how often do you guys drive your cars with ESP on.

i usually turn it off unless i am on the highway because it bothers me during my turns n stuff

have you guys been in a situation where ESP saved your life or what not?

 

I always leave my ESP on. Are you normally taking turns in such a way that you really notice ESP kicking in? I won't say it's "saved my life", but on several occasions on wet roads, it has corrected some turns where I was going a little fast and the car started breaking loose. You hardly know it was activated except the light flashes and the car "magically" returns to its intended path. Chances are probably slim that you'll need it on a straight highway...

 

You should be able to drive with ESP on all the time and still drive pretty hard. You probably just need to learn to be smoother. Don't go into a turn too fast. You will lose speed as you slide and it's not as fast as going in slow and smooth. You can come out of the turn much harder if you are in control. And be smooth on the gas pedal instead of just mashing it down.

I am usually able to drive pretty hard with the ESP on and it never kicks in. And this is with a C-coupe which is light in the back end and probably a bit more tail-happy than a C320. If you can learn to go fast and leave ESP on, then it will be there for the times when you go a little bit too fast.

Also, this may have something to do with the auto trans. Do you use touchshift? If not, then your tranny is probably downshifting when you come out of a turn and applying power too much at one time. Try using touchshift to get down to whatever gear you want to be in when you exit the turn. That will also be smoother.

 

ESP Saved my life.... many times

1 time i was on my way back from school in the snow... a 1999 540i skidded around in front of my i had to turn to avoid hitting him.. this was in 7 inches of snow... i turned to go to the right of it.. if esp was off my turn would of been ineffective and i would of reareneded the 540 at like 23mph but the esp locked two of my wheels and safely and sleadlike diverted me away from that car...

 

How effective will esp be for someone like me though? I live in LA and it never snows and rarely rains. I don't have a benz so don't know how an esp feels but i also heard it can cause an accident.

Imagining im driving in normal LA streets and i am making a turn, but the light is about the change so i have to speed up. If esp kicks in and breaks i might be stuck...

I also love to speed up during turns on the freeways, where everyone slows down. Will esp kick in then? In a tunnel rated for 35mph i do 60 easily with my current car without losing any control, though 65 i think will be a whole another story.

Will esp help me or be bad for me? I never got into an accident almost because i lost control of a car ever which was once in a parking lot. And i never got close to an accident because i lost control of a car ever. How useful will it be for me?

 

ESP doesn't brake just to slow you down, it's not meant to be a personal cop. Its purpose is to correct the car's motion direction if it detects a spin that may lead to a ditch, in plain words. If you are a very experienced driver, ESP can be a nuissance sometimes, but still it is a very smart system and you can hardly match its effect by using just steering wheel and brakes since it can brake individual wheels, whereas you can only apply brakes to all 4 wheels at any time.

 

esp has both helped me, and nearly killed me.

save: on the way home from school, coming down from mulholland onto hayvenhurst, there is a steep hill. i always shift the car into 2nd when turning onto the street, and then to 1st when i'm out of the curve (because i dont want to overpower the curve and head into a curb). well, one rainy day, i didnt notice and accidentally shifted into 1st with the touchshift, which broke my rear loose, and quickly pointed me at a curb. esp kicked in, and helped me out.

nearly killed: coming home from sunset on a rainy day, i was goin a wee bit fast (55), because i saw no traffic, so i figured i could go faster. enter blind curve with traffic backup. the blind curve also starts at the point where the hill transitions from up to down, so i had even less traction because of the weight shift. i hit the brakes, and tried to steer into the next lane to avoid hitting the s55 in front of me, but the esp kept me going straight. i still dont know how i managed to get my way out of that one.

but overall, it helps more often than it hurts, albeit, when it kills power sometimes, it can be really annoying. just my 2 cents.

 

Since I live in San Francisco, I drive on cable car tracks sometimes and when they are wet all cars slide a bit on them. ESP always kicks in and helps. Its one of the things about the car I love.

Beth

 

that's odd..

I thought ESP takes steering input into account? Therefore, if you had been steering to AVOID an obstacle (ie., S55... a very expensive obstacle :p) then ESP should have let you avoid it. Unless what actually happened was that you had massive understeer and ESP couldn't act until your car was sufficiently slowed down.

 

Other then esp i know mercedes has brake assist. What is said to be done is that if it senses a panic stop it automatically applies all available power braking boost immediately, eliminating delay from human responses. If that happened, maybe that was the part that was stopping him from changing lanes? not the esp?

Is the brake assist part of esp?

 

I always leave ESP on when it rains.... too many fishtailing stories....

When it's nice and sunny i usually have it off because i like spinning the wheels in the back for hard turns and such....

still the ESP light flickers when ESP is off....

