What are the effects of turning off the ESP/ASR whilst driving. I know what they do but I am terrified that if I turn the darn thing off I might crash and die!.

Would like to know when and where it is useful/practical to turn this feature off.

What are the effects of turning off the ESP/ASR whilst driving. I know what they do but I am terrified that if I turn the darn thing off I might crash and die!.

Would like to know when and where it is useful/practical to turn this feature off.

Well, asr on the Fabia, got switched off as soon as the engine had started.

In the Octavia, esp stays on, unless I want some fun on a wet roundabout.

The effect of turning it off under normal driving practise would be none, unless an emergency situation arose.

If you have a quick peek in the manual, it explains all of the features of the ESP 2 in detail, thus turning it off, de activates all of the said features.

Although, in the recent snow fall at the beginning of March, I discovered that it doesn't totally go off at all. Esp still does it's thing if it goes really out of shape.

HTH

Must admit I've not bothered turning off ESP on the Fabia either, it does kick in sometimes even with the LSD fitted now, but then I was not behaving myself

I've found the ASR too annoying to use, it doesn't add much safety imho, whereas ESP does, it sorts out my (cr*p) driving when I overdo it or better, when you hit an icy patch (for example).

ESP2 on the Octy v2 should be better than the ESP on the Furb tho, dunno what the exact differences are but I'd imagine it's just the next-gen thing with improved behaviour

I don't have ESP and turn ASR off when I start the car.

I wish you could set it to stay off rather than it coming back on when you re-start the car.

I leave the asr on, it helps curb torque steer from my occasional 'brisk' driving style. I have no desire to be intimate with an oncoming hgv!

my brother pretty much leaves his on unless he wants to do a proper launch. have to say, it doesn't seem anywhere near as intrusive as the t/c in my focus...

As Shifty says, even when its off its not really off Thats what I found in a MK5 GTi Golf anyway.

I had ESP in my Focus. It worked well, but in the dry it could slow you down a bit as it didn't allow much slip/drift.

ASR in the Octavia I vRS appears to act, vaguely, as traction control and doesn't appear to do a lot else. With the new tyres fitted it doesn't come on as often as it did so I just leave it switched on.

Does anybody know how ASR is supposed to work? ESP braked individual wheels and reduced power.

ASR just cuts the power - that's it.

ESP does a lot more & is able to interfere in a less annoying fashion - in my experience anyway

I normally leave ASR on - all it does is reduce wheelspin. However, if I want a bit of private road drifting with the ARB, you have to turn it off to prevent certain death.

As Shifty says, even when its off its not really off Thats what I found in a MK5 GTi Golf anyway.

in the mk2 octy vrs I read somewhere (must dig it out) that when switched off it essentially disabled the traction control bit, but left the other stability stuff running in the background.

I will find out on Saturday