I don’t mean views like “It’s a great safety idea but I have no idea what it does/feels like”
🙂

I mean for those, ahem, ‘spirited’ drivers who actually get to the point where is cuts in ‘occasionally’
😉

We’ve got my mother-in-laws Eos for a couple of months again and last night I had reason to get from A to B and back to A again a bit, err, sharpish, shall we say….
I very rarely drive a car like that any more (I save it for the motorbike) but I switched between ‘off’ and ‘on’ for the first time in said Eos and was rather impressed by the difference between the two. It’s fair to say one way was better then the other, but I’m not saying which I preferred for now….
🙂

Whaddya think?
🙂

Hate it. My car defaults to traction control on, and it gets turned off as soon as the engine is started. Riding a GSX-R 1000 teaches a bit of throttle control.

The Eos probably has ESP though which is much more than traction control and will use yaw sensors and steering sensors to brake individual wheels and other funky stuff.

I presume your talking about stability programmes as opposed to bog standard traction control?

It’s a mix for me good in some vehicles (mx rwd vito van’s spring straight to my mind with commercial tyres and no rear grip) and very annoying in others (mercedes c class saloon in the best case i can remember). In the car off was never off no matter what the switch said and it would cut back in all over the place and do so very early. In the van turning it off meant you spent lots of time very sideways for no effort at all.

The Eos probably has ESP though

Yep, that’s what it says on the button.
🙂

In the van turning it off meant you spent lots of time very sideways for no effort at all.

Sounds like fun….
😉

Its very difficult to get it in car where it does not feel intrusive. VW manage to incorporate it very well and I dont find it intrusive. Ford on the other hand gives some awful feedback through the accelerator pedal so it takes away from the enjoyment of driving. Some vehicles also apply it to readily i.e. on roundabouts when an inside wheel becomes un-weighted even when not driving fast.

why an order for a 1098 SS is going to be made 😉

Driving the Merc up a snowy, ice road was really weird with TC/ESP etc turned on. The accelerator didn’t appeared to be connected to anything.

At tick over the car would creep up the hill, foot to the floor and the engine didn’t rev at all and the car continued to creep up the hill. Quite funny driving foot to the floor at 1mph on ice and then suddenly get to a clear bit of road and get the full force of the acceleration.

Also great fun turned off in an icy car park. Managed my longest ever powerslide around Sainburys carpark. Proper Top Gear style.

For general motoring though it stays on.

I would suggest you put your cock back in your trousers and drive like a grown up not a fukin moron, but you’d not listen to me anyway.

OK, you’ve pretty much all confirmed what I thought.
Last time we had said Eos on loan I gave it a bit of a slagging off. IIRC I gave the handling a bit of a bad name.
Now, I’d never really opened it up and just thought that was the way it handled and that was it, but last night it got a proper thrashing and I began to relaise that everytime the ESP cut in it dragged the car back on line with a bit of a lurch and it was doing seemingly random things to stop anything untoward happening.
When I turned it off, all this stopped. Enter corner on brakes, apply power in ‘slow in fast out’ style and get a lovely smooth transition to mild understeer before straightening up. Even the heavy old diesel engine seemed to make more sense, like the CAR could handle it, but the ESP kept taking all it’s toys away and spoiling the game for the chassis.
So it changes from hard work and lurchy, to smooth and effortlessly quick.
NOW I like the Eos a lot more!
😀

PS – The brakes are still scarily crap though…
🙁

Personally I dislike traction control, but then I drive a front wheel drive car most of the time and wheel spin is not especially dramatic.
If I had a rear wheel drive car I might thing differently, perhaps?

Having said that, I also dislike ABS and the stupid variable electric power steering on my current motor.

