Duffman042

Anyone knows how to fully disable the traction control ? not only VDC

Madd Dog

zroger73

Yes. Google "VSA maintenance mode".

Yotrek

but you if you do this, doesn't flashing amber light on the dashboard VSA (light) will keep flashing?

zroger73

Yes, it does.

Yotrek

oh well ..don't bother trying to disable it..

Jeff Wu

I found the way to do it.

not2envy

but no e-brake!

Jeff Wu

It doesn’t matter when are you have e-breaks or physical breaks. Just every time he pulled the brakes, you do that too! You will get what you want!

sonyfever

Thanks for the info, would give it a try. But honestly I think the default VSA-on setting already allows a small amount of sustained sliding on throttle.

lil12002

Even if It’s turned off the launching of the RDX is not the same as other cars, in my 05 TL once I turned it off i was able to make the tire skipped but with the Rdx it’s not possible, could it be because mines is the AWD version, Can some of the FWD guys give input?

leomio85

Pretty sure you're describing wheel hop. For the life of me, I can't conceive of why anyone who would actually want that shit. It's horrible for the drivetrain and it simply means you're not getting traction ... AKA, slow. But yes, it's because your TL was FWD. On a modern AWD system, you'd likely need an extraordinary amount of power to get it to wheel hop. Don't gauge performance on stupid shit like that ... the fact that your TL did it just means it was a shit (performance) car or it had shit tires.

Dereileak

Exactly, wheel hop is very very very bad and very damaging to the drivetrain

sonyfever

I cannot believe it took me three years to try this. I am not 100% sure if it is placebo effect or not, but I feel when VDC is off, AHA (brake torque) effect is less obvious and that makes the car easier to understand because the response is more linear. Also the steering feedback feels slightly different and a little more direct.

sonyfever

For the geeks out there: after disabling VDC, the LKAS system becomes unavailable. So that is a clear hint that LKAS takes information from VDC.
I have been driving the car with VDC off for a while, and with MDX Type-S as reference, I think I know how Acura tuned RDX:

First, the basic response is quite similar to 3G MDX - mild steering response, slight understeer, but with the faster SH-AWD response in RDX, the understeer can easily be canceled out with a touch of the throttle, or with enough weight transfer to the front so the rear rotates naturally.

Then for whatever reasons, probably to mitigate the weak grip from factory tires, Acura decided to bring in AHA to clean things up. Unfortunately, most of the time AHA ruins the linear response of the car, for example the car would change from slight understeer to neutral mid corner. The threshold when AHA kicks in seems to be too conservative and does not change significantly with better tires. So the unnatural feel can be worse with tires that offer more grip. Furthermore, VDC obviously takes in a bunch of sensor inputs, and goes through calculations to predict the dynamic response of the car. This takes a little time, and VDC probably needs to reserve more so the system has time to take actions before the car goes out of control. The latency is certainly noticeable on the throttle response, especially in a traffic jam or at re-acceleration after the car comes to near-stop.

Interestingly, on MDX Type-S, the AHA is rarely noticeable. MDX Type-S also does not suffer from any delay in throttle response. Whether it is due to different tuning strategy for Type-S, or different VDC controller in RDX, I guess we will never know.