or other forms of traction control.

TURN IT OFF! Jesus...what an amazing difference for hard driving.

When you're driving hard in the twisties and you're full on the gas on turns (because of how you'd want to be with awd) I've lost considerably more traction because the system is setup to control the car as if it's out of control AFTER a hard manuever, and you're off the gas.

When you stay on the gas on a corner and you have ESP on, it applies the brakes and it makes you lose traction for the same reasons as you skid when you brake on a corner.

I NOW understand why my car slid into one lane over while I tested full throttle on a severe turn on the Marin Drive. The 3 people ahead of me saw me drift left, and I thought it was mainly due to the tires, but I now see that the road was too uneven and the esp was basically applying full brakes.

Moral of the story...ESP is for those who aren't actually DRIVING, emergency situations such as sudden swerves on the freeway on wet roads, etc...not for performance driving. You should definitely turn it off if you're trying to enjoy the twisties, but remember that you have to stay on the gas during each turn in your awd s4.

I previously thought track people like AlanL were just trained in cars that didn't have ESP so they were more comfortable (and formally educated) in track driving without any form of traction control. I now see that it simply hinders the cars traction on hard driving.



Please understand that I'm just voicing my new discovery. I haven't had any formal driving instruction, (starting with AlanL @ Thunderhill in August) but I plan on truly learning in the near future. I feel that I'm adequately skilled for a novice driver, but I'm just trying to improve and learn on my own until I receive formal instruction.

So if this discovery of mine is blatantly obvious and redundant, just ignore it. If not, just give me $hit; I'm more than glad to have made your day. :-D

 

Common knowlege for this car.

 

intentionally pushing the car through turns.

I do leave it on for normal daily driving, but always turn it off if I know I am about to make some demands on the car's traction limits. I don't like having an "electronanny" trying to help me out

 

I've done several drives with the car in some serious mountain twisties, both in the rain and in the dry. I would take this car in those turns without ESP on. No way. Not saying I don't know how to drive, ask Allan, he'l tell you.. ;-)...but you never know when your going to make the car twist when you don't want to, and the ESP braking one or two wheels is going to make the difference between keeping the shiny side up or else...


But you do what you want to do. :-D

 

Have you pushed it hard enough to have the car drift with ESP on?

 

Yes, it happened once.

 

BTW, it was in the rain.

 

dry, you'll see why it's better to have ESP off while driving like that.

 

But I'd rather have complete traction when I'm going through the tight twisties.

 

They are not intentional 4 wheel drifts. If you push your car hard enough while turning, it will apply brakes to your wheels that are slipping a bit and will make you slip even more (same idea as braking on a corner making you slide).

You have less traction when going really hard while under constant lateral acceleration.

Now if you throw out the rear by turning really hard and laying off the gas ( to intentionally drift), you turn off the esp and have fun.