Trail Control vs Hill Descent Control

[JR RANGER]

Just bought 2024 Ranger XLT FX4 4X4 with technology package. For the life of me can't find the hill desent control function. 2nd thing why use hill desent when you can use the trail control function or are they the same thing?

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[craigc]

Just bought 2024 Ranger XLT FX4 4X4 with technology package. For the life of me can't find the hill desent control function. 2nd thing why use hill desent when you can use the trail control function or are they the same thing?

I don't think the Ranger has hill descent control. I believe what you were thinking about is the hill assist feature - when you move your foot from the brake to the gas pedal while stopped on a hill it holds slightly longer so you don't roll the wrong direction before moving. That feature is unrelated to 4x4 features.

I suspect you can use the trail control to accomplish hill descent even while on a road, but I am not sure how fast you can go in that mode. In my experience with hill descent (on a BMW) is too slow for any mountain road driving except maybe in icy/snowy conditions. Tried once in Colorado on a dry day coming off a mountain top and got tailgated furiously

 

[jrRaptor]

I found several references to "Hill Decent Control" in the manual and even a graphic for it. It falls under Trail Control but interestingly enough, hill decent control is not located anywhere in the index.

 

[craigc]

Interesting. Had not seen that. I suspect it’s the same thing as trail control and probably got renamed during marketing meetings but documentation wasn’t fully updated. But I’m just guessing here. Curious now….

I see the feature I was referring to earlier is mentioned in your screen shot as “hill start assist”, so definitely a completely different feature.

 

[JR RANGER]

I don't think the Ranger has hill descent control. I believe what you were thinking about is the hill assist feature - when you move your foot from the brake to the gas pedal while stopped on a hill it holds slightly longer so you don't roll the wrong direction before moving. That feature is unrelated to 4x4 features.

I suspect you can use the trail control to accomplish hill descent even while on a road, but I am not sure how fast you can go in that mode. In my experience with hill descent (on a BMW) is too slow for any mountain road driving except maybe in icy/snowy conditions. Tried once in Colorado on a dry day coming off a mountain top and got tailgated furiously

They are 2 separate functions. I am familiar with the hill hold feature. Trail control is an option that you can use where the truck will maintain a selected speed ( by you) using the abs and throttle functions automatically to control your speed and control on the trail or a hill. The max speed is 30mph. There is another control that's called hill descent. That performs the same function only ment for going down a hill. I'm wondering if the Ranger xlt fx4 4x4 has both or just the trail control feature.

 

[JR RANGER]

They are 2 separate functions. I am familiar with the hill hold feature. Trail control is an option that you can use where the truck will maintain a selected speed ( by you) using the abs and throttle functions automatically to control your speed and control on the trail or a hill. The max speed is 30mph. There is another control that's called hill descent. That performs the same function only ment for going down a hill. I'm wondering if the Ranger xlt fx4 4x4 has both or just the trail control feature.

Oops ment max 20mph
And didn't see the reference pages you listed. Looks like hill descent is the trail control function.

 

[craigc]

Oops ment max 20mph
And didn't see the reference pages you listed. Looks like hill descent is the trail control function.

Found this in forscan. It was disabled so I changed to enabled. I have no idea though what that did as no options changed that I could tell. (Hill start assist also said disabled which is odd). and several other settings said disabled yet know were functional So no idea what works or not. I’m new to Forscan so no clue. Ha.

 

[JR RANGER]

Found this in forscan. It was disabled so I changed to enabled. I have no idea though what that did as no options changed that I could tell. (Hill start assist also said disabled which is odd). and several other settings said disabled yet know were functional So no idea what works or not. I’m new to Forscan so no clue. Ha.

What is and how do you access forscan?

 

[jrRaptor]

What is and how do you access forscan?

https://forscan.org/home.html

The site explains better than anything. It's basically software that makes module editing accessible through the OBD2 port.

 

[Wayfaring Ranger]

Just found this in the manual, it says "Raptor" but i'm wondering if it's the same for the equipped FX4s. FX4 on the build & price definitely lists "Trail Control" which is what this all is.

 

[JR RANGER]

https://forscan.org/home.html

The site explains better than anything. It's basically software that makes module editing accessible through the OBD2 port.

I just found this too. A little behind my tech abilities . Thanks for the response.
JR

 

[craigc]

Just found this in the manual, it says "Raptor" but i'm wondering if it's the same for the equipped FX4s. FX4 on the build & price definitely lists "Trail Control" which is what this all is.

Further makes me think my initial assumption was that the marketing team changed the name of the feature. Knowing they added 'rock crawl' to Raptor as well, I suspect all of this is the same thing with hill descent being the old one and less capable. Probably all to compete with Tacoma's "Crawl Control". All speculation of course, but seems logical to my engineering mind...

 

[JR RANGER]

Further makes me think my initial assumption was that the marketing team changed the name of the feature. Knowing they added 'rock crawl' to Raptor as well, I suspect all of this is the same thing with hill descent being the old one and less capable. Probably all to compete with Tacoma's "Crawl Control". All speculation of course, but seems logical to my engineering mind...

Went to the Ford dealership today. Their top mechanic says trail control can be used going up or down a hill and on flat ground at up to 20mph. So there is no need for the hill descent feature.

 

[CrudeBacon77]

Went to the Ford dealership today. Their top mechanic says trail control can be used going up or down a hill and on flat ground at up to 20mph. So there is no need for the hill descent feature.

Makes sense. Would be a hassle switching back and forth between the two.

 

[Sequoia]

I just can not find to activate working trail control.
Got the button for Trail Control iso HDC. But nothing happens when pressing the new Trail Control button.

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