OT: Manual or automatic gearbox? and XC60 opinion...

I wouldn't have expected anything less from you.

Precise inching and keeping revs up mid corner

Why is hold assist even necessary? It's simple a sop to the people who can't coordinate releasing the handbrake with operating the accelerator (and maybe clutch) pedal.

Yes I think we are all agreed that because automatics only have an accelerator and a brake to regulate speed, whereas manuals also have a clutch that can be slipped, *low-speed* *precise* movement is more easily achieved with left-foot braking in an automatic. But is there any advantage in using the left foot to brake in normal driving? Or is it just a case of doing it because you can, rather than for any better reason. I have no problem using the same foot for brake and accelerator in a manual, so I don't see the benefit of using different feet in an automatic. Maybe there's something explanation that I'm missing...

OK, so rally drivers resort to heel-and-toe operating the brake and accelerator at the same time, but I'm thinking of normal driving where you brake before the hazard and then accelerate out of it, and so don't need to operate both pedals simultaneously.

Given that every automatic I've ever seen, going back to the mid sixties (*), has an extra-wide footbrake pedal, the concept of left-foot braking is something that has been around for a long time with automatics. So in the early days of automatics, someone perceived that there was a benefit of allowing it. I'm trying to work out what that reason was and still is.

(*) And probably a lot longer, but I can't comment on cars that were around before I was born and before the earliest that I can remember ;-)

A vital component in most cars including the latest, is the nut just behind the steering wheel :-)

I've never had hold assist and have never used left foot breaking and have driven probably about 10 different vehicles with autos.

Good. That is one HUGE advantage of it.

Well lets say that you can speed up reactions by maybe a couple of hundred milliseconds, if your left foot is poised over the brake. And it *used* to be a very good way to manually (pedally? ) control the auto box - police drivers back in the day were taught to use it to get best performance (and destroy the brakes) of their auto cars

These days with complex software, flappy paddles and different gearbox modes, it's less of an issue

They do that - or did that - to speed up the gear change especially with straight cut non synchro boxes. These days gear changes are automatic.

I remember the lap record of all time being broken in a Williams Turbo car by keke rosberg. I was there watching him *coast*, with the clutch down, round Club Corner at about 140mph, blipping the throttle to keep the turbos spun up before dropping the clutch and mashing the go pedal.

People who learnt ways to keep boost up - Senna was another - did well in that era.

You should ask yourself why anyone thought it was a good ideas to have three pedals when you only have two feet.

Left foot braking is becoming - apart for precision parking - far less a necessity and far more proscribed by software in modern cars. Back in the late 80s when I got my first auto, it was very useful. Now its a pain because the software detects it and sulks

In article snipped-for-privacy@ghcq.uk, bert snipped-for-privacy@bert.bert.com> writes

"Never" is not strictly true. Use it offroading in autos to keep control on steep down hills when engine braking isn't enough.