quattro and esp

[SebRogers]

I'm trying to get my head round quattro and esp. Or rather, why I've never - not once, in spite of trying - been able to persuade the esp on my quattro to kick in. On my old 1.9 130pd Avant a bit of spirited driving in damp conditions was enough to get the esp light on the dash flickering, and I could feel it do its stuff. Now... nothing. i could try harder, but I'm quite uncomfortable doing much more than I'm already doing to provoke it on public roads. I'd have to find a deserted carpark :biglaugh:

I'm assuming that 4wd and a Torsen diff gives me so much more grip than I used to have that the esp simply has less to do... right? Or am I missing something?

I've only had one brown-trouser moment - massive understeer into a damp junction, with no apparent help from esp. Not sure what caused that, but it could easily have been diesel on the road or similar, in which case no amount of clever electronic gizmos would've helped anyway.

[darich]

Could be a few things...........
good tyres maintaining traction
good road surface
not enough gas
not enough power

I can get my esp flashing in the dry on a good surface if I'm aggressive.....1st gear round a bend usually does the trick but not slipping clutch to pull away. My clutch is already up by the time I floor it.

Ideally you don't want your ESP light flashing.....if it is, it means you've broken traction and in danger of losing control.
Sounds like your brown trouser moment was too quick into a corner, without knowing the details it sounds like you entered too quickly....ESP won't correct that or stop you leaving the road.

[DougJohnSmith]

Never seen my ESP warning flash yet, though I can't say I've really tried. I sort-of assumed that it was a combination of all wheel drive and wide tyres.

The roads round us are pretty muddy so I could give it a go at some point - probably when the wife isn't in the car!

[Guest 2]

I haven't seen my ESP light illuminate on my A6 quattro on wet or dry roads. Good quality tyres and sufficient tread are the main thing here.

I've tried many of times to get it on, going stupidly fast into corners etc but it grips and grips.

Only time I see it on, is in the snow and im drifting around corners with a bootfull of throttle ;)

[gblades]

I have seen mine flash briefly a few times. It's normally when still accelerating over a small bump in the road.

[SebRogers]

Thanks everyone. Good to know my experience is broadly similar to other people's. Er, and stay safe out there, eh? Wouldn't want anyone to end up in a ditch on my account, trying to get the ESP to kick in ;D

[warp_speed]

The ESP is working all the time and doing correction when need be. It won't flash the light until your in an emergency situation i.e. "I'm in a situation where the likely hood of doing a dukes of hazard is more than I can correct, so calm down".

[SebRogers]

The ESP is working all the time and doing correction when need be. It won't flash the light until your in an emergency situation i.e. "I'm in a situation where the likely hood of doing a dukes of hazard is more than I can correct, so calm down".

Yes, that had occurred to me. But the manual's rather ambiguous on this: "[the ESP warning lamp] will start flashing to indicate that the ESP is counteracting an unstable driving condition". ESP incorporates ABS, EDL and traction control. ABS functions without the ESP light flashing, for example. But the others? I have no idea. I could usually predict when the ESP light on my 2wd would flash (pulling out of an off-camber, wet junction for example). In the same conditions the quattro just gets on with it, so I've got to assume that the Torsen diff is doing its job and giving the ESP system less work to do.