GuilTTy

Just cruised into work after a small 360 degree detour... make that a 360 degree spin! First time I did one in the TT. I always drive w/ ESP off unless its raining but one of this morning's threads gave me the idea to see how differently the car behaves w/ it on. VERY DIFFERENTLY.

I was still impressed w/ how easily it came out of the spin (which, BTW, was unintentional. I was driving slightly aggressively but I wasn't trying to break the tires loose.

Confirmed what others (and I) already knew.

Larrytt

anything + ESP sucks . . . fact of life . . . always turn it off if you want control over your car.

Lightweight-USPowah

Ive never left ESP on when I went in the really deep stuff simply because it was inside a parking lot and the goal of the trip was to spin.. On my drive through a blizzard I left esp on, and I wouldn't have had it any other way.. The lane had about 2" of snow and the divider was pretty deep in some conditions.. During that drive I averaged Id say about 60, and changed lanes mulitple times and never experienced any problems, well.. at 80~85ish things got got a little squirmy...

Bracketracer

ESP sucks........oh, nevermind....Lar echoed my thoughts on the subject

Larrytt

lol I figured Sucks was about as strong as is allowed here.

GuilTTy

Only a couple inches where it spun.

MonTTana

Go to an empty parking lot on a snowy day and dive in smaller and smaller cirles till you spin out. This will happen MUCH faster with ESP turn off. A friend of mine who works for Nissan called me this morning. He was moving a new Z350 from one lot in town to another. It's very snowy and icy here and he couldn't even get the car out of the parking lot with the traction control on. So he turned it off and milked his way out onto the main road. Was doing about 20 in 3rd gear and gave it a little gas and spun a 360 and highcentered it on the median (sp). He now has to pay the dealership $800.00 for bent tail pipe. Bummer!

Larrytt

That just shows that the guy couldn't drive the car, not that ESP is safe, which it is not

TTigg

out of a turn but with ESP on it was ok. I always drive (canyon runs) with ESP on so perhaps I should try life with it off?

Larrytt

they are a crutch and a bad one at that. You will achieve faster lap times with ESP turned off, once you learn not to rely on it. If ESP is helping you that much on the track and on the street, then you are over-driving the car. That does not mean you are pushing the car too much, just that how you are pushing the car is wrong. You should always be able to push the car past the limits that ESP thinks is "safe". That safety factor that is built in is nowhere near the limits of the car and I am not saying to drive at the cars limits, you probably can't.

You need to know what good tire squeal is and what bad tire squeal is.

Turn ESP off everytime you get into the car and see the difference. My car never had ESP, but I have driven many other TT's with it. I have auto-x'd a few with ESP and my times were ALWAYS slower with ESP turned on. The times it was on, was when I forgot to turn it off. I was not used to having it in the car so I always forgot to turn it off. To me that is the biggest tell, it was on and I didn't know it was on and I still drove slower. Next run, turned it off and was much faster.