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If you mean the anti slip control its more a question of when you have it switched on rather than off... I found it very useful in that iced-over snow a few years ago, but other than the odd occassion when setting off from a roundabout in the wet i didn't find any real need for it... if anything when it was switched on it blunted the performance. I suppose I mustn't drive fast enough!
Edited by b308 on 08/02/2009 at 09:45
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When you take your car on a race track.
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Is that the M25 or North circular?
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I've checked in the Hilux handbook and ESP (extra sensory perception?)is not listed, exactly what am i missing out on?
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I've checked in the Hilux handbook and ESP (extra sensory perception?)is not listed exactly what am i missing out on?
I know that's a comedy comment Gordon but I'll respond anyway while my coffee goes down.
I think ESP has become a generic term for a whole variety of more or less proprietary systems for keeping the car going in the chosen direction when traction is broken. It includes traction control, which itself comes in different flavours (e.g. braking the spinning wheel and/or cutting the power).
Judging by B308's view, maybe the BMW version (ASC?) isn't very good, but then it has a lot to do in slippery conditions;-) The "VSA" on the CRV appears to work well and I never gave it a thought this week save when the yellow light flashed occasionally. Had I got "stuck" or anywhere near it, I would have tried turning it off but that never happened.
The systems have evolved continuously and sometimes incorporate "trailer stability assist".
As Clarkson insists on demonstrating on every Top Gear, if you want to drive on the limit or get opposite lock on, you have to turn it off. I can't see why you would you do that on the road, unless you were well away from all other road users including uniformed ones.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_stability_control
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I know that's a comedy comment
Well OK it was a bit tongue in cheek, but this driving aids thing is getting a bit beyond the joke, considering we seem to have managed for donkeys years without the technical bits, and something else to go wrong.
As an aside, if drivers find these innovations indespensible, why the animosity to those who use advanced winter (cold weather) tyres?, i digress.
Right so its some form of traction control, i really didn't know, well i've got that dubious fitment on the truck, and when the going gets bad i have to turn it off or grind to a halt, let me explain...
Going up a hill in the snow, vehicle senses a drive wheel slip so immediately cuts the power, power comes back on after a few moments, but we need a lower gear by then, ah but the automated manual box won't respond quickly enough, so i override it, and block shift 3 gears lower, so the wheel slips and off we go again, or rather we don't as by then we are at stall situation, as the speed drops faster than the idiotic gearbox can respond.
Now having had the pleasure of all this electronic rubbish being of no use whatsoever, i turn off the TC when conditions are bad, and always drive the thing in manual gear override anyway (life's too short to wait for the box to do its job, Pat pda will know exactly what i mean, she has the same gearbox).
So i'm approaching that hill properly, a slip on one drive wheel will develop, but i keep going with balanced throttle to maintain momentum, as the speed diminishes on the hill, i'll pre plan a block shift down of 2 or 3 gears (remember this a automated manual and will not be hurried), and the power will be kept constant as the TC's off.
And by the way, i don't use the diff lock as a locked drive axle causes the driven towing vehicle to jack knife sideways as with both drive wheels spinning identically it causes the vehicle to pivot.
(Diff lock should only be used when 1 wheel is slipping and the other has found traction).
I promise you it works, and these dubious electronic devices are half the reason the roads have been strewn with stuck lorries the last few days.
Some of the newer drivers don't have that 'by the seat of your pants' feel for whats happening at the wheels, that applies to cars as well.
The one fitment all decent vehicles should have in my opinion is a limited slip diff, they really do work.
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I guess articulated lorries are a special case - most of the momentum is with the trailer and if the driven wheels slip there's a high chance of a jack-knife? At least that seems to be the case judging by the 'lorries dancing on ice' performances in Hemel Hempstead this week (several at the same downhill roundabout).
I have found the cut-the-power type of traction control fairly pointless in the past - it doesn't sound very helpful in a heavy commercial if it cuts the power below what you need to balance the slip, but I haven't had that experience.
Like you Gordon I regret any loss of 'feel', but there is reportedly a major reduction in accidents with cars (not lorries) fitted with ESC so it's difficult to argue with that if it's true.
My driving nightmare, since it happened to me in 1976, is the driver coming the other way round a bend going straight on and hitting me. On that occasion I was knocked out and had a big cut on my head, and a gash on my leg that still itches, but it could have been very different. That's the kind of accident that ESC should prevent, up to a point, though I doubt it would have worked on the Marina with bald tyres that hit me!
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1976 is the driver coming theother way round a bend going straight on and hitting me.
Lucky escape, though you probably didn't think so at the time.
Had an interesting discussion at a dealers last week, the 2 mature sales chaps were discussing with me that there seems to be a feeling among some drivers that have had prangs whilst braking that they have suffered some form of brake failure, and these last few days have seen a sharp increase in prangs.
The range of cars involved have more abbreviated safety braking/stability aids than you could shake a stick at.
But i wonder whether the drivers of these modern wonders have somehow lost the common sense reasoning that they are still on a total road footprint of a large dinner plate, and all the electronics in the world won't make any difference to that, and the car will only ever be as good as the total grip afforded, which as we know on packed snow/ice is extremely low.
Maybe there is benefit with these systems in normal conditions to many drivers (and i wonder just how many accidents they'd have without them, judging by the violent braking/cornering i see on wet roads), though i'm wary of statistics, but these abnormal conditions need some old fashioned feel and dare we say skills and thought to overcome.
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