You know how you can tell when someone is incorrect? They've got nothing but logically-fallacious arguments. No one said that it could react quicker; and, since when is 'reacting quicker' the sole criterion used to judge dynamic-driving capability?


This is a perfect example. The ESP saved your life - or at least serious injury - by keeping your vehicle from spinning, but why don't you know how to control your vehicle in a slide on your own? What would have happened if you actually needed to rotate the car to avoid the truck or ditch? That's right, your ESP would have kept you going straight and thus plowing straight into whatever obstruction was there.

And that is why, no matter how quickly your ESP can react, it will never be able to outperform a skilled human at piloting a vehicle. Do you know of a single person that tracks their car and leaves the ESP on?

If you guys really think you're correct on this, why don't you come up with some clear, logical arguments rather than anecdotal ones. I usually don't get this worked up over a simple argument, but it's this kind of misinformation that keeps North American drivers borderline retarded. In fact, I'm tempted to call it disinformation since all of the answers are right in front of you but you choose to perpetuate the falsehoods anyway

 

Compensating for someone who does not know how to drive is not what ESP does.


The last statement is entirely incorrect and indicates a lack of understanding of how ESP actually works.

I'm sure if you were in the vehicle at the time you would better comprehend the issues. Perhaps some clarifications:

1. There were two primary issues at play. First issue was to evaluate and implement a direction of travel decision to get past the truck in a very short distance without hitting anything. Second issue was to correct to leave the opposing lane shoulder by steering uphill while travelling downhill on gravel and return back to the highway surface without entering the ditch.

2. ESP did not keep my vehicle from spinning. My car was not even close to entering a spin.

3. ESP did not prevent me in any way to aggresively initiate the first steering input in order to get past the front end of the truck. After passing front end of truck, ESP helped me get back onto the highway based on vehicle direction of travel vs steering angle. My front wheels did not start to slide on opposing lane shoulder gravel until after I passed the front end of the truck, meaning after I was responding to the second issue of correcting to climb uphill and get back onto the concrete highway surface by always pointing the wheels into the intended direction of travel.

4. I had three options and so intentionally aimed my car left towards the far side of oncoming lane ditch to get around the front end of the truck, which was the only open portion of "roadway". Other two options were to drive straight and hit the truck or turn right and hit the ditch on my side of the highway that would take me head on into the sidestreet embankement wall containing a protruding steel drainage culvert.

5. Gravel shoulder of opposing undivided highway lane is sloped towards the ditch to shed water, an angle opposite the direction I was steering as I was attempting to "climb up" the embankment and return to the highway surface.

6. Considering cross lane angled direction of highway travel while passing over the side street raised asphalt surface that drops on each side to the increasingly sloping gravel shoulder, read transit from loaded to unloaded suspension with changing road surface combined with initiated change in vehicle direction to finally climb an increasing uphill gravel slope compared to direction of vehicle travel all contributed to tend to draw my car into the opposing lane ditch. A driver without ESP would have less than 1 second to manually rotate on uphill sloped gravel shoulder at 100KM/hr with suspension in load to unload transition before fully entering the ditch.

7. I did not brake at any point and I did apply power when attempting to leave the sloped gravel shoulder and re-enter the highway surface.


I can ensure you that during the final sequence of events of my example it was ESP that allowed my vehicle to return to the highway surface. I highly doubt anyone tracks their car at highway speed with random obstacles that jump out blocking 95% of quality roadway only to narrow driver choices to hitting the obstacles vs "rally driving" uphill on down sloped gravel with transitioning suspension.

Tracking an Audi with ESP off (normal practise) is for entirely different reasons that what ESP did for me in my highway event example. In over two decades of no fault accident driving and six years driving Audi daily with ESP that only legitimately engaged once to prevent a serious accident because the truck driver made a mistake, I would certainly hope you are not suggesting that I do not know how to drive and that instead I need ESP to stay alive

Wow! Perhaps I wasn't clear? I just hope if you and your potential passengers are ever in a situation where ESP could save your lives... that it's turned ON. Do you really believe Audi engineers are playing an nasty trick on "North American drivers borderline retarded" for a decade by making ESP standard on so many Quattro models?

