Praising Traction Control

[Rider90]

On my way back from Chicago tonight, just got home actually, I decided to have a little fun on the "Corporate Drive" roads, basically well kept roads lined between large businesses and factories that are about 4-semi truck widths across. Good area to play right? As long as I don't go nuts.

FYI I'm running Pirelli Scorpions on 16" Steelies..

It's midnight, no one is around, businesses closed for the night and the roads are fresh with a layer of snow. I would guess 3/8 of an inch, but heck, I was sitting my car and did not get out. This car is too comfortable. Anyways, the amount was just right for some slippin' & slidin' fun. I click off traction control and slowly creep up to maybe 10 MPH, 15 tops, just hold the pedal at a low speed with the rear tires breaking loose while swerving left - then right - then left, all over the place. Every time, of course, the back end wanted to get ahead of the front end. I would be a fool to expect anything less. I click traction control back on and try the same test, left, right, left, right, foot on the gas and the T/C light going crazy the whole time. Every single time I straighted out the steering, the car would go straight. Now mind you this is while I'm moving at 15-20 MPH cranking the wheel left and right back and fourth going sideways each direction, but everytime I hit the center point of the steering when transitioning from left to right the car would go in a completely straight line and drive me towards the grass :eek: Cool!

I could lose the back end every single time with no T/C, put on T/C and I can't in the right mind do it. I'm sure I could get it to lose it if I went faster and did not try to correct my steering, but this is sweet, you honestly have to be the worst driver to lose the back end with this T/C on under these conditions.

So of course the Valentine goes off at this time :whistle: and I straighten myself up. I drop speed to about 7 MPH below the limit so he doesn't pull me for speeding in the conditions. Sure enough in the distance I see a LEO turn down the street. We passed eachother and I kept my eyes on my mirror, he doesn't turn around, but I'm sure he knew what was up since I was the only person that had touched the road since it snowed and my tracks were everywhere.

I personally don't care much for what the T/C does in a straight line, I can do the same by feathering the pedal, but keeping my car in a straight line when I'm trying to lose control was sweet.

[gpfarrell]

I agree.

I don't think our cars have TC to help them at the drags, but it seems people whine about it.

I'd hate the TC if we couldn't turn it off, but I really like it for 99% of my driving. I takes the "bite" out of high performance, rwd car on slippery roads.

[John F. Russo]

Thanks for the good data. I haven't been able to sense the benefits of traction control on snow. But your data is convincing.

[jerrym3]

I've seen the trac control lamp in my LS come on a few times on slippery conditions, and I never felt the car slipping, which I guess means that the system works.

However, I did get stuck on an on-ramp that hadn't been plowed, and I could not dig out with the TC on. Motor would just die when the wheels started to spin.

Turned TC off, and I was able to spin my way out.

[jgc61sr2002]

I also am in favor of traction control. That's why I waited for a 03 300B.

[TripleTransAm]

The Traction control on my 1st MM amazed me with its ability to pull this 4500 lb beast up inclines I never thought were navigable with OEM tires (this is when I parked the car over the first winter in my driveway, but occasionally had to move it to allow for proper snow removal on my double-width driveway).

http://www.tripletransam.com/mm/winter2004/DSCF0186.jpg

I tried the comparison test several times: in all combinations the traction control made it seem totally effortless. With the excellent Arctic Alpines the car was unbeatable.

Now, MM#2 is a different story. It's a December 2002 build, most likely when TC was newly available in the Marauder (my MM#1 is a mid Feb 2003 build). I made a mention in a previous thread about how MM#2's traction control doesn't seem as smooth or effective as the one on MM#1, and after last week's ice-rain-into-blizzard-back-to-ice-rain session, I realized it was actually harder to keep control of the car with TC on than off!!!! I never thought I'd say that about the Marauder's TC, which in the past I've praised six ways from Sunday!

So, either there was a running change to the TC's behaviour sometime along the 2003 model year, or this is just another example of Ford's inconsistent component quality.

One of the details of the TC I'd praised was the smoothness of the system. On MM#2, the power is noticeably cut but then comes on too strong and subsequently blows away the tires due to the shock on the contact patch, and then you're back to being immobilized and the whole cycle restarts. My MM#1 used to noticeably reduce power, but reapply it in a more gradual form which naturally coincided with my reduction of pedal travel, so by the time the TC was 100% out of the picture I was already naturally at a smaller throttle opening.

All winter I've been experiencing the feeling of "oh crap, I'm not moving at all" and I'd most likely have put a bullet through the dash of MM#2 is not for the TC-OFF button (which I'm becoming very familiar with, since with MM#1 the only time I ever flicked it off was at the track or when I wanted to spin out on purpose. Now I totally understand those who have anti-TC views. Those who are happy with their TC, I'm also right there with you guys, as I feel the TC on my MM#1 is of a caliber worthy of cars 4x the price.