timdaley73

OK, OK, OK...

I really thought it was a gimmick! But yesterday, we had some major flooding around the Washington, DC area. So, I thought why not test my baby in these conditions... (I know, not too bright of an idea to speed at 55 mph in a 35 mph zone with standing water about 1 foot to 2 feet deep around...) But, it really made me glad I had the VSA, baby! I lost control and was gliding through this sea of water. I was heading straight for the telephone pole when all of a sudden the VSA kicked in (noticed the something flash on my dash board) and restored control! I was so glad this is not just a gimmick or a marketing ploy!! Hurray for the VSA!!

acur8ly

iTrader: (1)

I've been there with VSA in my old CLS, it really saves you when u drive less than smart. Glad u got out of it un hurt and the TL still in 1 piece.

Shinj1EVA

Man, you're luck you didn't get hurt. Putting your life on the line to test the functionality in your car.... nice.. But uh.. thanks for confirming it works I suppose.. don't do it again, for your own sake.

NightRider

I had a similar situation in April when it had just rained then gotten down to about 45. Was on the highway, speed limit 55 doing about 70. Making a sweeping left turn I felt the car start sliding out from under me. God, no! My grip on the wheel became a death lock, prpeparing to try and not hit the other car around or the concrete walls on either side. Then VSA flashed, and the car straightened out! I was so glad and went about 10 under the rest of the way home...

04TLMan

I hope you mean 1 to 2 INCHES and not feet. That would really screw up the air intake.

I tried this a little safer this morning. In a wet parking lot. And it does work!

KilroyR1

I will never buy another car without VSA. I had it save my bacon while lapping the Nurbergring in the rain in a rented M-B C-200K.

Don

GaleForce

The light coming on was the ! in the triangle in the tachometer. It was tell you that you're fucked because you lost traction completely. You're lucky the tires made contact with the road giving VSA a chance to do its thing (it works all the time, you just don't notice it) on more than the only tires that were touching the ground.

Unless you guys are talking about another light, the light that I usually see if I lose traction is to tell me that the tires have no traction.

redhawk

I have a similar story. I was driving down a tiny 2 lane highway in Virginia after a long car trip just trying to get to the hotel. I came over a bridge going 70 (speed limit was 55) and didn't realize there was a sharp left turn at the end. Most of the signs were covered up until the last second. I saw a 20 mph warning sign and slammed on the breaks and skidded around the 90 degree corner. But, I stayed on the road and avoided the guard rail. Thank GOD! If I was in my old POS chevy Malibu, I would have been in that guard rail. Saved my life... ok maybe not that extreme, but it saved the car

chazy777

When that ! with the triangle around it comes on, that means your VSA is being shut OFF not ON. So the VSA is not saving you, but the VSA knowing to shut itself off automatically is what saved you. VSA being turned off gives you more traction and your own control of the car rather then the car trying to control itself. Am I wrong? Cause this is what I've always read up and was told.

NightRider

OTHER WAY AROUND. The ! coming on means the VSA is operating by regulating power to the wheels to regain stability. If possible during the winter months, go to a slippery parking lot (empty!) and find a spot and lay onto the gas. The light will flash and you feel the power cut to the wheels. It works

GTFISH

You are clueless. VSA or any other traction control system will flash when it is activated. When you de-activate it, it should light up constantly.

The VSA does not give or take away traction.

chazy777

When I went to a training session, the dealer told me the ! is a light that is a warning symbol indicating your VSA system is disabled.. so don't tell me I'm clueless.. if anything say my dealer is clueless if you say he's wrong.

Also you may not get better traction technically.. but you get better traction when that ! light is on which is why when I drag race or am on a slippery road I feel more glued to the road. I'm not saying spikes come out of the wheels or anything when the ! light is on..

And if I don't disable the VSA system, and the wheels spin out from switching gears, I notice the ! light turns on and off automatically..when the light comes on I notice I grab the road better.. (hence giving me the feel of better traction and less spin out)

Am I not communcating correctly or are you guys saying the dealer is backwards /clueless with what he told me.. If this is the case, it doesn't make sense because the way I tested the car is how I'm describing it. I get better traction / less speed when the ! light is turned on, but I get better stability and car takes control more in steering when the ! light is off which makes me think my Vehicle Stability Assist is turned on. Since the car gives me better stability I get better speed, smoother ride.

NightRider

When you turn the VSA OFF, the ! light is always on. This leads to no power cutoff to the wheels, and more wheelspin upon hard acceleration. When the VSA is ON, the ! LIGHT is OFF, except in cases when the VSA activates such as reduced traction. When it activates and the ! light FLASHES, the car is adjusting power at the wheels to try and regain stability. You should always leave it so the ! is NOT perma-on in the dash. Notice if you take a sharp city turn with the vsa off (! always on) the tires are more prone to squeal because of less stability and regulating power to the wheels. Does this make sense?

chazy777

Ok so I was right then.. It was a misunderstanding with the way I was communicating then. So yes, the VSA is OFF when you hit that button leaving the ! light ON... which I use when I'm racing cause I don't want any power cut off to the wheels and give myself the control of wheelspin for good take off, and I don't just floor it from the start otherwise I smoke the hell out of my tires and dont' get a good take off (and I"ve alreday done that before). And yes, I knew VSA was ON when the ! light is off. The only time I turn VSA off (! light ON ALWAYS) is when I race. You think it's better to race with VSA on? and let the car control when it should be off or on? Keep in mind I'm only referring to 6MT..

