Hill descent unavailable

[Howi]

this is all I get when I press the button.

What are they conditions that would give this meassage?

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[Arterius2]

this is all I get when I press the button.

What are they conditions that would give this meassage?

You need to be in 4Lo to use it.. going down from a hill. And use the shifter in M mode to adjust speed.
Also refer to the owner's manual for details.

On a side note, this is a fairly useless feature for me since it applies constant pressure on the brakes automatically, but a long descent actually burned out my pads&rotors and I almost lost braking power because of this.

 

[Rudolph Hart]

Are you in 4 low? parking brake off? You also need to be doing, I think, less than 5 mph

 

[Howi]

Are you in 4 low? parking brake off? You also need to be doing, I think, less than 5 mph

yea tried all modes, also was stopped each time I pressed button ?

 

[Rudolph Hart]

yea tried all modes, also was stopped each time I pressed button ?

You do need to be on a reasonably steep slope or it won’t work. Maybe you need to be moving, I don’t remember. I’ll have a play with it in the morning and try to remind myself how it works..

 

[Rudolph Hart]

yea tried all modes, also was stopped each time I pressed button ?

So I had a day off road in North Wales today and had the chance to play with the Hill Descent Control.

If the Jeep isn’t actually on a fairly steep incline you’ll get the ‘unavailable’ message...so you need to have started the descent before activating it.

This is what worked for me...

-Parking brake on
-Gear lever in park
-Shift into 4low
-Turn on the HDC switch, there’ll be a light on the dash showing that it’s on and a message
-Move the gear lever across to manual.
-Now the bit that’s counter intuitive.. keeping your foot/feet away from the pedals release the parking brake and HDC will take over. The Jeep will start moving down hill very slowly, to increase/decrease speed move the gear shift +/- and the speed will change in 0.6 mph increments. If you touch the accelerator or the brake that overrides HDC.

I used it going down this hill...

It was quite steep and maybe a 50ft drop. Normally I would have just used 4 low and that would have been fine. I think HDC is really for fairly extreme circumstances,

 

[Arterius2]

So I had a day off road in North Wales today and had the chance to play with the Hill Descent Control.

If the Jeep isn’t actually on a fairly steep incline you’ll get the ‘unavailable’ message...so you need to have started the descent before activating it.

This is what worked for me...

-Parking brake on
-Gear lever in park
-Shift into 4low
-Turn on the HDC switch, there’ll be a light on the dash showing that it’s on and a message
-Move the gear lever across to manual.
-Now the bit that’s counter intuitive.. keeping your foot/feet away from the pedals release the parking brake and HDC will take over. The Jeep will start moving down hill very slowly, to increase/decrease speed move the gear shift +/- and the speed will change in 0.6 mph increments. If you touch the accelerator or the brake that overrides HDC.

I used it going down this hill...

It was quite steep and maybe a 50ft drop. Normally I would have just used 4 low and that would have been fine. I think HDC is really for fairly extreme circumstances,

Try that for about an hour or so and those rotors will start to blow smoke.
And lose all braking power as well.

 

[Rudolph Hart]

Try that for about an hour or so and those rotors will start to blow smoke.
And lose all braking power as well.

I wouldn’t dispute that, but here in the U.K. we don’t have those kind of extreme descents.

 

[Arterius2]

I wouldn’t dispute that, but here in the U.K. we don’t have those kind of extreme descents.

Yes, I found out the hard way..
The counter-intuitive part was, once your rotors started to go, ABS will kick in and start pumping the brakes but you don't actually have any braking power left so vehicle will start rolling faster and faster and you won't be able to stop.

It was a suspenseful moment for me.

Since then, I just stuck to 4Lo and downshift manually and use engine braking whenever possible. Never had an issue since.

 

[Howi]

Right , thanks for the write up.

the bit I missed was being on the hill rather than just before it.

couple of previous vehicles I have had HDC on didn’t need this.

 

[Memcdowe]

Older thread - but just tried on level ground - put in 4 lo and pressed the button. Engaged fine. Didn’t need slope or whatever. I can see needing to be in a place where you didn’t needs to touch the brakes or gas again this essentially having to be on the slope. If that makes sense.

With the 8 speed auto should never need. Just gear down to slow down

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