How important is traction control and when did it start?

Traction control began in the nineties with Land Rover.

It was fairly poor system them, I challenged a new Disco to a competition
against my then 1 locker GQ Patrol - if I loose I had to buy the Disco
as an incentive to get the dealer to risk a new car , I won.

Since then the traction control has got better , but still nearly all
those cars use the brakes to achieve this which is a second best system
compared to geared systems like Porsche Cayenne etc.

I rate those traction control systems as about as good as 1 locker.

2 lockers is still the best.

Patrol never had traction control - but it is on Pathfinder R51's.

Don't confuse traction control with skid control. Traction control is good for off road, skid control for on-road. Most 4wd's that have one, have the other. Skid control is usually disabled when 4wd is engaged. Prado's got traction/skid control in various years depending on the equipment level and option packs as far back as 2004 that I know of, could be earlier. As time went on the lower models got the extras making it hard to give a year. I have no idea about the pajero.

D

We have had 2 Landrover products with Traction Control and yes, it is good BUT sand is their undoing. We got stuck many times due to the brakes coming on in sand because the wheels were spinning slightly, then stuck.

However those vehicles would be arpound 10/12 years old now and there have been advances since then.

We have led a club trip in our Troopy with 6 landrovers na few years ago, all with traction control including Disco 3's where the Troopy was the only vehicle to climb a particular steep sandy hill - and we do not have diff locks or traction control. All the LR vehciles could not make it due to the traction control.

The same trip, we towed a dead LR off the beach through approx 100m of soft sand with no problems, all the LR's in the group had to make 2 or more attempts and they were not towing.

We left that club soon after that trip. You should have heard the uproar in the magazine about a mongrel non LR vehicle on that trip even though we owned a Rangie at that time but preferred to use the Troopy off road.

On another trip when the Rangie Sport had just came out, a dealer was driving a demo sport on the beach with soft sand and complained about the lack of go and the smoke from the wheels. The brakes were on all the time due to the traction control. I told him just keep it above 50kph as the traction control does not work above 40 or 50kph in the vehicle. Too bad if the beach had a 30kph speed limit.

Yes, traction control has it place, I love it in our Camry and keeps me out of a lot of trouble, it has its uses off road but it is also a pain as it is not perfect offroad and can create its own set of problems.

Stevesub

I have a vehicle with traction control and stability control. Let me give you a real world example of where it did its job, albeit this case the stability control rather than traction control, alhtough I believe most vehicles that have one now have the other.

We were driving along the Great Central Road last year in the rain. The road was wet (obviously) but the surface was good and not slippery. The vehicle in our group travelling ahead of us called over the radio that he had hit a sudden clay patch and immediatly slid to the right and was very lucky not to have an accident. We came across his wheel tracks and he was literally a few centimetres from the table drain and had fishtailed all over the place before regaining control.

We hit the same patch of clay as he was literally talking on the radio telling us the story and we started sliding to the left. The stability control did its thing and we straightened up immediately, no fishtailing, washed off some speed and carried on.

I'm not suggesting it eliminates the need to be vigilant and drive to the conditions but showing an example of the real world benefits.

On the same trip we drove the Canning Stock Route. On the dunes I turned the traction control and stability control off as they are counterproductive in this circumstance.

I haven't had a chance to try the traction control in any other terrain but from videos and write ups I have seen I believe it is very effective.

Like any other tool or driving aid (including diff locks) it has its application and you will get the most from it by knowing when to use it and when not to. I would highly recommend it.

We do not have traction control and personally I do not want it. I want to be in charge of the car. I can also see what's ahead and therefore plan for it a lot better than any traction control can. I can also add in compression breaking if and when I believe that it's beneficial. I can also use the hand brake as well.

For those who like it, that's fine. We prefer not to have it. I have tried it and for my money it is no where near as good as a driver who knows how to go downhill properly.

It's like automatic wipers. Fine if the windscreen is clean (no greasy road grime on it) but if they were to automatically turn on in a sun shower with you heading towards the sun then you would be blind. Nothing worse than a greasy windscreen, rain and the sunshine.

