Traction Contreol Question

Oh -- why?

Huh? Sounds bass aackwards to me. The purpose of traction control is to prevent wheel spin on slippery surfaces so why would you turn it off when trying to go up slippery surfaces?

That makes no sense to me. Unless you plan on accelerating your way down the slippery slope the TC isn't going to even come into play.

Perhaps some of those ideas came from someone who had a vehicle with some kind of really poorly designed TC. I would certainly leave it on in my car. It's not going to give you more traction but it may give you a better chance to productively use what traction you have.

I have had several vehicles with traction control. The early ones had a switch in the glove compartment that allowed turning it off, and the latest one has it on the console between the seats. IIRC, the manual says the switch is really for when you get stuck and are trying to 'rock' the car out. You don't want the traction control reducing engine power, and wheel rpm - you need all you can get. I can probably count the number of times that I have ever turned TC off (on any vehicle) on one hand. I certainly would not be too happy if I had to start turning it on and off depending on the incline.

I can vouch for the need to turn it off to get up some inclines, but it's an admittedly rare event. For example, there was a hill I had to get up in a previous vehicle, an 02 Grand Am. Traction control kept me from making any progress up the hill at all. Turning it off allowed me to spin the wheels at 40+MPH, which allowed me to creep up the hill at probably 2MPH. I've run into similar situations a few times. I don't know if the rapidly spinning wheels actually melts some of the ice, or (more likely, IMO) the tiny amount of traction available is multiplied as the tire spins faster, but for whatever reason it works. Mind, this isn't for driving up slippery hills at

40MPH, this is to creep your way up a hill that can't be climbed with the TC turned on. Outside of situations like that, the only reasons I can think of to turn it off is for fun - drifting in RWD cars and 180 spins from reverse in FWD cars.

Turning it off to go down the hill makes no sense to me ? it seems you?d be braking (engine or mechanical, sometimes both) down the hill, and any car with TC is going to have ABS. ABS doesn?t turn off when you turn the TC off, so I don?t see the point.