What are people's experiences with VSA? Does spinning tires cause VSA to engage? When VSA engages, does the VSA light come on? etc etc.

I'm curious because I have never seen the VSA light come on or flash or whatever it's supposed to do. Yesterday I was pushing the car a bit hard in the rain around town and broke the inside tire free while turning through a crosswalk. It continued to spin for a bit after the turn and then grabbed solid, really launching the car. The whole time I never saw the VSA light. I thought it was these scenarios when VSA was supposed to be intervening.

I do notice slight abs intervention when stopping and hitting gnarly cracks/potholes that are the streets of Boston so I know ABS is working fine. I have never gotten my tires to break free while braking on smooth surfaces so I have yet to actually see full ABS engagement.

 

Sometimes VSA engagement happens so fast it's hard to pick it up. The VSA light does flash when it's in effect. Drive it in the snow....you'll see the light have spasms all the time. When it's in effect and you're on the accelerator, you'll feel like the car's not responding because it's intentionally keeping the RPM's down to gain traction and control.

 

Now that you mention it, I did find it very peculiar when the tire was spinning. It was as if the engine wouldn't go above like 3K or so. It just felt very unresponsive but I could tell the tire was spinning. Then as soon as it got grip the car totally launched and came alive. I guess I maybe missed the light on the dash since I was more concerned with the road ahead.

 

Yea, you have to be looking at the light when VSA enguages to see it, but if you ever do get it to enguage, that little light should be the last thing on your mind.

 

 

Ok, so it must be hard to notice unless you're looking right at it then. I wasn't looking at the cluster but usually flashing warning lights alert me. I'll probably notice it more if I drive in a bunch of snow, which is a rarity here.

 

It actually might not have come on at that intersection because you weren't really under or oversteering or "losing control". I've foudn that VSA in our cars is very good as it's not really intrusive for occasional hard launches, and, it can be FULLY disabled (ABS notwithstanding) with a push of a button. Many electronic nannies in cars these days are NOT fully disableable... which is a shame!

 

I spin my wheels launching from a stop specially turning and i know VSA kicks in because of the funky knocking noise it makes but the pilot light does not turn on or flash. Now when i spun my wheels because of road ice and the VSA does not seem to help then the light goes on. So it seems when the VSA fails is when you see the light. I could be wrong.