I guess it depends how much you like to feel you are controlling your car, and how much you like to feel it won’t kill you?

my car has a traction removing device – automatic gearbox
it’ll happily shift up or down halfway round a corner 😯

my kit car has a LSD – not switchable though

i prefer my feet to be the traction control. (lowish power, RWD car) as my limits are alot lower than what the car can do.

in the saab the TCS is fairly benign – only seems to kick in on exiting some round about round the industrial estate where the lanes are VERY bumpy, and get alot of diesel dropped by the wagons and can be very slippey when it rains, and if sometimes flashes on briefly.

and when it snowed it only occasionally flashed on when trying to 3 point turn in our cul de sac (inclined with a pronounced crown to the road, and hard packs snow/ice under the wheels)

I had it on my Morris Minor – it was called the accelerator pedal. Worked really well, never had wheelspin.

I’d be surprised if a morris minor could spin it’s wheels even if you tried.

Epicyclo’s Morris Minor:

my legacy has great traction control/stability control – full time 4wd!!!!! sticks like glue, slight power bias to the rear axle, very predictable handling – and if any one knows/knew uni roundabout in sheffield (before they started re tarmacing it) then it pulls onto that without a hint of wheel spin! (though i must say my 205 was great fun on said roundabout for very opposite reasons…!).

however, i’ve now driven a few cars with traction control – bmw 330d, passat, mondeo… and i HATE it – always very intrusive, actually dangerous at times imo.

ABS though is fab in a general road car.

ABS though is fab in a general road car.

Oh yes, indeed it is. Proper active safety
🙂

It was made by the devil for people who cannot drive well.

My last car had it, it was horrible! Along with: ABS, Power steering, the new Merc advanced braking and blind sport recognition.

I like a car that I drive not a car that drives me.

I have none of this rubbish in my MG, just nice 1970s cardboard tyres and rear wheel drive goodness. It’s the only car that drifts at 10mph.

ESP is far far better than the brick wall traction control that the older VAG system used (ASR?)

I quite like it on the Golf, of course it’s more fun with it off though

It’s never bothered me until now: rarely, if ever, did I ever drive in a way which necessitated it. However, now driving a Maserati 3200GT, I’m bloody grateful! Particularly in the wet. On a big roundabout/corner. In 2nd or 3rd (or 4th or 5th or 6th for that matter). At 2999rpm. And you’d just that nanosecond send the nerve signal to your foot to depress the accelerator just a little bit more. And the turbochargers start whistling…

You’re on aroundabout in 6th at 2999rpm? Respect.

Note the “..corner…” bit 😉

esp – not bad in the dry but dulls the driving experience. However… it is a very useful tool in the wet.

Only real experiences of ESP type stuff were actually fairly positive but then enthusiastic driving in the wet in a Smart fortwo got out of hand pretty quickly!

*high fives Alwyn, fellow MG driving buddy*

drifting at 10?

you ought to try a midget, they go sideways from a standing start and powerslide like theres no tommorow!

Yours is a GT right? Try a roadster, now theres a loose rear end!

Awesome invention. Drove home in deepish and slippery snow a few months ago and simply kept my foot buried to the floor in second gear. Kept it going up all the hills, and when going round sharp bends you’d feel the back of the car twitch as the computer helped it round the corner.

Big difference between traction control and electronic stability programs though. One stops the wheels spinning when you pull away, the other stops you going into a tree.

I hope I never need it when driving, but would never switch it off. I trust the computer to do a better job than me in an emergency.

Not keen on lower powered cars.
Have driven my other halfs Mazda 323 1.8 and i dont think TCL is really necessary for daily driving.
Driven my mothers Focus Ghia 1.6 and again not enough power for the TCL to be any use.
My Mitsubishi V6 Sport (torque monster) could have really used it, especially in the wet and junctions could be difficult on a damp day when a sharp pull out was required. HOWEVER driving a powerful car without TCL teaches a bit more clutch and throttle control, so once you’ve adapted your driving style its not so much of a problem.

ESP tends to flatter your driving style and make you think you’re a better driver than you are. Useful in some situations though.

I hate it and now always turn it off, it’s all about throttle control, running nearly 400lb/ft so it does like to spin a bit as well.

