Traction control
Turbo Mini Forums

Last night I had to drive my girlfriends car home due to the bad ( snowy ) weather.

It's got traction control which can be turned off. But thought I'd leave it on to see if can do a better job than I.

Well I think its bollocks.

It controlled the revs and speed of the car. so much so that it had to be in 1st gear and with your foot flat to the floor just to creep along.

As soon as we arrived at a hill. The car had no where near enough speed to make it up. and we came to stop halfway up with the car looking for grip.

Anyway the girlfriend got out and pushed and we made it home. Her bloody car…!

My other car has no such wizardry and you can drive it with intent and as a result got up the same hill with no trouble at all.

Anyone else have any experience of these modern day driving aids. Or did I do something wrong.?

Si

I drill holes in everything..!

I thought the whole point of the "off" switch was for ice/snow? I've not needed to switch mine off yet, but I could see it would perhaps do the same thing as you describe on a steep hill.
I do miss my A4 quattro now though. After 3 years of driving that, wheelspin is just a frustrating disappointment.

Edited by Tom Fenton on 21st Dec, 2009.

I always switch off the traction control in the snow now for this exact reason

Both our cars are 4x4 and over the last couple of days have been great. I don't think i'd have another car without it now

Edited by Rob Gavin on 21st Dec, 2009.

My mistake then. I should have read the owners manual first.

But, I have learned from the experience.

A friend came round the same evening in his Subaru forester and we went out for a beer. And he and the car didn’t seem to notice the change in conditions at all.

4 wheel drive is the future I think.

Si

I drill holes in everything..!

Wifey's 54 Focus (diesel) has it but it can't be switched off.

The slightly earlier models we used to have at work, you could switch it off.

Over the last few days I agree it is crap on snow/ice. All it does is hammer the ABS (that's partly how it works) and then when grip recovers, the revs shoot up with no input from the driver (me) sending me sideways for a second or so.

Give me 4WD with (mechanical) LSDs anytime.

It probably has its uses for people who can't drive, but that's its limit.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

My car has ESP, which is great when you go a little bit too quick into a bend. I haven't had any trouble with loss of grip or ellectronics interfering these last few days.

I did the Landrover experiance once. Learn't all about getting up and down hills with little or no grip. I just apply the same technique to snow/ice and I'm fine.

Yep I found it far easier to drive the Bini last year with the traction turned OFF in the snow, however the BMW for this winters runabout is far better equiped its Correct wheel drive !!! Even MY GTM was better than the Bini but it was always a little nerving trying to tame 260+hp/tonne in the snow.

West

Got A GTM With A Honda In the Back, and huge Nitrous bottle where the passenger seat should be when racing!

To be honest I've only ever seen the ESP light flash on my car during this snow when I was mucking aroung in the car park at work.

The VW system doesn't seem very intrusive at all.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

last year £800 pounds of suspension damage to my dad's old beemer because i forgot to turn the traction control off, i hate tractioncontrol on modern cars its useless. i have had problems on a road before driven it many time's it was dry weather grippy tyres on, tractioncontrol kicked in when i went over a pothole it tried to counter what happend and sent me off into the other lane nearly because it breaked so hard, i hate it leave me with nothing just abs maybe and ill be fine

Edited by Paul R on 22nd Dec, 2009.

Drives
-Ford S-max Mk2 Ecoboost
-Rover 100 VVC #2 - track project

Searching is all you need on TurboMinis

Some TC systems are better than others.

I reckon if you are typical pleb who takes no interest in driving other than getting to and from places that it probably helps you when you get into trouble.

However if you are a driving fan and know when your car is going to slide and go to pro-actively correct this that traction control/esp/asr or whatever it's called on the car you are driving can be a hinderence.

I had a passat before the golf I have now and if that ever understeered or slid my reaction was to correct this, however the ESP on the car used to attempt to correct the slide/understeer at the same time as me so more often than not I had to correct again.

The ESP on the golf seems less intrusive to me, perhaps its a newer version?

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing half of.

remember that all traction control systems does not turn on until you have wheelspin. Wheelspin on slippery surfaces doesnt really help you much other can polishing the surface to make it even more slippery. IF you drive correctly the TC will not be in use, and therefore its no point in turning it off when its slippery...

