Rolling backward on hills? Huh?

I was not aware that the "hold" function was offered on manual transmission vehicles, which would be the only function I could think of that could help keep a vehicle from rolling backwards in that situation.

Ray, I think the wording you were looking for was "it forces the automatic transmission to start in second gear." It will not downshift to first, even from a stop. That reduces the available torque to the driving wheel/wheels and enables the vehicle to get moving in slippery conditions. In a sense, it "holds" the transmission from getting into first.

Some years of Gen 2 models have a "power" setting as well. Same gears; just makes shift points on both upshifting and downshifting more aggressive and seems to firm up the shifts themselves. My '95 will downshift earlier and upshift later while in this setting. Makes driving in hilly terrain more tolerable, particularly with the cruise control on, as the c.c. will disengage if the vehicle speed drops below about 10 mph from the set point.

John B.