 

K04 is more than correct in what he's saying. There really isn't much to add to that other than a few little irrefutable things.

1 - ESP applies the brakes individually as required to assist the driver perform the commands he's issuing to the car. So unless you have 4 individual brake pedals in your car, you simply can't do what ESP does. And ESP doesn't make a bad driver a good one...without knowing what you want the car to do, ESP will be very limited in what it can do in a situation like K04 was subjected to.

2 - If humans are so superior at controlling a vehicle and you're so insatiably seeking instances in which ESP and other forms of electronic aids have been put to use to better a drivers capability, you need look no further than F1 racing. But surely, as we've noted your love for our European counterparts, this should come as no shock to you: ABS, Traction control, Dynamic Suspension, Launch Control...all banned due to them being "unfair advantages". Surely a driver as proficient as yourself would be impaired by such devices...however, the cream of the driving crop had been able to put such forms of electronic aid to use to better their abilities.

Oh, and BTW...K04 does know how to "control his vehicle". He's here, alive and well talking to us about ESP and vehicle control, despite being in a very compromising situation.

 

Thanks for the responses. I find ESP to be too extreme. The idea is good in most situations (I agree with highway driving) but the reaction is FAR too severe in many situations. Sorry to the posters with the attitudes here - it's a fact. At least for me. Reaction time may be one thing (and I'm not totally convinced) - but the amount and severity of the reaction is another.
A little correction is fine. A severe bog is not, and that's what I get with ESP.

I'd like to just have a tap of the button cuz I don't really want it permanently off. But I do want it off a lot of the time. Maybe the first tap is good enough.

Thanks to cheeba, Gene for the helpful responses. K04 - good story - also helpful.

 

I also highly doubt they're random - it's usually other cars Do I really need to explain that I don't believe random things jump out on you at the racetrack? Clearly, I meant that the daily driving conditions where you guys think ESP will save you and the driving conditions at a track are often the same as in they are at the very edge of, or even exceeding, the vehicle's limits. Everyone turns it off because they can maintain better control of their cars when they do, thus turning better laptimes.

Did I say the Engineers are playing tricks? Why are you guys just making up my arguments for me? They include ESP because:

- Average drivers need it lest they careen off the road with their bald All-Seasons
- Audi would sell maybe 3 dozen cars over $35K if they didn't have it (at least 3 of these would be bought by myself )
- It is an evolving technology - an imperfect stepping stone on the way to perfection. One day, ESP will be near-perfect, but you have to make a whole bunch of crap to get to that point.

LOL! And, I'm sure that all the crazy driver aids that have been implemented in F1 are just as nanny-ish in nature as ESP Announcer: "And as Ayrton Senna comes into the chicane, he must be careful to brake to 50 km/hr so that his ESP doesn't kick in and force him straight off into the wall." Maybe we should all have 6 wheels on our car since F1 tried that too?

Of course I can't control each brake caliper separately, but how exactly does this lead you to the conclusion that the ESP system can maintain dynamic control better than a human can? When you attempt to formulate a cogent argument, there should be logical connections between your premises that lead to a true conclusion. Otherwise, you're just sayin' stuff.

 

Exactly. Nowhere did I say that any driver aid is useless - although that seems to be the argument that has been ascribed to me - but the ESP is ridiculously over-bearing for people that have a decent amount of control over vehicle dynamics.

JBro, I suggest just playing with capacitors until you find one that works. You're not going to hurt anything by putting one in line with the switch.

