Driving aggressively in the twisties

J

joe schmoe

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Mar 10, 2014
Location
East TN
TDI
2012 Jetta TDI Manual Trans
oilhammer said:
I am thinking that if the OP is driving his car aggressively enough that the ESP needs to intervene, then the ESP is not only doing its job, but it is most likely keeping the OP safely ON the road instead of sliding into a guardrail or a ditch. I am not sure I would want to disable the feature at this point only to find out that the OP's driving skills are not as good as he thought, and he crashes his car. This is of course that his experience is indeed a case of ESP intervention.

If you'd like to experience ESP in a somewhat controlled environment, to actually see how it reacts, a large parking lot (especially a WET one) will bring its abilities to light pretty quickly.

I can tell you from my own experience, with two essentially identical cars, one with ESP and one without, that not only does the ESP work exceptionally well, it has intervened faster than I could have, and I DO consider myself a pretty good driver. Especially driving in the rain. Remember, ESP is more than just ABS (even though they use most of the same parts and use the same module).

So again, I would encourage the OP to find a safe place and experience the ESP so he can maybe determine if his original complaint of driving hard on twisty roads was perhaps indeed the ESP coming active and doing its job.
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Guys, trust me when I say I can drive and I have tested my VW in the rain and in the snow...I like to go fast in the hills and I do not drive beyond my skill set. However, I do NOT like a stupid nanny kicking in and making the car feel like something is in the front end and causes unpredictable responses.

It's stupid for this to occur. My wife has a Can-Am Spyder and the nanny on it is at least predicable and I can sense when it will engage.

With the VW there is no indication (speed or close to losing grip) to indicate the nanny is engaging IF and ONLY IF this is truly what is taking place...

I'm still not sure this is the same event, as when I lose traction I do see the idiot light on the dash, but these 2 separate events there were no idiot lights on, and it truly felt like something went in wrapped around the front tire or axle then moments later, just disappeared...
 
J

joe schmoe

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Mar 10, 2014
Location
East TN
TDI
2012 Jetta TDI Manual Trans
jackbombay said:
It could be argued that engaging far too soon, is more akin to "broken" than "working".

I am absolutely not an ESP hater, I've sung its praises from the rooftops ever since I picked the car up from the dealer in Febuary 2003, but I will also talk of its shortcomings.

When I'm in the middle of a turn and the suspension is loaded nicely and the the ESP abruptly cuts power *and* applies the front brake of the outside front tire to prevent some supposed oversteer situation that was developing it is alarming, it feels like the car is going to lose control because of the actions of the ESP, I KNOW THAT WON'T HAPPEN, but it's startling and I've spent enough time on a track to know when the car is on the edge, and when it is not even close to it. The ESP engages when you are nowhere near the edge of traction, it is an amazing system, but it can also be completely annoying, at least in my car I can turn it off completely if I want to.


I'm not claiming I can "do better than the ESP" as I only have one brake pedal and it has 4 at it's disposal, but anyone with half a brain could get a car around a track much much faster with the ESP turned off than with it turned on plainly illustrating that it activates way before the car is in danger of losing control.
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Now this is the type of information was looking for....Thanks...
 
J

joe schmoe

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Mar 10, 2014
Location
East TN
TDI
2012 Jetta TDI Manual Trans
MichaelB said:
Not to be an antagonist, but we have no idea just exactly how dangerously he is pushing that car on twisty roads on dry pavement to come here to ask how to disable it. I feel we would be negligent in saying here is how to do it and now go out and kill yourself or some one else. I have driven down the Dragons Tail there and several people have been killed pushing their cars and motorcycles to the limit for the fun of it on a public road.
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It's not the road that kills, it's the idiots behind the wheel...Who overdrive their skills..

Not saying I'm the best driver out there cause crap happens that you can't control, however the people who die on the Dragon are clearly over driving their skill set. They come from flat land (Florida, Nebraska, Michigan) and think they know how to drive/ride on twisties.
I've seen a number of crashes up there while I was following them on my motorcycle...They have NO CLUE!

And the safety nerds on this post just are hilarious....
 
oilhammer

oilhammer

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outside St Louis, MO
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There are just too many to list....
Well, on your car if you want to disable ESP you'll have to do some work, as a previous poster pointed out. The ABS module, which is what also works the ESP, is an integral part of that car and cannot simply be "disabled", as it provides at least one essential data point: vehicle speed. There is no separate vehicle speed sensor on that car.

As far is the ESP "kicking in too soon", etc., well I hate to tell you but your NCS Jetta is not, nor was it intended to be, a "performance" car. So the programming is probably geared more towards the average guy who does not push his compact family sedan to its modest limits on twisty roads. It is possible, although I do not know, that the GLI version of your car has a slightly different behavior, or perhaps the GLI's stiffer springs, heavier sway bars, bigger brakes, and giant low profile tires, are enough to keep it from necessitating ESP intervention.
 
turbobrick240

turbobrick240

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maine
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2011 vw golf tdi(gone to greener pastures), 2001 ford f250 powerstroke
Agreed. Get a sports car or motorcycle if aggressive driving appeals to you. A na or nb mx-5 can be had for $2-3k and is a hell of a lot more fun to push to its limit.
 
jackbombay

jackbombay

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Mar 12, 2002
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Diesel knows best
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A4 Jetta
MichaelB said:
Fahrvergnügen means fun not go crazy.
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Completely undefinable gray area there, your version of "go crazy" might not even get to the "fun" portion of the scale for other people.

I'm absolutely not a habitual speeder, I have plenty of toys to go fast on where I can't get a speeding ticket. The craziest thing to me is that I can ride my dirt bike to the trails on paved roads legally (as long as I'm riding from my house to or from a trail) and I of course have to obey the speed limit, but as soon as I get on the trail there is no speed limit and I can legally ride as fast as I want, the speed that I ride through the trees on a 12 inch wide trail would seem crazy to some, but at the same time I'm certainly slower than some of my buddies, so my "go crazy" speed would barely qualify as "fun" to them, their "go crazy" speed, well, I'm pretty sure laws of physics are being broken, or maybe they are wizards.
 
M

MichaelB

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SE Wisconsin
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2014 Passat SE DSG
jackbombay said:
Completely undefinable gray area there, your version of "go crazy" might not even get to the "fun" portion of the scale for other people.

I'm absolutely not a habitual speeder, I have plenty of toys to go fast on where I can't get a speeding ticket. The craziest thing to me is that I can ride my dirt bike to the trails on paved roads legally (as long as I'm riding from my house to or from a trail) and I of course have to obey the speed limit, but as soon as I get on the trail there is no speed limit and I can legally ride as fast as I want, the speed that I ride through the trees on a 12 inch wide trail would seem crazy to some, but at the same time I'm certainly slower than some of my buddies, so my "go crazy" speed would barely qualify as "fun" to them, their "go crazy" speed, well, I'm pretty sure laws of physics are being broken, or maybe they are wizards.
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All that rhetoric means absolutely nothing except your buddies will probably be injured or injure someone else someday. Some nut jobs think it's fun to kill other people ask me how I know. Think Vietnam. That is where crazy comes into play. Fahrvergnüg on maybe someday you will grow up. Save the crazy stuff for the racetrack.
 
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