is
You can find stories where they pit a race car driver against ESC on dry pavement. The race car driver could keep a car under control at higher speeds, on dry pavement at least. It can prevent things that a driver can be experienced at using.
Oh ESC will, but it does not take away from the fact that some drivers DO drive right on the limit... USA would be a Minivan overtaking on the outside around a Cloverleaf... outside the USA there is a large company car culture does abuse cars in such a manner, it is seen by some as a "priviledge"... USA does not have that culture (military humvee drivers and rental drivers excepted of course :-)
ABS "did not work" because 1) people did not know how to use it 2) did not push the pedal hard enough anyway requiring braking assistance systems to be added. ABS requires skill on the part of the driver, arguably skill which if present would negate the need for ABS in most instances anyway. ABS permits a low skill driver to steer whilst braking hard, ESC permits a low skill driver to steer abusively AND retain control. Most drivers are low skilled, ESC can outperform the most skilled driver as demonstrations have show on "sheet ice".
Fundamentally the laws of physics still apply - braking distance is not going to magically improve. There are compounds which can be aerosoled onto tyres during emergency braking (or getting going) which greatly improve friction between tyre & water and tyre & ice. A few makers have tried them, obviously they require replacement when used up - but could be useful combined with ESC+ABS systems.
No it will not because ESC will hide it :-) ESC works very well, it is the best thing for cars after collapsible steering columns & safety belts.
I wish the auto makers put more effort into making everything non- structural lighter. An "eco-car" would be one with HVAC for hot climates, electric window for driver-only, everything else cut as light as possible. Not daft hybrids. Every 10kg you save in weight has a direct chain benefit in tyre/brake/suspension/engine weight.
A car body is only about 280-350kg, the glazing is a fair weight, but so is all the junk in the car. Ever thinner steel is just creating a shorter-life car - particularly where it is often used in the most rust susceptible areas such as wheel arches / fender liners (0.7mm and I believe one european car is now using 0.6mm, surface rust becomes perforation overnight).
Interesting someone said ESC will aid 4x4, indeed, if ESC can prevent a sideways slide into a road rut, kerb etc it will stop a rollover. However the laws of physics still apply - a top heavy car impacting with something will still roll.
ESC is great, some people may use it to drive at the limit knowing the car will bail them out. Time will tell if people adapt to this new found skill enhancement, it would be interesting to look for higher impact speeds on corners - that is to say the small %age of accidents involving speed and corners may show an increase in speed, but the large %age of other accidents may show ESC benefits.
Overall ESC is good, just beware the mini-van now with ESC overtaking on your outside :-)
that era porsche is not very good - it's just glorified bug suspension with the same swing arm design. independent, but no toe control or real camber control. it's primary function is to be better than solid, but cheap - which is precisely the market porsche were targeting at that time. re vw, the trailing arm thing they had in the sirocco and old gti is absolutely nothing special. modern multi-link gti's however, are not bad at all.
yeah, just like you can with a leaf sprung donkey cart.
agreed, it's a giant pita to change the bushings on precision multi-link. but it's what you do if you want a car to handle. if you're happy driving the donkey cart, then you won't feel the need. and even then, worn out multi-link bmw will still outperform solid axle 8 days a week.
check out the toe controlled hondas, mazdas or mercedes of that era. and the toe controlled 911's. bmw you know about. for the money, if you're a fwd guy, i think it's almost impossible to beat a good prelude or a well maintained wishbone civic/crx.
No, no it won't. Handling could best be described as "vague." Old TRX tires didn't help - they were probably good when new, but after they reached a certain age, not so much. I did buy a set of 14" wheels for it, but sold the car before buying new tires for it.
Actually I prefer RWD, I just drove FWD VWs for years because at the time they were cheap, fun, and reliable. Now they're expensive, fun, and collector's items :/
nate
ok, it depends how bad. if the toe control bushings are completely gone, it is indeed "vague", but leaf spring solids are always bad, all the time. ridiculous system.
preludes are cheap. and so are crx's. set up right, you'll need to wear depends under your nomex suit. for good reasons, not bad.
I was referring to what people ARE, not what they think they are.
While you may be impressed with the 10,000 alleged eliminated fatalities, it's a very tiny fraction of all driving events. And ESC may have helped some of them. So would making everyone wear a helmet and racing harness and at far less cost per fatality prevented. Do you support mandatory wearing of helmets and harnesses?
The FACT is, ESC is for covering your ass when you do something stupid. Nothing wrong with that if that's what you want. Apparently you are interested in mandatory protection for stupid people.
