Hi, Ive just picked up a 2010 FL2 TD4 HSE Auto, and I've got a question about the car already!

Ive never driven an auto before, so what Im asking about may be perfectly normal.... When you are in Drive, and stopped with your foot on the brake at lights for example, If I take my foot off the brake, the car pulls forward without any accelerator. Is this normal?

And is it ok to leave it in D for a few minutes at a time with the foot brake on, or is it best to put it into P or N?

Thanks in advance

Welcome Matty

When in D it is perfectly normal for the car to pull away at a very slow speed. Personally if I had an auto anything longer than 30 seconds I would put it in P. MY14 Kahn Converted Dynamic - Fuji White Ebony/Pimento Interior
MY15 Xenon Headlight Conversion

MY17 RRS SVR - Estoril Blue Cirrus/Ebony 🪣💺’s

Welcome to the auto club Matty - you'll never regret it. Right foot for go, left foot for stop - seemples

The "creep" is perfectly normal - and very useful if you pause on a hill! If you're a caravanner you'll find that "creep" speed is great for manoeuvring, especially in reverse. Ours - 2008 Stornoway Grey HSE Auto
Tricia's - 2006 Royal Blue Beetle Cabriolet Auto
Mine - 2014 Vespa GTS 300 Super Sport Matt Black
Ours - 2007 White Bailey Pageant Champagne

Longer than 30 Seconds, put in Nuetral, saves the person behind you panicking as he sees a flash of the Reverse Lights and you selecting reverse accidentally  p****d off with a Digital Keyboard Warrior

" - you'll never regret it. Right foot for go, left foot for stop - seemples"

WRONG ! right foot to go & right foot to stop !

Using both feet can cause a hesitation pulling away! as the brake light circuit cuts the throttle via the ECU and it also flags a fault

Also using both feet in an Auto can be DANGEROUS due to the fact that in an emergency there is also the RISK that you could press both pedals with both feet !
I did have an old gent do that to me some years ago comming up to a junction and he came straight out , T boned by me & continued through a garden wall into a house ! & the cause was using both feet in his Auto by his own admission Jaguar x-type sport gone
Jaguar x-type 2.2d sport one of my best cars ever sadly gone
Freelander 2 GS auto 2008 most unreliable ever ! gladly gone
Freelander 2 GS manual 2013 only time will tell !

As above, the left foot is redundant

Unless you have driven a manual loan car for the day and then left foot has a mind of its own when you get back in your auto  Former Mod/Member, with the most post & Chicken George Arch nemesis

The received wisdom, at least when I did my IAM test, is it should be N + handbrake if you are stopped for more than a few seconds.

The ZF boxes on the previous landrovers can wear one of the clutches left in Neutral so I've always left them in gear at stops and am now in that (bad) habit. There's also the argument of saving the wear and tear on the selector mechanism my not moving it back and forth so much.

The difference between P and N is just that the parking pawl is engaged in P preventing the output shaft from rotating, but this shouldn't be used as the only mean for stopping the car.

In a queue of traffic I mostly try to crawl at idle and keep moving rather than coming to a stop. On a steeper incline I will use HDC to keep the speed down as well, but haven't needed it so far.

Andy 2011 MY SD4 HSE + planning some interesting stuff
Previously: 2004 Discovery Td5 ES Premium + lots of stuff
Previously: P38A Range Rover 4.0 SE
Hampshire and Berkshire 4x4 Response Founder and Treasurer

Thanks for all the replies, glad its normal and nothing to worry about

matty D wrote:

Hi, Ive just picked up a 2010 FL2 TD4 HSE Auto, and I've got a question about the car already!

Ive never driven an auto before, so what Im asking about may be perfectly normal.... When you are in Drive, and stopped with your foot on the brake at lights for example, If I take my foot off the brake, the car pulls forward without any accelerator. Is this normal?

Thanks in advance

My driveway is just too steep for the creep in reverse on the FL2. The Disco used to creep up it with a touch of throttle but the transition from creep to power on the FL2 is a bit harder to manage - it either whizzes backwards or doesn't move. I might have to experiment with GGS mode reversing....