I have 390 Nm of torque to the rear wheels and an automatic gearbox. I live in Norway, where the roads have been slippery for the last couple of months or so, and I have never turned it of other than when I want to play and go sideways. The car is a 99 530d, so I do only have a simple TC, no ESP or anything like that.

I've got a 2.2 zafira with TC that you can't turn off and it's a bloody nightmare!!! It aint too bad in the wet/snow/ice but awful in the dry. I do drive it hard though but as soon as you give it some hammer round a bend it instantly kicks in as though i've just whacked the brakes on.

i love taking mini round abouts at warp speed so whenever i drive my old dears mk4 golf tdi, the first thing i do is turn it off, its almost like having fuel cut once you start a little slide, scary!

"Turbo's make torque, and torque makes fun"

"did you know you can toast potato waffles?"

early smarts limit the trottle to 2k rpm only when the wheels spin up, which means if your driving slowly you dont know thayre spinning until it kicks into a slide,theres a lot of throttle lag due to the ecu so on a mid engined rwd car thats shorter than a mini this is a killer.
i span the car twice last week and they both came out of nowwhere on icey sideroads at very slow speeds, no warning, nothing. it span out the other day and bent the rear swing beam so badly i can drive in a streight line with 1 full turn on the steering.

my mini sends me a postcard to say it might be thinking of spinning a wheel

Edited by MONSTER HEDGEHOG on 22nd Dec, 2009.

Edited by evolotion on 22nd Dec, 2009.

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.

The problem we have is that everybody is using summer tyres year round, or possibly all season tyres. We have no legal requirement to put winter tyres on, and studded tyres would rip our roads apart as they rarely get snow covered for long.

As you do I've been purposely fucking about in my Audi in the snow. My old one was 4 wheel drive which was useful but scary when you realised for the first time that you could accelerate just as fast as in the dry, but you were in the same boat as everyone else when it came to stopping.
Anyway the new one has ESP and I hadn't thought much about it, but when deliberately inducing a slide with use of the handbrake and opposite lock, zee clever Germans apply zee front brake on zee front wheel on zee side which zee back has slided out. All very clever but a bit killjoy. So I turned it off and slides were then much better.
At the moment the weapon of choice at work is the Escort van. We would usually choose the Ford Ranger (RWD) for maximum fucking about opportunity, but in snow its rubbish.

On 22nd Dec, 2009 evolotion said:

On 22nd Dec, 2009 miniminor63 said:
remember that all traction control systems does not turn on until you have wheelspin. Wheelspin on slippery surfaces doesnt really help you much other can polishing the surface to make it even more slippery. IF you drive correctly the TC will not be in use, and therefore its no point in turning it off when its slippery...

I have 390 Nm of torque to the rear wheels and an automatic gearbox. I live in Norway, where the roads have been slippery for the last couple of months or so, and I have never turned it of other than when I want to play and go sideways. The car is a 99 530d, so I do only have a simple TC, no ESP or anything like that.

i had to drive a 530D auto today. soon as i put it in drive it spun the back wheels and got stuck, so put it in reverse and it did the same. wasnt even touching the throttle, traction controll light going nuts. only way i could get it to crawl out the hole it had dug was to turn off the traction controll, apply the handbrake, and slowly release the handbrake while hanging out the door to watch the back wheel grip/slip, holding the handbrake on slightly got me out the hole. sod trying to do a hill start in that thing. really appreciate the fact that i had a manual car to drive home in. the journey home which normally takes 15 mins took a glorious 2 hours

Edited by miniminor63 on 23rd Dec, 2009.

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

yes, I realize that, but I have never experienced that to be a problem with the bmw. and I have experienced being stuck with it I have used the brakes to control the torque though :) I guess it has something to do with you tires as well, so I am not going to tell you you are all hopeless driving on snow

i learnt once got stuck and tried really hard with tc on, almost slid into a ditch, turned tc off, hey presto some grip

the traction control on my landrover discovery (99 td5 auto) keeps going mental. its also a killjoy for sliding about.
apparently you cant turn it off either

On 23rd Dec, 2009 miniminor63 said:
yes, I realize that, but I have never experienced that to be a problem with the bmw. and I have experienced being stuck with it I have used the brakes to control the torque though :) I guess it has something to do with you tires as well, so I am not going to tell you you are all hopeless driving on snow

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.