Parking sensors and ECO mode...careful..!

[elbarry]

OK picture the scene, parking on the drive and closing in on my wife's car very slowly.
Need to be close to my wife's car as possible to be able to shut the gates behind my car dye to length if driveway.
Parking sensors on the front start doing their job and begin to beep inwards and towards the red 'stop now' indicator.
In Eco mode and the car is an auto, so only using the brake with no accelerator required to edge closer.
As getting closer, the stop now indicator on the front parking sensors beep quickly and the car shuts off due to a moment of standstill and operation of the Eco shut off.
At this point put the selector in park first and than secondly apply handbrake foot brake.
Do not take your foot off the brake to apply handbrake foot brake first as you will find your car jumping forward into your wife's.......!

This never but almost happened to me due to quick reaction, as the normal thing to do when a car is in your desired parking place and the engine is off is to apply handbrake.
Not with Eco mode it isn't. Keep your foot in the brake........you ain't stopped yet. ;-)

Don't regard myself as a poor driver, quite the contrary. I suppose from now on Eco mode is off when using sensors to park close to something.

 

[baxlin]

I commented in a thread a few weeks ago that I like the ECO mode, on my manual C220.

But when I had a courtesy auto car, I wasn't comfortable with ECO mode at all, I found it to be a bit unpredictable.

Malcolm

 

[Conquistador]

I've found the same problem, and have now taken to just switching to Sport mode when trying to park tightly or in stop/start traffic. The only annoying thing I've found with ECO mode is when coming to a gentle stop in traffic, it doesn't cut the engine when you're stationary at 0mph - it cuts it at 1mph and because the brakes are applied when in ECO mode, you come to a juddering halt when the engine switches off. Not great when you're chauffeuring somebody and driving smoothly.

 

[Conquistador]

Or having said that, the * function button in the centre console can be assigned to various miscellaneous functions, one of which is the ability to disable ECO mode but not switch to Sport mode. Its hidden deep in the Vehicle > System menu

 

[elbarry]

I have a big green 'E' button to switch off Eco mode on the dash.
Probably suited for manual more but auto when edging slowly for parking is nothing short of hard work.
I don't want the car to turn off...I just want to edge forward slowly on the brake.

On another note, I pretty much drive in sports mode all the time now as the economy is marginally better.
The engine no longer labours dumping fuel when accelerating. Just use the right paddle to shift up when needed quicker.