Less automation the better for my money.

Phil

Traction control is great when off road. A car with TC will go just as far, if not further, than a car with diff locks. Diff locks will not stop wheel spin, TC will.

IMO it's off road where it shines, not on road. On road is where ESP (electronic stability control) has it's place.

Later model Pajero's, from about 2005, have both systems. The ESP can be turned off, the TC can't, but it's the ESP that brings you unstuck in sand, not TC.

With the prados., Traction Control first appeared in 2001 on the 90series Grande . Unfortunately the prados with traction control couldn't go on far in sand as those without. They would bog down too easily because the braking of odd wheels was happening at times when you just wanted momentum.

There are many different versions of traction/stability control depending on manufacturer and model. But overall they fall into two main types;

- stability control is very useful both on and off-road, but generally used at higher speeds. Simplistically, it relies on the sensors detecting that the vehicle is not travelling where the front wheels are pointing. It corrects this by braking indvidual wheels and reducing engine power as appropriate.

- traction control is mainly used off-road, but can be useful on-road when taking off on a slippery spot. It is very effective in late model vehicles, earlier models perhaps not so good. - have been improvements over time. As mentioned earlier, it can also be a hinderance on soft sand as it brakes wheels and you lose momentum. But virtually all vehicles these days enable you to switch traction control off as required. I have had both traction control and diff locked vehicles and while a diff lock is ultimately better, the newer versions of traction control are ~80% as good as lockers - to the point I have not fitted lockers to my latest 4WD.

Other features are crawl or downhill descent control. Crawl control is like slow speed cruise control, but simply holds the vehicle at a slow speed (~3 km/hr) and works both up and down hills. Downhill descent control only works downhill and applies the brakes. It can outperform ANY driver as it can brake individual wheels, something the driver cannot do. It can prevent and correct a sideways slide by braking the indvidual wheel. It is not a substitute for proper driver training, but it can make a poor driver look good!

Must a 4x4 have these aids? Well no, you can do without them, but its a bit like airbags - would you want to buy a near new 4WD and not have the safety advantages of airbags - of course not. So why buy a newish 4x4 and not have the electronic traction aids now available?

Cheers

Captain

I must be from the old school , sounds like it would take all the fun out of what you can do as a "Real Driver"...


cheers nick

There are two main types of traction control.
- the earlier type and generally not used on 4x4s...monitors wheel spin through the ABS and other sensors. If spin is picked the motor is retarded thus inhibiting spin. Makes my missus old Beemer feel like a wet rag when you plant the right wellie, fortunately it can be turned off...while leaving the stability control on.
- the later version on 4x4s is mentioned above...basically brakes the spinning wheel to transfer torque to the wheel that has the traction. I heard that earlier H1s had two handbrakes to make this happen manually but I cannot validate this info.

A little off topic to the original question, but down south over christmas I saw a Discovery 4 make a 5 inch lifted patrol gu with rear diff lock and 35's look like it was driven by a learner driver. This driver of the patrol had a lot of experience and he too was blown away....we all were. The patrol could not make the climb, where the discovery crawled up and over with virtually no wheel spin. My mates patrol shot stones and dirt everywhere to no avail. The discovery had factory tyres and also the factory diff lock.

Traction control seems to have come a long way.

stick to basics and learn how to drive a 4wdrive properly without all of the unessary aids that will hardley ever get used and will cause more problem with your hip pocket if you need something get a diff lock no computer required and no computer means you don't have to worry about water deptso much

Even in F1 Motor Racing all the driver 'aids' have been removed so now the driver actually 'drives' the car.

In the days of Launch Control, Traction Control, Stability Control et-al it was getting to be that any trained monkey could drive F1 as all he had to do was turn the starter key, computers did the rest. Now the driver has to do some work.

My '07 ML Triton had no aids but my '10 MN does have ATC and ESC. The ESC has a turn off switch on the dash and I have found it better in sand with it switched off.

Cheers Neil.

If you have a car with traction control, stability control, etc... is it still possible to lift it and put on (slightly) bigger wheels? I heard that it might mess up the electronics...