 

Good point.

Brake Assist is part of ABS. ESP is also integrated with ABS.

I'm not sure if Brake ASsist works in conjunction with ESP.. the answer to which may indicate why the poster here had problems. Assuming that ESP's purpose is to modulate and balance braking power at each corner to get stability, that would be cancelled out if BAS put 100% braking power at all four wheels.

I think the new SL and E classes have CBC or cornering brake control (sorry.. BMW terminology.. don't know the MB equivalent) which distributes braking force properly.

 

ya like when i make hard turns the car just breaks on the middle of turn and its dangerous. i can make safer turns with my camry but when i turn it off esp on the benz its still skids, but atleast it doesnt brake and make me lose control

 

ESP does not distribute braking power evenly - it is the function of EBD (Elecrtronic Brake Distribution) system. ESP stands for Electronic Stability Program, it is an equivalent of BMW's CBC. What it does is when it senses yaw (spin off intended course), it applies brakes to individual wheels for a very short time to offset the spin, thus returning the car to its intended course. It certainly takes the steering wheel position as one of input parameters. Regarding one of the previous posts - it wasn't the ESP that wouldn't let you make a turn - it would have made it easier, if anything. If the brake pedal is slammed to the floor, BAS kicks in and helps it brake (assisted by EBD), then if there is wheel lockup - ABS kicks in and begins to modulate the brakes to let the wheels spin. ESP is not in the picture here. What should have been done - slam on the brakes to make the car dive, then let off the brakes and try to steer away. This way the weight quickly gets transferred to the front wheels so they grip the pavement better, reducung the understeer. Only at this point would ESP get into the picture - to correct understeer/oversteer. However, if the speed it too high, all these smart systems might still fail, as they can't overcome lack of traction.

 

Thanks for the insight vadim,

I've asked this question a while back, but no definite answers,

1) has anyone else noticed that the blinking light does not flash when you're off the throttle? hence i ask #2:

2) does ESP work even when you're off the throttle? (I would think it should)

because i only noticed the blinking light flash when I have rear wheelspin

 

the blinking light is for the traction control. esp does work when you are off the throttle, but the light wont blink. if you've ever noticed "phantom steering" like when your car turns somewhat more sharply than you're steering, that would be esp.

 

As vadmin states, these are separate systems that work together to avoid accidents. However, if you exceed the laws of physics, then, nothing but more traction will help and you will slide until traction is regained. At which point, these systems will save you at last instant. kind'a like a point and shoot camera. Point the steering wheel and press gas or brake

For the street, I'd always leave it on, unless your are a good driver, on a familiar street, and trying to run from someone. Unless, of course, your trying get attention.

For experienced drivers, they will limit the top track times. The point here being "track" times. For the less experienced driver, it may not make you faster, but it will save you embaressing spins at your next SCCA Solo II event.

 

I was out driving earlier, and I haven't driven really hard for a while, so I did some testing on how hard I could really push before ESP got in the way. The answer: Very hard!!

I'm pretty sure this has to do with my Pilot Sports getting closer and closer to slicks. They're probably 2/3 worn. But I was able to push pretty hard and ESP never got in the way. This is with no suspension mods to help with handling, but with a pulley helping to break loose the tires.

All in all, I was impressed with what I could do without ESP trying to hold me back. And it all comes down to tires. You can only make use of the available traction. I was not always happy with the amount of grip, but it seems much better now than it ever has been in the past.

 

Haha, I could only imagine what it is like to leave ESP on in a Solo II event I just got back from a day of auto-x'ing and the first thing I did when I started the car was disabling ESP.

 

btw, the C-Class doesn't have EBD....

and ESP = DSC in BMWs...

 

Actually, all MB vehicles have EBD.

BMW's CBC is not exactly the same as the SBC system in the E-classes and SL-classes. SBC is far more advanced and incorporates CBC.

I drive fairly hard on occasion and ESP never activates in those situations. Having ESP activate so frequently seems like it's rather reckless driving to me.

As for the car throttling off during a turn and that being unsafe, I'd have to disagree with that since it's usually progressive.

 

ESP usually only kicks on in the rain from what I can tell. The only time it really seems to come on when the road is dry is accelerating or cornering when I hit a bump.

 

Just a little wetness on the road is all it takes here. I can push the car while making a turn from a stoplight and have it kick in.

On dry roads, it's kicked in while making sharp turns at 30+ mph when there's some gravel scattered around, but that's about it.

 

somebody please point in the manual where it says EBD

 

dswildfire is correct, I think a number of people are confusing ESP with the traction control (this is probably because the "ESP light" flashes when the traction control is on, not when the car is using the ESP to correct vehicular yaw).

Cheers, BT