Has anyone experienced how difficult it is to exit a car wash with a moving conveyor belt in their Defender? My local car wash, like most, moves cars through spaced only about 10 feet apart. Entering my car wash is not a problem....move the gear selector from drive to neutral and your're good to go. Exiting is another matter. In order to put the car back into drive, I have to pull the trigger button and press the brake pedal. The problem with this is that I have a car only 10 feet behind me an if I dont do it quickly, the conveyor belt stops holding up the entire car wash unitl they restart it.......very stressful to say the least. Even more odd is that when the car is rolling in neutral while driving, you dont need to pull the trigger or press the brake to go back into drive........its only when the wheels are stopped in a conveyor belt car wash.
Anyone else experience this?

 

Yes but I also suck at entering and remember how to disengage auto hold. I don’t think Mr CE will see a car wash.

 

The problem is even if you turn off brake hold, there’s “on demand” brake hold, which means your defender will demand to engage brake hold even if you don’t want it, especially at the entrance to the car wash. With a GAP tool you can turn off brake hold permanently.
MultiCAN-711 Auto Hold
Was: HVH Enabled
Is: HVH Disabled

For exiting the car wash, it’s just practice. This truck has the most ridiculous shifter interlocks I’ve ever experienced.

 

Its really my only complaint about my vehicle. Its the least intuitive electronic gear selector Ive ever had. Hopefully they change it.

 

Appreciate that but I like auto hold too much. My plan now is to pay a guy to come clean it up once a month and ride dirty in between 😁

 

Mine was tricky as hell to even put into neutral at the start of the wash, I'd say without exaggeration probably a third of the time it skipped over neutral and went straight to reverse... the older it got the more it did that, it's an oh sh*t moment to be sure...and I absolutely hated that about this vehicle. With my Passport I have a button with an N right on it. Problem solved.

Just about everything these days requires brake to go into drive though, I don't think you'll ever get away from having to do that again. I find at the end of a wash all you need to do for that is a very very light pressure on the brake pedal, essentially almost no pressure at all just a slight dab as you put it into drive. Good luck. Even though the lever looks cool and all I feel like they should have a neutral button or use a dial shifter like the Jags/Ranges had.

 

This specifically does not work on my defender. There are times when you don’t need the brake at all, times you just have to put a slight pressure, and times when you have to put significant pressure on the pedal. As was stated above, you can shift from N to D without brake. When backing out of a spot, I can go from R to D without the brake. Leaving a car wash, it takes significant pressure, the vehicle will stop, and the button must be pressed then a slight delay before shifting, or it doesn’t work. It’s like the car knows I’m coming out of the car wash and wants to punish me for it. I believe features like the shifter on this thing are designed by engineers that ride a bus to work and have never actually driven a car. I think it’s more dangerous that the car won’t shift when you intend to than the inadvertent shifts they are trying to protect us from.

 

never once been a problem for me. pull up super slowly until the guy gives me the stop signal, then just a very light touch on the brake to shift into neutral, making sure not to engage "hold." works like a charm. then at end, a very light tap on the brake to shift into drive. key is to avoid the brake hold altogether. fyi, i rarely take the car to a carwash (prefer to do myself). but sometimes, it's just needed, and only do brushless/touchless. although i'm not overly concerned about swirls, etc. since it's wrapped and ceramic coated.

 

I would say something could be wrong with it then if it takes significant pressure. Maybe you have some setting enabled that changes the behavior slightly when exiting the wash. I have a wash subscription and in the winter I will have it washed several times per week due to the amount of salt on the car. If you live around here and don't do that it rusts and rust on the underside is of huge concern too so wash that has an under blast is important. People talk a lot on forums about hand washes and what not, swirls etc, that's a southern thing. You ain't out hand washing today in western NY when it's 14 degrees F outside. So yea I had a lot of car wash experience with the Defender, not pleasant unfortunately, just added stress. Anyway I hope you're eventually able to get it to work the way you want it to.

 

Could also be that mine isn’t programmed the same as yours. Land Rover isn’t known for consistency. As in some of the CCF settings just don’t work on some cars and work fine on others. Mine was a late 23 but not a 23.5. The GAP tool didn’t work at all on mine while it did on earlier 23s and 23.5s. (Until Patrick got it resolved).

Either way, sometimes a brush on the brake pedal works, other times the car insists on pressure. Always been that way.