I finally had floored my C55 with ESP off. Wow, it is a completely different car, it is shooting like a rocket, 2 times faster than if ESP is ON! I am concerned about safety issues, would like advice :

1. Is it safe to have ESP off in straight line even I do it to redline? Will it affect hard braking? (Assumed road is very dry)

2. Under what circumstances, for cornering at high speed, if ESP off, what the risks are?

3. What are the DON'T DOs when I have ESP off ? e.g. turing steering wheel too fast...etc

4. Will ESP off affects safety of a hard braking during a straight line ?

5. Will ESP off affects safety of a hard braking during a high speed sharp bend ?

I need to join a street race tommorrow, and want to know if I can turn off ESP all the way? Need to know urgently.

thx
t

 

You cannot simply turn off the ESP by pressing ESP button. ESP will still kick in when you get excessive wheel spin.

However, You can use Dyno mode to turn off ESP completely. Remember that you will turn off your ABS as well. so becareful.
Heres how to

Dyno Mode
1. To start, the key must be removed from the ignition.
2. Insert the key and turn to position 1.
3. Immediately press trip odometer reset button 3-4 times until the instrument cluster beeps. There is no visual message, only an audio beep. Be patient, this takes around 40 seconds.
4. Press the lower menu button (it looks like two sheets of paper, the one with the writing in the background behind the blank one)
5. Press the up arrow button.
6. Press the "+" sign to disable the Traction System (turn "ON" test mode)
7. Start the engine, the traction system / ABS is now disabled.

Good luck and get some VID footage of ur C55 racing

 

2002 C32 so I'm sure YMMV but I've had intermittent luck with that feature for anything other than tuning. For instance, after a while of being on diag mode, the car will go into limp-home and not go over about 3k...it's like I have 3 friends pushing it. The other problem I had a couple times is that the engine quit after locking the wheels up on hard braking (half a tank of gas or so).

I've had my best luck just removing the ESP/BAS/ABS fuse...felt like I was back in my old 1986 Caprice Classic again...tail WAAAAY out, turn in a little, hit the brakes, slide...YES it's what I really want BUT I'm wondering if this can have a long-term negative effect. Also, after I put the fuse back in I kept getting the error message for a few restarts but then it went away.

Official thread-jack: what would be involved in hooking a switch to this fuse?

 

'Test Mode ON' means Traction disabled ?
Sound a scarely setting if ABS is also off !
Couldn't imagine a powerful C55 with no safety system in place
Now how easy is to restore the ESP ?
Still not knowing why I was feeling the car launch faster when I only pressed the ESP OFF button, while you said that does not work?
thx
t

 

Turning ESP 'off' just makes it interfere LESS so you have more control with the throttle than you would if ESP is fully ON and aggressively effecting wheel spin rather than letting you control it. So it's like this.

Normal operation: ESP/BAS/ABS all on full. ESP is very aggressive here and won't even let you 'push' very far before putting on the brakes. Actually VERY handy in the Winter - extremely aggressive about not letting the car get out of whack.

ESP 'Off' (as described by the button - note, it's not really OFF): ESP/BAS/ABS are all on BUT ESP is less agressive, but still going to intervene when the yellow light flashes. ABS and BAS are unaffected and are working the same as 'Normal operation' above.

Diag Mode/Fuse Pull: ESP/BAS/ABS are all completely disabled. You're now driving a car completely under your control (as long as you maintain control ). You can lock up the brakes, get the back end way out, do burnouts, hell even drift.

Generally restarting will restore the system to normal operation OR you can use the same method as described through the menus, but turn diag/test mode OFF.

 

If you just turn in "quasi-off" by hitting the button you are fine driving the car, and ABS & some traction aids to save you will come in if you reach a high enough level of slip. To answer each of your questions:
1) Yes it's safe to hit the ESP off button even when driving to redline as you put it. There's no effect on the shifting or rev limiter. No it doesn't affect braking at all.

2) Cornering at high speed you may get the vehicle to slide easier, and the ESP will not save you until you reach a higher level of slip.

3) What you don't want to do with the ESP off is drive like an idiot, like what you might see in the "fast & the furious" movies... the tail will step out on you and if you're not good enough or in a safe enough area to catch it... Be smooth with all control inputs & don't just stand on the gas!

4) No effect on braking as mentioned above

5) I imagine it could effect hard braking while in a corner (which you shouldn't be doing anyway, brake in a straight line before the corner), but how much you risk exactly I do not know. The ABS is still functional & so is the electronic brake proportioning, so you should be able to do it, but the main ESP is off so it won't help stabilize the car if you get loose, until it thinks you've totally lost it.

I can get my car very sideways by just hitting the ESP Off button (which only does a partial disable/slip threshold increase). I use this at the track so the ESP system doesn't overheat my brakes trying to turn corners for me or kill the power coming out of turns.

However CNTLAW, I don't think you should enter the dyno mode as some have suggested for what you are looking at doing for a street race unless you are a good driver familiar with how to balance a car in understeer/oversteer. Maybe hit the ESP Off button, but that's it.

 

Note, even in "normal" mode, with ESP ON, you can get wheel spin in a straight line while starting. The system is just programmed with a threshold or limit of how much spin to allow. And if you pass this threshold, or turn the wheel even slightly, it'll pull the power.

With ESP Off button pressed, you can spin them pretty good. But the system is still laying in wait to kill the power if you REALLY spin them too much. It also won't let you do things deemed damaging to the car, like a power braked burnout.

Hitting ESP Off does work, even for a fast street launch. You just have to learn how fast to press the throttle. Too fast & you'll spin too much & be slow. Just roll on the throttle smoothly with ESP Off and you'll be good to go. I do this against E55's and they haven't beat me from 0-60.

 

Thx. This explains why in the past, whenever I was trying to launch the car at a traffic light, I always had a feeling that there is a fraction of second pause, and even I floored it slightly harder, I didn't get too much wheel spin even with such a powerful car.

This explains why I was feeling a very smooth and quick acceleration at the traffic light the day when I had the ESP Button OFF!

OK, if I restart the car, everything will be back to normal.


Thx. I read your messages. Presumably, when with ESP Button is OFF, I still need to pay great attention at cornering.

No. I won't use the dyno mode. I am paranoid not having traction control in a rear drive car ever since I had my 200hp 1992 E36 (no traction control) totalled. I would not think I am at this stage experience and confidence enough to handle a 367hp rear drive car without traction control in place!

What I will do is to test out some ESP Button OFF under what I think - controlled occasions on a dry day. I will probably start enjoying with some normal traffic light straight line smooth accelerations which I never knew the car could.

I didn't floor the car that much the other day when I had the ESP OFF, I did exactly as you mentioned, roll on the throttle smoothly, the result is already completely different than ESP ON. Amazing!
0-60 , Wow, I have got to look for a 911 to blast with!

Thx guys, driven 3 years 40000km, until now I realized why my ESP ON all the way C55 has never been more explosive than I expect! Now, all of a sudden, I have a 'brand new' car to play with! I will probably try the same on the 330i E90, presumably E90's ESP is same as the C55?

t

 

If i remember correctly, restarting will not bring you back to the normal setting.. When you restart the car after dynomode, display will ask if you want to stay in dyno mode or turn off dyno mode..

I could be wrong.. It's been awhile since I used dynomode