massmole

In the past, whenever I launched my car hard, the ESP light would flicker on and off indicating that ESP is being activated.

Then I took it to the quattro challenge event and drove it hard with the ESP on and then off. That was the first time I actually ran an autoX course and kept the ESP on. Surprisingly, the ESP system did not interfere as much as I expected. In fact, my times were nearly identical with ESP on and off.

Anyhow, tonight I launched my car hard for the first time in a while and noticed that the ESP light did not flicker as usual. I proceeded to test it out some more... parking lot, hard slalom turns, ESP light did not flicker as if activated... more hard launches, no ESP intervention. What's the deal here?

Did my ESP all of a sudden adapt to my recent aggressive driving style and the flogging it received from the recent quattro challenge event?

Or is my ESP system malfunctioning?

This is weird because I wouldn't exactly know how to explain to the dealer how I know if it's malfunctioning (because I don't really know). And how is a dealer supposed to test to see if it's working? A test drive?? I think (hope) not.

Weird.

Petri

I've never heard of ESP being adaptive. When you think of it, it shouldn't be adaptive! If a less experienced driver takes your car for a spin and runs into trouble (where ESP could help), then the ESP actually wouldn't be able to save him/her because it assumes you are behind the wheel and can handle the situation without any intervention.

Adaptation capability could be useful for experienced drivers like most of us but there should also be a safe "dummy driver" ESP mode available. Now there's only ESP on/off switch.

Seems to me your ESP is malfunctioning if it doesn't work at all anymore.

Pete

john s

Maybe your power is down, DV bad?

Gnowknayme

When I arrived at the quattro challenge, they supposedly raised the pressure in my tires (I found out later that it was much lower than they were supposed to set it, but anyways...) Normally, when I autocross, I raise my pressures to around 40psi, which gives a lot more grip. Now, if your pressures were down at the recommended 33psi before the event, ESP would probably come on more than at the 36psi that Audi was inflating everyone's tires to. If you asked for more pressure, then the effect would probably be even greater. Chances are you didn't let the pressure back out after the event and you're driving on higher pressure than what you used to have, so you're getting more traction than you used to.

For reference, Audi put mine at 32 front, 34 rear at the event for some reason, and my traction completely sucked all day because of it. I kept thinking something was wrong with my tires because I was just plowing right through turns that I should have been able to easily make. When I went autocrossing the next day, I put my pressures at 40 front, 42 rear, and I made the best runs I've ever made.