Some people are idiots about traction control

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein) 01/13/2015 at 17:47 • Filed to: None

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I had a conversation with a coworker today about how he turns his traction and stability control off when the weather gets bad, because he thinks the traction control makes his car slide more. I tried straightening him out, but he kinda didn't want to believe me.

This guy drives a late model Honda Accord with the original all-season tires. About as "normal" of a car as you can get. He was under the impression that:

1. When the ABS or traction control kicks in—which he associates with his pedal pulsing—that makes the car slide.

2. If the ABS kicks in with anything less than completely slamming on the brakes, this is bad, because it makes the car slide.

3. If he turns the traction/stability control off, that will disable his ABS, and he wants to disable his ABS because he thinks it makes the car slide.

I tried to explain to him that:

1. It may seem like the car slides after the brakes start pulsing, but that's because the car is quick enough to react to a change in wheel speed sensor readings before he realizes he's sliding. The sliding makes the brakes pulse, not the other way around.

2. If the ABS kicks in with anything less than full pedal pressure, that's a good thing, because it means the car is being proactive about trying to prevent a slide.

3. He should keep the traction/stability control on in foul weather at all times except for if he gets stuck and needs to spin his wheels to break loose.

4. Turning off traction/stability control does not disable the ABS.

He sorta/kinda listened to me, but I would be completely unsurprised if he still turns his traction control off when it snows (and thinks that disables the ABS).

Chuck 2(O=[][]=O)2 > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 17:49

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The OPPO is strong with this one. But, so is the stupidity.

ly2v8-Brian > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 17:51

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So that's how you turn Spanish off.

Tohru > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 17:55

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you work with an interesting collection of idiots and assholes.

HammerheadFistpunch > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 17:56

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Turning off ABS - the complete guide to when you should do it

1. when ABS is banned by your governing race body

2. when in deep sand

WRXerFish - WRX-Wing pilot > ly2v8-Brian 01/13/2015 at 17:58

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HE can no longer see the future.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 18:00

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My Benz, with its relatively old-school ABS, does detect marginal slip and begin pulsing before I'm at full pedal, but on ice I kind of wish it didn't. It'd be better for an emergency stop, but it's kind of iffy for a controlled stop on ice, because it really just behaves like normal braking + noise. I guess it doesn't slack the pedal enough? It makes it harder to gauge whether I'm braking to the point of slip and back off adequately, because the behavior is disconcerting. If it's pulsing, it makes it harder to tell how hard the brakes are actually engaged, and can *in theory* put you in a "controlled" more aggressive slide more readily than a faster controlled engagement with some sliding off and on. A lot of ABS systems of similar vintage, though, don't go ABS unless at full depression, which means they can still slip under light pressure.

In short, I trust ABS systems a lot better fast and in the rain than slow and in the snow. As to TCS, whether or not it's optimal for conditions depends greatly on design, operation, and what vehicle. In an Accord, I don't know that it makes that much difference either way.

ly2v8-Brian > WRXerFish - WRX-Wing pilot 01/13/2015 at 18:01

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OF COURSE! IT turns off their patented Psychic Enhancers (TM)

philsphan09 > HammerheadFistpunch 01/13/2015 at 18:01

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This may be a dumb question, but why deep sand?

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 18:02

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I turn mine off because all it does is cut the power and turn it back on in a not so fast manner. That's very annoying and causes it to want go off the road, not letting me gently ease out of the spin. But my traction control system was made in 1995 and is terrible.

Tinfoil Hat in a thunderstorm, now with added diecast > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 18:02

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This is Darwins theory of evolution at work before your eyes. If he has a major collision and the insurance company discovers the ESP was not engaged at the time of the crash I wonder if they can refuse to pay up?

Jcarr > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 18:05

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I do turn it off in the Jetta sometimes when it's slippery because there are certain situations in which the wheel spin helps when trying to get going as opposed to the system intervening and indiscriminately cutting my throttle.

That said, I've driven in Iowa winters my whole life and know what I'm doing.

HammerheadFistpunch > philsphan09 01/13/2015 at 18:17

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ABS worsens braking performance in deep sand, many 4x4 systems turn it off when you go into low range, for example. or if they have terrain control systems like Land rover the "sand" setting will turn of ABS and allow wheelspin.

jariten1781 > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 18:24

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I've been in some cars with horrendous traction control that I would turn off any time it was slippery out. Hit small ice patch in corner (can see it's only a foot or so big) cuts power, stay in throttle because I want to pull nose around, get nothing so push in throttle more, power comes back on way late, too much throttle in, slips again, cuts power...blah. Wasn't unsafe, and I'm sure if I practiced I could drive around it, but it made the car act abnormally. Just turned that nonsense off. Mostly older stuff though, haven't had any issues in newer ssystems made in the last 5 years or so. Never had any issues with ABS though.

and 100 more > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 18:28

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Tell him to find an empty, iced-over parking lot and test it with and without ESP.

Then tell him to bring you donuts when he finds out you were right.

DasWauto > philsphan09 01/13/2015 at 18:44

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Locking the wheels will stop the vehicle faster in an emergency in deep sand because the wheels will have a digging/plowing effect (pushing a pile of sand in front of them, sinking further down), rather than a slide over the surface which ABS would try to prevent.