 

Terribly sorry I don't appeal to your intellect or power of reason. The logical connection was that our cars are released to the general public and as such, I tend to think the ESP system has been implemented with them in mind. I also think that it's very usefull for the majority of our population and it does a great job at keeping those people safe. One has to understand that not everyone that steps into a car has performance driving in mind. Not everyone wants to learn how to run hotlaps at a track and not everyone has the interest in or more importantly the CAPABILITY of learning certain manouevers in a car. We, as a race all have our strong and weak points...as has clearly been illustrated.

That being said, I don't object to turning the ESP off in a car and under certain circumstances I do disable it regularly. I don't subscribe to your elitist vision of the driving world, though. There are some poeple who have earned the privilege to drive and do so safely and I feel a lot more comfortable knowing that ESP has been implemented in their vehicle to help them, should they get into a sticky situation.

That being clarified and to provide you with more evidence pertaining to my formulated response (which was researched before posting) and so you don't think I'm producing ficticious facts in my previous response, please have a look at the following:

Days that Shook the F1 World - Traction Control Banned | Sidepodcast : All for F1, and F1 for All

Now...to think that they would use the same traction control or abs that they do in our cars would be foolish. Almost as foolish as assuming that I was implying just that...

 

Also...regarding the 6 wheels comment. You most likely know very well that a lot of F1 technology trickles down into road going cars. Honda is a prime example. It's pretty ridiculous though to assume that everything they use in F1, especially if it fails, should be considered for road use. What I was trying to imply was that properly implemented, electronic aids can be used to further enhance our driving potential.

I think the core of this argument or disagreement is this:

You feel there's no need for ESP or the like if you're a "good" driver and that it will only serve to get in the way at all times. That theory was disproven by F1. In road going cars, however...your opinion that some drivers are capable of exceeding the pre-programmed criteria in our ESP systems is correct. I'm sure many of us on the forum can control our cars quite well without ESP or ABS. Let's not forget the less fortunate though. And also keep in mind that a properly implemented system will only serve to AID the driver and not hinder him...hence the term "DRIVING AIDS".

You know...something also occured to me, concerning your comment about people having a "decent" ammount of control over vehicle dynamics. Who's to decide what level of control is "decent" or safe for public roads. Certainly not you or I, seeing as we havn't studied the average drivers capability. I would tend to think that the manufacturers have and that the resulting electronic aids are a reflection of that. Better driver training is something i've been longing to see but I don't think it will be soon to come. Speed limits are a representation of what has been deemed safe for the average driver as well, though I'm most certain that on a dry road, we'd all be happy to see the limit raised to at least 150km/h. Perhaps drop it down to 130 in a downpour situation. Unfortunately, dynamic speed limits don't exist and neither do custom tailored drivers liscences exist for those of us who are more capapable. As such, the ESP system in our cars is what it is and it does its job well for what it has been intended to do.

Oh and concerning this: "Of course I can't control each brake caliper separately, but how exactly does this lead you to the conclusion that the ESP system can maintain dynamic control better than a human can?" - It's quite simple actually...a well designed ABS system will monitor and calculate the optimal ammount of wheel slip for each wheel and apply the appropriate ammount of braking pressure to each wheel independantly, thereby keeping each wheel at its threshold, regardless of varying conditions beneath the tire. Not you, nor I can do that and as such: a properly designed system will outbrake you or I consistently, any day of the week. Key thing to acknowledge here: "Properly designed system" as in for performance use...not one designed for our grandparents.

This also isn't a personal attack on your driving capabilty, though the aggressive nature of your responses does trigger a confrontational rebuttal.

 

I shared my story for general awareness that it is not necessarily the best choice for those seeking performance to permanently turn off ESP on a public highway driven Audi.

Understood the extreme comment and is most apparent when driving aggressively in slippery winter conditions. What kind of tires are you running in the winter? How is ESP for you in summer conditions?

I haven't checked specifics for your MY2010 but I was under the impression that pressing the ESP button once "softened up" the ESP but that it was still active... is that the case?

 

I bought a used a4 and was wondering what the heck that button meant. No one explained anything just here's the keys. Is it always on and when you turn it off it shows above the speedo? Thanks for all of the previous info.