Thread: Traction control

Originally Posted by goingbush

Good Point, & makes sense but what I found is the Defender is better in loose sand with the ABS fuse pulled out than with the Traction Control working.

I agree as well and believe me I'm a massive supporter of Pumas, so this is not intended as a negative blag.

What I found though is that as you power up the dune and a wheel loses traction, the ABS/TC stops/slows that wheel to transfer power to the other three wheels and 90% of the time it's enough to crest the dune. However, if on a very long and steep dune a second and/or a third wheel loses traction it does the same, thus applying brakes to 2 or more wheels. Therefore the wheel or wheels with traction (and theoretically all the remaining power) has no chance of overcoming the loss of momentum and will enevitably also spin and get stopped - hence a stall...

This is a condition unique to soft dunes and I've found it nowhere else and the TC system on my 2010 works perfectly and I love it.

Thank you for all of the replies, as always very interesting.

But.
Probably getting into a hyperthetical and unnecessary area but can the TC in a TDCi be turned off or isolated ? That is the question.
If so, would just using its centre diff lock be more or less effective in handling that big sandy dune ?

With my old D1 I have never needed anymore than CDL to handle the dunes I have pointed it at. Sometimes a couple of runs at it but never defeated or risked breaking something.

Perhaps nobody has found it necessary to try it but an interesting question I think and I wonder what the outcome would be !!!
TC vs CDL with a DCi Defender.
Might be worth the experiment at Big Red.

Cheers.

Robert.

Originally Posted by olbod

Perhaps nobody has found it necessary to try it but an interesting question I think and I wonder what the outcome would be !!!
TC vs CDL with a DCi Defender.
Might be worth the experiment at Big Red.

Cheers.

Robert.

The test would have to be TC and CDL vs CDL.

TC does not replace a CDL.

Garry

Robert,

Short answer: There is no switch and TC is always on. It does have a fuse that some chaps take out to disable TC on certain sand environments. I've personally not done it and I don't think I would be inclined to either. Way past the age where I feel I need to prove what my car is capable of...

300Tdi's would run up and down dunes all day long with CDL only, so we know what non-TC equiped 90's are capable of, but take a Puma accross uneven ground, ruts and rocks and it's in a class of it's own...

Thats been my experience with both the L322 and TDCi,in cross axle tracks simply point them and let them drive across,the L322 had the advantage of having a switch on the dash to turn the stability/traction control off. Pat

Can't comment about TC on a defender but can re SWMBO's D2a.

Whilst crossing the Simpson Desert (west to east) a couple of years ago TC was a definite advantage NOT a liability. The D2a is a TD5 auto, was heavily loaded but not overloaded and had poly air bags on the rear with standard LR shocks.
I found that in the afternoon the TC operated more than in the morning. This was due to shocker fade causing the vehicle to 'bounce' more than it normally would. The TC would operate to compensate for the loss of traction due to faded shockers and compensate accordingly. The poly airs would act as dampers as coils don't have the natural dampening ability of leafs and prevented the suspension from bottoming out.
So from my experience the combination of auto trans, poly airs, hot shockers and TC was a good one.
Re the std. shockers. I replaced these with Pedders foam cell shocks in Alice Springs. A very good shocker I'd had on previous 4WD's but unfortunately they have small really crappy mounting eyes, nothing like the big 'landrover eyes' on the std shocks. The eyes/mounts quickly crapped out and I ended up re-installing the original factory shocks. $1000 down the drain!!!

On a similiar vein, TC and ABS use the same sensors. On another trip towing a small off road van I found the ABS to be bloody lethal, as I tried to slow on dirt the bloody ABS would let go as the wheels built up a bit of a buffer and increased braking distance by a large margin. Very dangerous. Eventually the ABS crapped out and all was well, unfortunately it came good the next morning . If I were to tow again on loose dirt I would definitely disable the ABS for safety reasons.
The ideal of course would be to disable ABS but keep TC but I don't know if this is possible.

Deano

Originally Posted by garrycol

If the spinning wheel has no traction as it is spinning - how does locking it cause a loss of momentum when power is transferred to a wheel that has traction and not doing anything? If anything momentum will be maintained or increased.

This has not been my experience in older TC systems and the newest as well.

Garry

I think it is more the case that (some) momentum has been lost by the time the TC activates.

However the brakes are removing some energy from the system which could be used to power the vehicle.

For a given amount of engine power, a vehicle with twin lockers would have higher average momentum on a slippery surface than an identical vehicle with TC (instead of lockers).

On my 110 puma, I found that you need to lock the CDL to get the traction control working properly, you also need to adjust your driving style,in a steep hill climb, loosing traction normally without TC would mean a stall start and have another go, with the TC and CD-locked you simply need to maintain constant (low) revs, to allow the TC to grab,in some cases this may take up to 20-30 seconds, but it will eventually pull itself up.On some really really steep climbs in the vic high country, my 110 would go as far as a twin diff locked cruiser on 33s, and the defender was stock! Once you get use to it, its one of the tightest TC systems on the market.