage the parking brake first and then put the gear selector in P.

 

I can honestly say I have pretty never used an emergency brake in my life on anything. This is probably my racing track psychosis of never using the parking brake and most of my cars throughout the years have been manuals.

When I do use it, it is usually after I turn the car off when on a steep hill.

I'll start trying to remember that. I am just curious if anyone has noticed this.

 

Yeah, the PDK in my car exhibits similar behavior, and sometimes I'll give the parking brake a little more tug to get it set tightly, so there isn't pressure on the gearbox. I tend to always use my parking brake, however. Regardless of where I'm parking I use it, just habit from driving manuals. I'd wager the car even has the parking brake set right now sitting in the garage.

 

In my MT cars, I always use the parking brake. In the AT cars I use it if they're not parked perfectly flat and set it before taking my foot off the brake so the transmission has no load on it when parked. Still trying to train my wife on proper AT transmission parking technique.

 

Yesterday, I pulled up to my buddies house in front of the house to pick something up where his driveway was super steep, steep enough I though it was going to be a pain to back out of. Not sure I have ever parked a pdk car on such an incline. I park my manual M3 there also numerous times . . . I will try and use the parking brake when on an incline facing down like that.

I swear I think it must be my race track mentality engrained in me since I started racing/tracking 911s, 924s and 944s before I was allowed to drive them on public streets. I only very rarely use a parking park and it is almost exclusively in manual cars when parking on steep inclines or declines and think the car could jump out of gear or when cars are put in the car hauler. Don't think I have ever once in my life used parking brake on an automatic.

 

You are talking about having to put extra force on the shifter? Well I guess the good news is that there is no mechanical connection between the shifter and the PDK, the shifter mechanism sends a CAN bus signal to the gearbox so if you are experiencing more effort than usual to get the shifter into gear it's related to the shifter mechanism only.
That basically moves a magnet at the bottom of the lever in front of some sensors, must be something in the mechanism moving slightly when on the incline?

 

I did notice the last couple of days when parking or sitting facing downhill and using parking brake before putting into park it shifts smoothly back into gear.

The problem you mention, is that an easy fix? I seem to be totally smooth shifting unless facing down a steep incline.

Thanks!

 

Nothing else necessary, just parking brake before you engage P on the transmission. It's not about the shifter as Tj40 incorrectly assumed, its about the actual gears in the transmission. Just don't want the pressure and weight of vehicle all resting in the internal gears.

 

My driveway is pretty steep. I generally pull the car out of the garage to let passengers in because it fits very snuggly in the garage. I’ve noticed even holding car with the foot brake that the car doesn’t want to quickly reverse up hill from a stop. It is not instant for sure. I have not noticed that going forward.