BUt the way you just explained it is how I thought I was describing it in my original post.. but I guess it came out wrong. So TimDaly thought the VSA light was turning ON when the ! light was flashing ON, but really it was disabling itself each time the ! light was on and then VSA switching back ON when the ! light turned back off.

VSA can be hard to explain I guess.. Cause usually people think something is turned ON when a light is ON.. Not the case with this. Are we on the same page with this? or am I still wrong and everything still

1SICKLEX

Yeah FWD!

meathead

is this why i felt like i was losing power in the winter? it seemed really hard to go uphill when it snowed. is it better to shut VSA off when you are having a hard time climbing in winter??

Donte99TL

I don’t know about you guys but I thought I read some where that VSA only works up to a speed of 15mph. Does anyone have a TL manual near by so they can read what is says in there. I could be wrong.

chazy777

I don't think that's true cause I'm going faster than 15mph when I see VSA turning itself off and back on when I sometimes can spin out a little when hitting third gear and not leaving the VSA in Always-OFF mode..

Donte99TL

Oh, ok I guess I was wrong. I never was good a reading anyways...

yield2s

Don't forget that VSA also utilizes a 4 channel ABS system. meaning that it will give braking power to as few as 1 wheel and as many as all 4 wheels to help regain control. This is determined by vechical speed in relation to wheel speed, thus it is extremely important to keep the same total diameter in the tire/wheel combo.

twong11219

When the dash light flicks on and off, it is only telling you that you are loosing traction. It doesn't mean that the VSA is turning on and off. The VSA is always monitoring the tires for traction unless you flipped the switch that turns it off. In this case, the dash light being on constantly is telling you that the VSA is turned off. It's very similar to my friends' BMW and Mercedes, both were RWD though. I drove both cars in Boston when we had a case of freezing rain. The light flickered when I was slipping and cut down on the engine power to try to decrease slippage on the tires. That was exactly what meathead was discribing. Sometimes you need to turn off the VSA and have a little tire spin to dig your way up a snowy incline. On dry roads, I turned off the traction control and definitely notice better pick-up because the traction control is not trying to lower the engine power. If I were to drag, I would definitely turn the VSA off and control tire slippage with the throttle pedal. Besides, you don't see drag cars with traction control systems because you don't want something else controlling your engine power and wheel spin.

Just my opinion, and thanks to timdaley73 for testing the VSA. I hope I never see it unless I turned it off.

NightRider

If you have to put a spare tire on, definitely turn vsa off as the different size tire screws everything up because of the control to the wheels. I had a Benz before this and the light blinked and cut power to the wheels when slipping until stability and traction was regained. VSA off to get up a hill might work better, that would be a trial and error test though. If you started slipping or sliding when doing that uphill, definitely turn back on immediately. VSA works at any speed as evidenced by mine and tim's and others experiences at highway speed. Chazy, yes now we are on the same page, in my Benz it was the same way, opposite how you would think for the lights and confusing. Our VSA was pioneered by the Prelude SH back in '97 which did the same thing basically. If you were going around a turn the outer 2 wheels spin faster and get more engine torque to pull you through the turn. It also helped with traction control just like ours, although ours is more advance now.

lindros2

I think SH-AWD is going to shame VSA.

Audi quattro vs. Audi FrontTrak (their name for FWD)

TBone2004

I still like GaleForces comment better about it saying "You're Fucked" That would be so much easier to understand and interpret instead of the ! sign.

Maybe an improvement for the '05 or '06?

abtl

Regardless of VSA "ON"/ "OFF" or ! light "ON"/"OUT", nobody should be driving in 2 feet of flowing water. It doesn't take much for a car to become a boat and then only a pole, a wall, or some other vehicle will stop you.

AB

Sherlock

Donte, you might be thinking about the pre-vsa TL's that only had TSC (traction stability control) which was the 20mph and under control. my 2000 TL-P had tsc only, not vsa. That only functions on take off and under 20mph.

our 04 VSA includes 0-20 TSC (which cannot be defeated) and then full speed VSA that can be defeated with the switch.

Traction control is the power cutting feature, where VSA is the braking, and engine, and yaw correction. Hence why the first just controls traction, and the S in VSA controls stability.

Hope that helps.

spidey07

I don't if anybody mentioned it but going that fast in a downpour is just stupid.

When you hydroplane there really isn't much you can do - you are at a severe loss of traction/control

hydroplaing is scary, the car is literally skiing.

So how does one avoid it? keep the speed below 40 mph. Standing water sucks and causes a whole lot of wrecks becaus people are going too fast for the road conditions.

so hopefully we'll all slow down.

spidey07

Are you sure about the TSC? When I take VSA off on my 6MT it really feels like there is no traction control - I can spin the tires all day long. The 6MT has a limited slip diff though.

NightRider

Are you talking about upon acceleration from a stop? I so, of course the tires will spin with a manual. My friend has a 4cyl 03 Accord5MT and can spin the tires all the way through first...

andy_viet

VSA is not a new technology or anything special, you don't need to write a long story to explain yourself that you are clueless.

Saintor

Not a chance. AWD is much overhyped and won't do anything safety-wise. What Subaru claims in their TV ads with last minute avoidance of an obstacle, AWD can not do that, ESP/VSA can.

BTW, AWD adds 314lbs in a G35X. Almost +10%. Very bad.

Donte99TL

Oh that makes sense. I had a 99TL before my 04 and I think that’s where I got it from. Well that’s cool that our car has this feature. It’s just one more thing to brag about why the TL is so good.