Bear with me if this is answered somewhere. I searched and couldn't find this question asked/answered directly.
Can you turn off the traction control on the 2nd gen Insight? I live in a very snowy and hilly area, and anyone who has ever been stuck with a non-defeatable traction control knows why I am asking this question.
Bear with me if this is answered somewhere. I searched and couldn't find this question asked/answered directly.
Can you turn off the traction control on the 2nd gen Insight? I live in a very snowy and hilly area, and anyone who has ever been stuck with a non-defeatable traction control knows why I am asking this question.
There should be a button to the left of steering wheel on the dash. If traction control is turned off, I beleive the dash will display a ! light/symbol telling you that is it off. Just press that button to toggle it.
Isn't the ! the international symbol for brake failure? I might be wrong but I thought that is what I saw in an owners manual once and that car didn't have traction control. On US cars many use the word BRAKE or have the word and the symbol together.
Ditto on the RTFM, if you can do it, that sort of thing will be in the manual.
The dash sign is a car and two skid lines under it. If off it sez..er OFF. Otherwise it is not showing on the dash
I might point out.. My wife asked a similar question recently and swore it could not be turned off. It turns out that it does require that you hold the button in for several seconds to get it to turn off.
However, to be honest, I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario where you would not want it to be on. Can anyone give me an example?
If you are a very experienced driver having been involved in many "difficult" situations and want to do what Doc Hudson Hornet does out in the desert in Cars (countersteering and the sort).
Otherwise always ON!!!
However, to be honest, I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario where you would not want it to be on. Can anyone give me an example?
In snowy area, there is time when you will want to desable it. Example, if there is snow half wheel or more, the car might need to "fight it off" to start moving (from parking example). It's easier to have the car skid to move the car. With traction control on, the car just does not budge and it feels like you have the parking break engaged on the 4 wheels and floor the accel...
Also, if you are driving on a very icy surface, and you start to slide, traction control will forbid the wheels to skid. However, to correct the trajectory, it is easier to have the car skid a little and counterseer. You could also get some help from the hand break to correct the trajectory... but in this example, it would be like Ehetelos says and relate to experienced driver situation.
In snowy area, there is time when you will want to desable it. Example, if there is snow half wheel or more, the car might need to "fight it off" to start moving (from parking example). It's easier to have the car skid to move the car. With traction control on, the car just does not budge and it feels like you have the parking break engaged on the 4 wheels and floor the accel...
I guess I must not understand this traction control at all!
I would have guessed if a car was stuck in a snow bank or trying to get started going up slippery incline, the traction control would function more like a limited slip differential (same end effect, but wheel slip control through use of the independent wheel braking mechanism instead of the differential).
I have an inclined driveway that sometimes can be somewhat difficult to get the car up to the top because once one dirve wheel would start slipping, the car would get stuck. I was hoping the Insight would do the incline better with the traction control.
I guess I must not understand this traction control at all!
Well, I'm not sure what the heck Purplegate was talking about. The way traction control works on most modern vehicles is that if it detects one of the front wheels is spinning out of control, it will pulse the brakes on that wheel in order to allow some of the torque to go to the other wheel. Because of the way most differentials are made, all of the power will go to whichever wheel moves the easiest. This essentially makes our cars a 1-wheel-drive vehicle. The traction control helps sovle that problem by more evenly distributing the torque between the two tires when things get slippery.
Traction control does NOT prevent the tires from spinning. As the driver, that is sort of your responsibility to say "oh.. I'm spinning the wheels, maybe I should let off the gas." However, should the driver decide that he is not going to let off the gas, both wheels will be spinning instead of just one.
I can't ever imagine a time you would want to turn it off, unless you were deliberately trying to burn rubber on one tire.
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Can you turn off traction control?
