Over the last week I've been driving along the motorways in some fairly heavy rain, which has involved reducing my speed and dealing with standing water in places.

This is not stupid amounts of it, just what you would expect in heavy rain.

So anyway to cut a long story short, multiple times the car has hit some standing water and the ASR kicks in cutting power to the drive. Once this was on a sweeping corner and the ASR completely cut the power on and off as it gained/lost traction, resulted in what felt like lift off over steer. :eek:

After a few incidents I turned the ASR off and had no problems at all for the rest of the journey. I turned it off another day over the same patch of road in similar conditions and had no problems again.

Is it only me that feels that ASR acts in a manor that is too abrupt, which means you have to turn it off in the conditions where traction control would be most useful :(

I think the same can be said when driving in freezing conditions or on snow. The car is much more user friendly with the ASR off.

Why do if we need to have control taken away if we know how to drive?

We don't, however I just can't believe a "safety" feature is so bleeding dangerous.

Lift off over steer could cause somebody to stuff the car into a hedge etc if they are caught unaware. I just figure the car should be a little more subtle at withdrawing the power to the wheels when you are going at a reasonable speed (say above 30)

My view of the system on my car is the opposite. Apart from seeing the light come on momentarily I have never felt the system actually doing anything. Despite having had wheelspin occurring whilst cornering (damp greasy surface) with associated understeer there has been no perceptible intervention from the system.

Travelled about 140 miles today on m/ways in torrentlal rain at times, lots of surface water but not even the light appeared, mind you I have to say that the car never felt anything other than planted despite some quite spirited driving when visibility allowed.

I've had this happen to me, but it didnt occur to me that it was the ASR / ESP system. I had it in exactly the same conditions - heavy rain on the motorway. On one occassion the car behaved so badly that I pulled into the services a mile or so later on and checked the tyres to make sure all was okay.

The car pulled so strongly to the side away from the standing water that I didnt know how to react - ie my driving "skills" were of no use once the car's systems took over.

I suppose for some people the safety of the system is great - and it was a selling point for me when buying the car. Now I've felt the system in use, I'm not very happy with it! The decision to turn it off though is a hard intellectual one, as turning off a safety system in normal use is totally counter intuitive.

How do others feel? Has anyone turned the system off in normal use and trusted their own skills over that of the computer?

Neil

ESP might well be good but the ASR is damn useless because it is so brutal in the way it cuts the power.

As a human you can slowly reduce the power, the computer just cuts it from my experience :(

It stays on for me, however in snow it would go off. It looks like standing water is another one to add to the no ASR list.

I never switch it on.

I never switch it on.

It's always on, unless you switch it off

Sounds like Aquaplaning alright :eek:

At the end of the day, if a car is aquaplaning (which will trigger ASR/ESP etc) then your driving too fast for the conditions...

the electronics are there to assist drivers in the case of emergencies, be it by cutting engine power or applying brakes, or popping airbags.. if your triggering any of these systems in day to day driving.. then you should really have a think about your driving skills...

you also have to realise, 95% of drivers will not know what oversteer/understeer is.. and just want their cars to get them from A-B in one piece.

It does sound like you're describing water drag/aquaplaning transition to me.

I have ASR and haven't experienced this (due to ASR cutting in anyway). If you think your ASR is overreacting and dangerous you should get it checked out.

There were no problems when i turned ASR off.

I was not driving fast at all in fact under 50 on a M/way.

I have never had this problem before in cars without ASR and drive many miles on the m/ways every day.

The problem is in the way that the ASR cuts the power rather than backing off slowly.

As soon as i feel the puddle i would have backed off slowly keeping the car under control, the ASR just ripped the power straight off causing the car to lose balance and behave badly.

Dont know if my ASR is different to others here, but I find that it allows quite a bit of loss of traction before it intervenes. I would go so far as to say that to get it to intervene, I have to be driving like a ****. It will cut the power eventually, but does not just chop in on standing water. It is possible to use wheelspin to guage grip even in high speed corners without getting anything more than the flicker of the TC light.

Perhaps you are confusing TC cutting in with aquaplaning?

Chris

No because when i turned the ASR off the problems are not there and the TC light was going on and off and on and off rapidly.

Think i will be paying the dealer a visit then, as i was going slow as anything. I know bridgestones are ****, but they can't be that ****.