Almost every driver knows this feeling: an endless traffic jam or a long red light. The right leg aches from constantly pressing the brake pedal, and it seems that a significant part of the trip is spent not on moving, but on holding the car in place. It is for such scenarios that the Auto Hold system was created — an electronic assistant that fixes the car after a complete stop and allows you to take your foot off the brake.
At first glance — only advantages. However, experience suggests that any automation is good only as long as it obeys the driver, and does not dictate its own rules. In certain conditions, Auto Hold easily turns from a useful assistant into an obsessive "student" who interferes in the process and hinders. Let's figure out in which cases the button to turn it off becomes your best ally.
Maneuvering in millimeters: where surgical precision is needed
The most common reason to deactivate Auto Hold is movement in a confined space. A narrow garage box, parking close to a fence, a tight spot between two expensive cars at a shopping center — all these situations require pinpoint accuracy and constant control.
During such maneuvering, the car moves literally centimeter by centimeter, with regular pauses to assess distances. And it is here that automatic holding begins to "help" too actively. Any, even short-term, stop leads to a rigid fixation of the wheels. To start moving again, you need to press the gas.
On modern cars — especially with turbocharged engines or robotic gearboxes — this often results in a small but sharp jolt. In cramped conditions, such a jerk can easily cause a scratched bumper or a dent in the door. The driver loses the main tool for precise maneuvering — a smooth "creeping" motion, which on an automatic transmission is achieved by simply releasing the brake pedal.
It is worth mentioning reversing separately. When parking, you slowly approach an obstacle, guided by the camera or mirrors, and at the most crucial moment the car suddenly "stands stock-still", fixed by the system. Instinctively adding gas to complete the maneuver often leads to a too sharp jerk and impact. For parking accuracy and predictability of the car's behavior, it is better to turn off Auto Hold, completely returning control to your hands.
Slippery and difficult: ice, snow and ascents
The second group of situations is related not to convenience, but directly to safety. This is starting and moving on an unstable surface: icy slopes, deep snow, muddy dirt roads. In such conditions, the key task is to prevent even minimal wheel slippage. Any excessive torque can either send the car into a skid or completely bury it in the snow.
With Auto Hold on, starting to move is only possible by pressing the gas. Even the most careful effort creates a risk: the engine tries to "push through" the locked wheels, and at the moment the brakes are released by the system, a short but insidious jerk may occur. On ice, this is enough to lose grip.
It is much safer to act according to the old, proven scheme. Auto Hold is turned off, the driver releases the brake and very smoothly, almost intuitively, adds gas, feeling how the car begins to cling to the surface. This approach provides tactile feedback and allows you to accurately dose the traction.
The same applies to rocking a stuck car. This technique requires quick switching between "D" and "R" modes without fully fixing the car. Auto Hold, delaying the car even for fractions of a second, completely destroys the rhythm of the maneuver and makes release almost impossible. In off-road conditions, it is better for electronics to give way to driving experience and a feel for the car.
Technical nuances that cannot be forgotten
There are also purely technical cases when turning off Auto Hold is not a recommendation, but a direct necessity. This is explicitly stated in the operating manuals of many models. The most obvious example is towing a car with the engine running.
Imagine a situation: the car is being pulled onto a tow truck with partial loading or towed on a flexible coupling to the nearest service. If the automatic holding system is active, at the first stop — for example, at a traffic light — it will clamp the brake mechanisms. The towing vehicle will start moving, creating serious loads on the coupling and risking damage to the braking system, cables or body elements of the towed vehicle.
That is why before any towing, even for a minimal distance, it is necessary to turn off Auto Hold and, as a rule, the electronic parking brake, strictly following the manufacturer's instructions.
As for brake wear, there is no reason to panic here. The common fear that frequent automatic clamping of the pads accelerates their wear is not confirmed by practice. According to estimates by technical specialists, including experts from ZF, the additional wear in normal urban mode is only a few percent of the total resource. An aggressive driving style has a much greater impact on the service life of the brakes. Therefore, there is no point in turning off Auto Hold solely to save on pads — it is much more important to do this in those borderline situations where comfort and safety depend on precise human control.