That brings up an interesting possibility.. in the future, since ESC will be mandatory, they may just say to hell with good design, we'll let the ESC take care of any design issues. So when that fancy new "safe" car is no longer new, and the ESC no longer works, we'll have lots of very unsafe cars on the road.
There are those who have argued this has already happened.
I think a lot of the motivation for all of this is that people want to be able to drive SUVs as if they were cars.
--scott
Those numbers seem way off in my experience. On wet pavement the typical car ought to be able to get at least 0.4 g deceleration. On slick wet roads you may only be able to get 0.25 to 0.35 g; on really bad ones even less. On dry pavement you can easily get 0.7 to 0.9 g. Very few cars are going to exceed 1g, you need to have super sticky tires for that. When going around curves, most people start to feel uncomfortable at about 0.2 g's side force.
I've driven in rain where I could feel the tires spin when going thru puddles but it didn't cause loss of control.. it would be the kind of situation where if I had ESC it would activate and the light would come on. No way to know about your experiences specifically but the thought that comes to mind is this... in those situations where your ESC came on were you the only driver on the road or were you one of many many drivers going over the same exact spot during a short period of time? It's safe to assume that of all the cars going over that spot only a very few of them had ESC. Yet presumably ALL of them, including you with your ESC light on, went thru that spot without anything happening. So why did your car need ESC to make it safely thru while the others transited the same spot without problem?
My 88 Mustang 5.0 had no electronic control and never went "out of control". My 99 Mustang has traction control. Sometimes when I accelerate fast a rear tire might hit a slick spot and spin for a split second. The TRACTION LIGHT comes on, the engine bogs in response and the overall effect is awful. Going by the idea that the light going on indicates it "saved" me from something would be completely wrong - it's never saved me from anything.
I could get through puddles in my Nova just fine. I might not have any brakes for a while because the drums would be waterlogged but believe it or not, most cars can go through puddles without losing control.
ESC is there because if that truck in front of you dumps it's load at highway speeds, you'll have a chance of going around the obstruction and back into your lane without having your rear end come around. Try that in your 5.0. My guess is that you'll be a disbeliever until the day you really need it. You haven't used your ESC system yet. You just think you have.
well said.
esc is a completely ridiculous concept. unless of course you want to force everyone to buy a new car every few years. which really is the next step.
so let's make all suv's handle like broncos. all those 'tarded drivers will kill themselves. problem solved. esc is not the answer.
again, well said. i've been making that comment for years.
since helmets, harnesses and proper safety cages are /not/ mandatory, we have to conclude that safety is not the agenda behind this. whether it's some legislator with a financial interest in the companies that sell this "technology", or whether it's the oilcos supporting any legislation that makes cars more heavy and thus suck more gas, or whether it's detroit hoping that complex car's won't be repaired, thus increasing longer term sales - or a combination of all three, doesn't matter. what matters is that it's unnecessary, expensive, and anything that culls the 'tards who can't drive from the herd is a good thing.
cull the 'tards from the herd.
have you retrofitted your vehicle with a full safety cage, 6-point harness, and do you wear a helmet? if you are truly interested in safety, you have. if you haven't and you're still saying you're interested in safety, you're either underinformed and have no logical reasoning capabilities, or you're a hypocrite.
Sounds like you're saying you rather crash into stuff than go around it. Real logical and informed. :-)
since you've just tried to put false words in my mouth, that means you're the hypocrite.
I'm not interested in playing "who's got the biggest dick" with you today. If anything that I've posted is untrue, all you have to do is point it out to me and I'll retract it. Otherwise I've been on Usenet long enough to know how this would all play out and I just ain't got the time. Here's a demo on ESC, I've seen more dramatic ones but this'll do, I suppose.
It already happened w/ ABS. There are some vehicles which are unsafe to drive if the ABS fails due to the ABS controller handling the front/rear proportioning.
nate
Typically a car will brake at a higher acceleration than is possible with the same car in cornering. So if your car is capable of cornering at, say, 0.8G, then 1.0G braking is not way out of line.
nate
insurance
To who? answer below.
medical costs
to who? answer below.
, car repair costs,
to who? answer below.
taxes,
???????
funeral expenses,
just delayed, no net savings.
Maybe. Cites???
Answer................. The insurance companies.
insurance premiums. Quote insurance price for the same car with and without. No savings to you.
medical costs. Less expense for insurance company.
Car repair costs. Less expense for insurance company. Your deductible isn't lowered.
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