Actually Used the Hill Decent Function

Gangly · July 8, 2021

The family and I took a week+ trip to Branson last week and instead of taking the the wife's Honda Pilot, we decided to take the truck since it had significantly more room and we could place all of the luggage in the bed of the truck beneath the Softopper. We stopped in Eureka Springs to check out a few of the local spots in town, but when leaving the GPS took us a back way through town and there were a few portions of the roadway that were STEEP. Being a Texas boy, I didn't know public roadway got that steep, but it was kinda fun to be honest. Anyways, I remembered the Hill Decent Control button on my dash and gave it a try. First things first, and I didn't know this, but you have to be going 15 mph or less to activate it. After realizing this I waited until we got to a very steep portion of the roadway and activated it.

My first immediate thought was AWESOME!!! I honestly thought this was a gimmicky tech feature but dang does it work good and it was smooth as butter. It actually brought me to a slow, prolonged and controlled stop 2 or three times and it was a very impressive feature to me. I can actually see why this is a tech feature that some people would really get a lot of use out of, especially in that locale.

Now that this Texas boy is back in Houston, I will probably never use the function again so it will serve me absolutely no purpose, but I have to admit it was pretty handy when it came time to use it. Living here in the lower part of Texas, I would never pay for that option alone, but I would definitely consider it if living in the mountains.

Fattyz28 · July 11, 2021

I used it once back in 2015 on my z71 I had then. It took me forever to figure out the 15 mph thing also. Had to refer to the manual. My wife greatly appreciated it. We were in Moab at the arches national park when we tried it out. She was thought she was scared for her life driving that road. Then we went to pikes peak a few days later. . Needless to say that wasn’t any better for her. She literally laid back her seat and closed her eyes. She couldn’t handle it. Ahh the memories.

heateyal · July 14, 2021

Never got around to trying it on my truck.

econometrics · July 14, 2021

Lol yeah not many places us Texas owners can use this feature! There's one hill around me that I used it on once... for about 30 yards.

f8l vnm · July 14, 2021

Nice little feature , now can we also get a crawl mode too ? I know i know im asking for too much lol

JimCost2014 · July 15, 2021

Have used it a few times on the wet hills in the Seattle area during the winter.

Works well, but truck does not sound happy, lots of thing going at all 4 corners while it is engaged.

Gangly · July 15, 2021

4 hours ago, f8l vnm said:

Nice little feature , now can we also get a crawl mode too ? I know i know im asking for too much lol

Would be Awesome!!!

4lo is basically a crawl mode for me on the small challenges I've done, but a crawl mode would be great.

Snakes709 · July 19, 2021

I used it to go down a -22* slope In the snow. Worked pretty good and even held me in place on studded winter tires that were pretty much tosst

Gangly · July 19, 2021

7 hours ago, Snakes709 said:

I used it to go down a -22* slope In the snow. Worked pretty good and even held me in place on studded winter tires that were pretty much tosst

Looks like some fun driving.

Snakes709 · July 19, 2021

29 minutes ago, Gangly said:

Looks like some fun driving.

that it was. I was surprised how well the truck did with the winter tires. The fronts only had 2mm of tread and the rears only had 4mm left.

Dunn · July 20, 2021

love the doggie footprints in snow......dog went and checked it out b4 giving you the green light, lol

Snakes709 · July 20, 2021

17 hours ago, Dunn said:

love the doggie footprints in snow......dog went and checked it out b4 giving you the green light, lol

I dont have a dog lol. Probably deer or other wild life.

chuckles5150 · December 6, 2021

First time poster long time reader. I feel the need to comment on this topic as I have some fresh real world experience with it.I

have a 2019 RST 4X4 double cab with the Z71 package. I will post pics of my build after my new wheels and tires arrive from Tire Rack early January. I live in Idaho and spend a lot of time on the backroads in Montana and Idaho where there are a lot of single track STEEP dirt roads. I have more than once used the hill descent on steep snowy/icy dirt roads where 4Lo 1st gear is just not geared low enough like the 4X4's of old, this is where the hill descent shines. This last weekend we had a rare December 50+ degree weather so I took advantage to get some winter truck tent camping in. As per usual me and my buddy (he drives a Tundra I don't hate lol) ended up on some mountain roads we probably shouldn't have been on and I can say without a doubt that the hill descent reduced my "pucker" factor by a huge amount. My buddy ended up putting on chains to help control his descent. I could feel the ABS working each tire grabbing at the almost non existent traction and even though I slid most of the way down, the hill descent keeped me at a slow pace where as a panic brake lock would have been a sleigh ride to who knows where. I think the hill descent feature is probably not going to be used by 95% of the Silverado crowd but If you ever expect to be in country like I drive it is a highly valuable tool.

TxTruckMan · December 6, 2021

Yeah, I don't think hill decent control was meant to be used on public roads unless they are iced or snowed over. It's more of an off-road feature. For steep highways and streets I recommend the grade braking feature that downshifts the transmission to maintain a constant speed on steep down slopes. Or switch over to manual mode and control the gears yourself.

I tried out the hill decent control feature on some rocky off-road mountain passes in Colorado a few years back and it worked well when it worked, but it kept deactivating for me after a period of time with a warning message. I think there's some maximum period of time that you can use it to avoid the brakes overheating or something. I'm not really sure why it kept shutting off. Unless I was tripping the 15 mph limit maybe? I was definitely in 4LO at the time.

asilverblazer · December 7, 2021

16 hours ago, TxTruckMan said:

it kept deactivating for me after a period of time with a warning message. I think there's some maximum period of time that you can use it to avoid the brakes overheating or something. I'm not really sure why it kept shutting off.

I experienced the same. I think it is a time out thing, but no mention of it anywhere that I've been able to find, which is disappointing because its pretty alarming when it switches off unexpectedly.