~find thread of willy waving, wanders off again, to find anagallis_arvensis, who has the right idea.~

have fun boys

Much like any toy, TC, ABS etc are only as good as the way they are applied, cheaper cars tend to have more horrific and intrusive versions.I’ve been in a few cheaper cars with TC and they felt like spark-cut rather than reduction in torque, but a family member has a 330d BMW and it really does help keep you from slipping in just about any situation, with nothing but a slight noise as feedback. Looking at ABS too, his ABS only triggers fairly “late” but stops the car very quickly, my cheap peugeot ABS seems to trigger on just about anything and then appears to seriously reduce the braking effect on all wheels afterward, rather than just unlocking the locked wheel. In the dry, approaching a stop and hitting a bump in the road sends it NUTS (sometimes at perfectly safe and slow speeds) and leaves me lurching down the road and stopping a car length longer than I can with the ABS off. In the wet it seems to help a little, but no better than I can do with the old off-on-off-on braking I was taught when learning.

Ultimately my favourite car to drive is my full-time mechanical 4WD – as mentioned above, sticks like glue, more likely to slip the clutch than spin the wheels when pulling out of junctions, ABS is a lot less intrusive, corners like it’s on rails, even in the wet, but when it breaks free it’s totally predictable – you can easily do a U turn at a roundabout in a 45 degree slide if its wet out, and the best thing is its fully throttle-controllable 🙂

One worry with the TC is that it tries like mad to look after you, and often better than most drivers can themselves, so when it lets go you are utterly screwed and have no experience in handling the after effects.

horrendous in sprinter vans, always at the most inappropriate moments it would cut power throwing the van out of balance in a corner or on a roundabout

works discovery had it too, no idea of its use but managed to get everything on the dashboard to light up drifting trailers in fields and once on a roundabout

I think a good system is fine and makes life easy for long trips, like cruise control does, but poor systems are just a waste of space for those who want to push it.

Glad we had it on the works E-Class for the speeds we cruised that at.

Flippin’ ‘eck! Don’t that supercharger on Epicyclo’s Morris Minor constitute a ‘visual obstruction’? 😯

Managed my longest ever powerslide around Sainburys carpark.

You are irresponsible, immature, selfish, inconsiderate, arrogant and represent all that is wrong with our society.

People like you are a disgrace, and give all responsible, considerate drivers a bad name.

Can I be in the passenger seat next time it’s icy??? 😀

PeterPoddy – Member
OK, you’ve pretty much all confirmed what I thought.
Last time we had said Eos on loan I gave it a bit of a slagging off. IIRC I gave the handling a bit of a bad name.
Now, I’d never really opened it up and just thought that was the way it handled and that was it, but last night it got a proper thrashing and I began to relaise that everytime the ESP cut in it dragged the car back on line with a bit of a lurch and it was doing seemingly random things to stop anything untoward happening.
When I turned it off, all this stopped. Enter corner on brakes, apply power in ‘slow in fast out’ style and get a lovely smooth transition to mild understeer before straightening up. Even the heavy old diesel engine seemed to make more sense, like the CAR could handle it, but the ESP kept taking all it’s toys away and spoiling the game for the chassis.
So it changes from hard work and lurchy, to smooth and effortlessly quick.
NOW I like the Eos a lot more!

PS – The brakes are still scarily crap though…

<Troy Queef>
All at once the tail stepped wide, I caught it with a dab of oppo and I was away.

The Volkswagen Eos is a bitch. And I spanked it.</Troy Queef>

More Queefisms here

I’d have to say I don’t mind traction control – it’s not kicked in many times on my car over 4 yrs/100k, if it does then I know I’ve just been a bit heavy on the throttle and in my mind smooth is faster. Stability control is a lifesaver though – it’s saved me twice in those 4 years, in situations such as diesel spills on the road and a rather large amount of mud on a corner, it corrects things before you know it’s happening, should be standard on all cars IMHO.