Textured Soy Protein > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 01/13/2015 at 19:01

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Yeah, he has a 2013 Accord. Probably a bit more fine-tuning in the intervening 18 years.

Textured Soy Protein > Jcarr 01/13/2015 at 19:01

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His explanation though was that it helped him with braking, not getting going.

Textured Soy Protein > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 01/13/2015 at 19:06

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On older cars it's less than perfect.

Actually my '99 Miata was the first car where I thought the ABS was reasonably on top of things all the time. (ABS was pretty rare on '99 Miatas. I sought it out to help with driving in Wisconsin winters.)

My '06 Mazdaspeed 6 was really great with the ABS. But I'd turn off traction/stability control if I needed to spin the wheels.

My '99 Grand Cherokee's ABS was mostly fine although usually only engaged with really heavy pedal pressure.

The '05 Grand Cherokee's ABS is pretty smart.

My '13 135is I have no idea how well the ABS works in the snow because I don't drive it in winter, but the couple times I've been caught in minimal amounts of snow with it, the car was rendered useless by its summer tires. So the ABS might be good with proper tires, but on the summers, no amount of ABS ingenuity was going to help.

 V8 Rustler > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 19:11

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I always turn off the ESP on my cars. It kind of makes me drive better because that way I know if I fuck up it would be my fault. Also, they're annoying as hell and dangerous if you try to correct oversteer with them on.

Jcarr > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 19:14

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Yeah, that doesn't make any sense.

Tim (Fractal Footwork) > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 20:05

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I turn my traction and stability control off when the weather gets bad because I want to slide... :)

gamefreak32 > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 20:33

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As far as I know, you can never turn off ABS. You must mean traction control (wheelspin control) or stability control (understeer or oversteer correction). ABS reduces stopping distance in all conditions and you would be stupid to disable it. Pro racing drivers can not stop better than a modern ABS system. I could see turning stability control because certain cars have quite a bit of leeway in the programming and snap back the other way when you correct. Turning off traction control couild be useful for getting un-stuck or coming up slippery hills.

TheD0k_2many toys 2little time > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 20:47

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i always turn off TC and ESB when i drive a vehicle. Especially in winter. Snow is Gods gift to us to hoon in. Also i dont own a vehicle with either of those on it. Or ABS for that matter.

#nodriversaidsmasterrace

71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 20:50

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I turn traction control off in the rain, but just as very specific corners and when stopped. It's the only way I can slide the car around. I call it the idiot/hoon button. I know it's stupid, but it's pretty fun.

BJ > Textured Soy Protein 01/13/2015 at 22:09

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What I want to know is what that Auto Hold button does. I have that same button and never looked in the manual to find out...

...OFF TO GOOGLE...

Apparently it keeps me from rolling backwards unintentionally. I'm not sure that I've ever needed it. Boring.

Textured Soy Protein >  V8 Rustler 01/14/2015 at 09:49

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This makes no sense. Are you constantly pushing your car to the limit on public roads such that you're needing to keep the stability control from interfering with your fun?

Also, a lot of modern traction & stability control systems give you enough leeway to slide around some. My old Mazdaspeed 6, I never once turned off the traction control when hooning it, and really the only time I remember the light even blinking at me was in the snow. My 135is has a Dynamic traction control mode that is faster than turning it all the way off because in Dynamic it lets you spin the wheels plenty and does some torque vectoring with the rear brakes.

Textured Soy Protein > gamefreak32 01/14/2015 at 09:50

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The guy I'm talking about is the one who thinks turning off traction control disables ABS. You and I are pretty much on the same page.

Textured Soy Protein > 71MGBGT Likes Subarus of Unusual Colors 01/14/2015 at 09:52

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You're turning it off because you want to slide. This guy is doing it because he thinks it'll make him slide less. I'd say you understand traction control better than him.

Textured Soy Protein > BJ 01/14/2015 at 09:53

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I didn't even notice that in this picture. And yeah, many manual transmission cars have a hill-holder feature.

BJ > Textured Soy Protein 01/14/2015 at 12:12

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Yep - it's called a parking brake (as long as it's hand-activated). I know, I know, many cars come with fancy electro-nannies to keep us same and simplify driving, but I don't think it's really necessary.

In an automatic car, if you're on a hill steep enough to need this feature, you should really be driving with both feet...

blackchair > BJ 01/14/2015 at 12:22

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I have it on my manual Rio. It's helpful on steeper hills where it kicks in. It'll hold for 2 seconds. If I let off the brake and then re-engage, it won't hold again at the same spot. The only pain is when trying to parallel park facing up hill.

Textured Soy Protein > BJ 01/14/2015 at 12:31

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According to wikipedia , the hill-holder feature was first introduced by Studebaker in 1936.

BJ > Textured Soy Protein 01/14/2015 at 13:33

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Old-fashioned electro-nannies!

 V8 Rustler > Textured Soy Protein 01/14/2015 at 22:52

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I'm not pushing it to the limit, I just like to drift a little my car on many corners. Sport Mode ESP on my Mustang is close to useless. Any hint of oversteer will take the accelerator off you and apply the brakes to stop the drift.

I sometimes use DTC on my 120i because unlike your 135i it does not simulate an LSD with DSC completely off. But it is also very restrictive on the oversteer, but at least I don't get one wheel peel.

The most fun is the rain is my 98 Mustang V6 w/LSD. That thing loves to oversteer all the time.