Normal function of traction control (safety stuff) questions.

Hello all,
I have a question about how the traction control should work in my 2016 TRD Off-road with automatic transmission.
I've had the truck for 5k miles my previous vehicle was a 2010 FJ.
We've just had our first snow of the year and i live a ways down an un-maintained county (gravel) road.
I plow the road myself when I have to a drive through it when I don't.
Last night driving home I came to a mild downhill section of the road and when I applied the brakes they locked and I started sliding. Wasn't a big deal/no real danger but i thought to myself that the same thing had happened dozens of times at the same spot in my FJ and each time the light on the dash would flash and id hear all the clicking from the safety system and the FJ would attempt to correct the situation for me.
This morning leaving the house I thought I would test again. So in a icy but wide open area I mashed the gas and the rear tires spun and I fishtailed around and didn't stop until I let off the gas. On my FJ I couldn't get the tires to spin without shutting the TCS off.

I'm not complaining about anything or saying its a negative about the truck.

so i guess my questions are:
1.)Have i inadvertently shut the system off ? I have no dash lights that would suggest that?
2.)Does the system need to be turned on in hazardous conditions and is not on by default?
Reading all the threads I could find here on traction control that does not seem to be the case.
3.)Does the system operate and engage/feel different than on the FJ?
4.)Am i asking the wrong question and looking for the wrong info ?

This is my first post mostly because I've had good luck finding all the information I needed on this site by searching. The FJ and Tacoma are my only experience with modern 4 tired vehicles and so my only baseline for how it should work/feel. I'm little embarrassed to ask, it seems like i should be able to figure it out but honestly I don't know if there's anything wrong to figure out.
Thanks
Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Welcome. I don't have a good answer except my 2016 does behave differently than my wife's FJ in the ice.

 

We don't have ice or snow in Louisiana, but plenty of rain. Whenever I pull out on a wet road and my tires start to spin, my truck immediately kicks in and corrects it with traction control and I immediately see that light come on telling me it's working. Maybe yours needs to be checked.

 

No snow yet but I did notice it's not nearly as quick to engage (which is a good thing!) so perhaps they finally realized we don't need the nannies to kick in the second traction loss starts to occur. The other day I gave it a bit of gas on a tight u turn and got some spin/hop but no traction control kicked in. I was pleasantly surprised it didn't immediately kill power.

 

Starting out on wet roads my truck will spin the rear tires until I get bored with it. The traction light flashes but it would seem that there is no intervention whatsoever.

Also I had it lock the rear brakes going downhill toward a stoplight (wet spot on road from sprinklers). That took me by surprise because I wasn't pushing hard on the pedal. No ABS action occurred. I released the pedal and applied brakes again... again locked the rears with no ABS action. No lights, nothing. I had lots of space so I just stopped more gently. I plan to get it checked as I believe ABS should have intervened.