Traction on LW200

Does your car have the traction control? Not sure if that was standard or option on the lw200. I have an '01 lw300 so I don't know how similar the two models are but here's what I find...

Last year I was on a hill on ice and was not getting the traction control to work as I expected. Did find that it took a second or two of continuous wheel slip before the traction control seemed to engage. When the traction control is in control, you should get a 'Low Traction' indication on your instrument cluster.

The way it works is by a speed sensor on each of the four wheels (all four sensors are used for Braking/ABS control and the front two only are used for traction control). When the traction control senses front wheel slip (loss of traction), it applies a bit of brake on the slipping wheel in an attempt to divert torque to the wheel that is not slipping. This is akin to the 'limited slip differential' of years ago. If the wheels are still slipping, the throttle is automatically cut back (easy to do with drive by wire as my engine has). Normal throttle control is returned when the wheel slip condition has been corrected or when you ease up on the pedal. The owner's manual has some information on this and when/when not to use the traction control.

Hope that helped Bob O.