2023 Volkswagen Golf R

The vehicle has a feature called "hill hold" that can not be disabled where it holds the brakes when stopped on a hill untill 3 seconds after removing your foot from the brake pedal. This has resulted in many near miss safety hazards because I can not move the vehicle quickly enough to make a safety maneuver in the event of imminent collision from another vehicle when stopped on a hill.

Hello, The problem that I am having, and that many people have been having with the 8th generation Volkswagen Golf Rs (and GTIs as well) is with the "hill hold" feature. My car is manual transmission. When on a hill, the hill hold feature automatically holds the brakes after you take your foot off the brake. The way this feature is supposed to work is that the hill hold is supposed to release upon clutch disengagement and throttle input. It does not do that. Rather, it bites really hard on the brakes and makes it very hard to move the car forward, often resulting in brake and clutch wear. This is a safety issue in that it can cause the car to stall, leaving the car without the ability to move out of the way of danger in the middle of an intersection. This has happened to me at least ten (10) times since purchasing this car in July of 2023. There is no way to adjust the hill hold feature or to turn it off. The design of this feature is counter-intuitive to the way that all manual transmission drivers have learned to drive. It should not be necessary to "plan ahead" to take your foot off the brakes and wait three seconds (about how long the hill hold stays engaged) before you can move forward. Cars should be designed to go forward when the driver wants to go forward. With this feature, it makes it dangerous to move from a stopped position on a hill because the car may stall, i.e. the hill hold doesn't let the brakes go upon throttle input and clutch disengagement. I have read hundreds of posts on social media and Volkswagen forums regarding this complaint. No one has had any luck with Volkswagen regarding fixing this issue. It's written into the code and would need to be coded out in a firmware update, or coded to permit adjustment. Prior versions of this car (6th, 7th generation) and other cars do not have this problem. This is specific to the 8th generation Golf R and GTI. Thank you for your attention to this matter.