Andy 2011 MY SD4 HSE + planning some interesting stuff
Previously: 2004 Discovery Td5 ES Premium + lots of stuff
Previously: P38A Range Rover 4.0 SE
Hampshire and Berkshire 4x4 Response Founder and Treasurer

oldgeezer wrote:

" -

Using both feet can cause a hesitation pulling away! as the brake light circuit cuts the throttle via the ECU and it also flags a fault

Sorry OG but you are wrong, the RRS does definately get upset when you try and drive with your foot on the brake but the FL2 doesn't.
Try this:
Left foot on brake, hold 1800 rpm, lights change, plant right foot into carpet and simultaniouisly release the brake. Get it wrong and the traction control light will VERY briefly light up, 9 times out of 10 you just leave the lights quickly.
Having done this on more than one occasion it works, and there are no fault codes stored.

A word of warning, I am sure you will eventually do some damage, gearbox, drive shafts, diffs all were not designed to take this level of repeated stress Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

Left foot braking has never caused any hesitation in any of my vehicles. I reckon it's also a safety feature in that the speed of getting your foot on the brake is better when you don't need to swap from one pedal to the other. Following her hip replacement my wife also finds the more "direct access" of left foot for left pedal far easier.

I agree it might cause confusion in your "emergency" reaction if you are constantly changing from manual to auto but that's not so in my case since both of our cars are autos. Mind you, for my motorbike it's right foot and right hand to brake, for my scooter it's left hand and right hand, on older British bikes that I ride sometimes it's left foot and right hand so I think the "It's what you're used to" argument is a tad overstated. Ours - 2008 Stornoway Grey HSE Auto
Tricia's - 2006 Royal Blue Beetle Cabriolet Auto
Mine - 2014 Vespa GTS 300 Super Sport Matt Black
Ours - 2007 White Bailey Pageant Champagne

I had the same question when switching from manual to auto. The creeping at idle is normal, although as andycwb mentions, creeping in reverse takes a bit of practice. Hill starts are no brainers on autos.

Left foot braking, seems to be one of those marmite things. Personally I would leave it to the experts and experienced drivers! The first time I tried this soon after moving from a manual to auto was also my last time. I was coming up to a roundabout which looked from a distance to be clear. I placed my left foot on the brake pedal thinking I would use it to slow down a little to navigate the roundabout, got slightly distracted because an oncoming car started indicating left, so I'm still clear to slow down and take the roundabout.

However, in that split second, my left foot got confused between gentle braking to slow down and operating a non existent clutch pedal. The next few second played out in bullet time / slow motion as my brain was trying to tell the left foot to ease off and slow down gently, and the left foot was having non of it, stamping down harder as the car slow down (probably as it had learned to do for many years to avoid stalling), ended up doing a stuttering emergency stop.

Luckily there was no one behind me at the time. This is just my own personal experience, and I'm sure there are many people who left foot brake safely, and but it did teach me a few lessons. Mainly that I'm not as good a driver that I think I am, not being able to override the muscle memory of your limbs in a emergency situation could be extremely dangerous and even in a non emergency situation like the one I was in, it was almost poo inducing scary.

Ditto for me with SamYPKP... tried left foot braking once only to end up doing an emergency stop... definitely feel we learn to use our right and left feet differently when we drive - left for pushing all the way then lifting and the right for gently pressing or more either the brake or the accelerator.

Love having an auto though, especially the smooth changes and the EPB.

As to commandshift... I left it for a few weeks until I was confident with the auto and now use it on a half mile stretch to and from work where there are 13 road humps, rather than it switching from 2nd to 3rd all the time, I just leave it in 2nd... you have to remember though to change up after coming off the roundabout at the end otherwise you can hit the redline fairly quickly (before it changes up for you)! 2016 BMW X3 30d SE in red
MY2013 SD4 XS Firenze Red, 19" 10 spoke contrast paint wheels, Signature Strips, Grand Black Lacquer trim, Cold Climate Pack - gone!
2007 TD4 S Stornoway Grey - gone!