Traction Control or good driving? Discuss.

Hey all:

I have a 2014 dcsb 4x4 v6 sr5, all stock. Saturday night we got a little bit of snow here in CT. I was driving about 50-55 mph on a two lane road and came up over a rise into a downhill left hand turn when the tail end of the truck cut out on a particularly icy section. I felt like I didn't overreact, and made one countersteer through the slide and the truck eventually straightened out no problem. I did not notice any abs activation or anything like that.

My question is whether and to what effect does the traction control on these vehicles take over in a situation like this? What exactly are the trucks designed to do and how does that work? My 2010 tacoma had an alarm of sorts that went off when the truck lost traction and the dash would flash a warning. It was pretty annoying to tell you the truth. Did they get rid of that, or did it just not activate in this situation?

 

I don't think they activated in that particular situation, you would hear the 5 quick beeps if a tire was slipping if you have the LSD rear.

 

First off 50-55 on a 2 lane in snowy/icy conditions? Ugh. I think that takes "good driving" out from being a possible choice.

Second. I've never had my ass end kick out even the slightest without lights and sirens going off. It's actually a light and some beeps .. did you have music turned up?

 

Was the OP in 4WD ?

 

Hmm good point but from my experience that doesn't stop ESC from going off.

 

Does a 1st gen have that stuff? Cause I've slid sideways with no music on and there was no lights and no sounds. And I was SIDEWAYS..

 

I agree. See the edit I made. Getting into that situation in the first place is obviously bad driving. Not a justification, but it was one of those situations where it was warm enough that the roads were generally good and not snow or ice covered, but a section exposed to the wind at the top of rise was just cold enough to make it slippery.

That was my experience with the 2010, even the slightest little things set off those beeps. The music was on, but not above the level where I could still have a conversation with the passenger.

 

No.

 

It would be nice to think that maybe Toyota has finally turned down the sensitivity on the VSC and maybe we can all get a reflash

 

x2 ..want this.

 

Random question. At what speed does TRAC/ESC turn back on if you have manually turned them off? Is it 35 still? (or was it)

 

Push the VSC button , illuminating the AUTO LSD and VSC OFF lights , VSC re-engages at 30mph

Push and hold the VSC button at a stop for 3-5 seconds until the AUTO LSD light goes out leaving only the VSC OFF light illuminated , VSC does not re-engage

 

Nope.

 

I turn the systems off every day before I leave the garage. I prefer to keep my reactions sharp so that I am in better control of the vehicle.

 

I do the same , it's now just part of my start up routine

 

Cool. So we can do whatever the hell we want?

 

The problem with VSC is that its still purely reactive. The VSC software is monitoring and waiting for various sensor inputs to simply indicate that a vehicle slip is occuring, then apply the countermeasure which is basically in the form of cutting engine power until driver control is indicated as regained...I'm not sure if it applies the brakes. The only current pre-indication data I can think of that may put the software into a 'heightened' slip monitoring state is the outside ambient temperature. The software does log how many times slip is induced (over a period of vehicle start-up cylcles), but I wouldn't think its self-adjusting the way our A/F ratio and spark timing is adjusted on the fly.

Until cars and trucks start incorporating a FLIR camera or some other type of camera to use as an optical comparator for recognizing visual profiles for of rain, sleet, snow, ice, even stupid deer standing or running across the road, VSC will continue to be purely reactive. A proactive VSC is probably something we'll see coming from Google in the near future, as they already have self driving vehicles that can recognize traffic lights, signs and lines as well as other cars.

Best thing to do is avoid the slip...drive slower, and anticipate the conditions you may be driving into. And ditch those Rugged Fails!

 

I'm not that ballsy. If it was just me in the truck I would do it, but I regularly have wife and kids in there with me. I drove for years in the snow/ice/rain without that stuff and never had an issue but I've also driven for several years with all of that stuff and never had an issue where I felt like electronics got in the way.

There has been a time or two where a little beep told me I was spinning a tire and didn't realize it. A little icier outside than I thought, so in that sense, electronics helped.

ABS on the other hand, yea, but we can't turn that off with a button.

 

Actually, there's a fellow on the forums who updated cross-posted a really good method for turning off your ABS with a push button. I did a quick search and didn't find it, but it's similar to this one. http://www.yotatech.com/f166/abs-kill-switch-05-tacoma-264174/ Very nice in snow.

 

I'm curious to know how this truck handles in snow conditions. I'm in a position, along with my wife, that we must go in any weather condition. For the most part I'm lucky to not have to respond to any issues when conditions are at there worse but still have to get the wife to work. Along with taking care of parents and grandparents property, etc. I've never had a issue in the past two decades but also haven't had a vehicle with this much electronics playing into the situation. Last week I had passenger rear tire on wet leaves and the system killed acceleration, felt weird but worked. Jury still out for me but I'm wondering if I'll be also holding the button in on the days that its bad out.