So I was reading that thread about the traction control in the 2011+ Mustangs and I had an epiphany. I like traction control. There, I said it. Traction control allows me to drive my car in ways I'd never normally be able to. I'm not a race car driver. I want to think that I have superior skills to most people but I don't and that's where traction control saves me. But I'm not just talking any kind of traction control here...
The traction control I'm talking about is the multi-stage stuff. Most newer cars (my 550 included) have multi-stage traction/ stability control. If you hold down the button in the BMW it shuts off the system entirely. You're left to your own devices. If you oversteer too much you're going to bring the ass end completely around, brake too hard in a turn and the front end is going to plow, do things that are completely stupid (as I'm apt to do) and you're going to completely lose the car.
But there's another mode. On the BMW I like to call this the "save my ass" mode. This is what happens when you press the traction control button once. In this mode the car will let you do whatever the hell you want. Want to swing the ass end out? Great. Want to sit there and shred the tires? Have at it. Where it really shines though is when you have an amateur like me behind the wheel. I can do whatever I want and the car will save me. It won't let the ass end come around and if it senses that happening, it puts an end to my fun and snaps me back into a straight line faster than it would normally take me to shit my pants if traction control was completely off.
How does it make the car more fun to drive? Simple: There are no longer any more limits. I don't need to wonder if I'm pushing the car so hard that it's about to break loose. There's no fear because if it happens it's fixed quickly and smoothly and because of that I can push it as hard as I want, harder than I would ever have the guts to do if there was no safety net and thus the car is even more fun to drive.
Some lament the intrusion of technology in newer cars, citing how disconnected you feel from the road. I'm not one of those people. I've never driven a car that felt more connected to the asphalt than my 550 and it has assloads of gadgets on it. I embrace this new age. Things like launch control, multi-stage traction control, the active sway bars on my car that tense up in a turn and the list goes on. When properly implemented, these things all make the car more fun to drive and they allow an amateur to squeeze near peak performance out of a car that might otherwise be too much for them.
I like traction control. I'm a pussy. I'm cool with it.
The traction control I'm talking about is the multi-stage stuff. Most newer cars (my 550 included) have multi-stage traction/ stability control. If you hold down the button in the BMW it shuts off the system entirely. You're left to your own devices. If you oversteer too much you're going to bring the ass end completely around, brake too hard in a turn and the front end is going to plow, do things that are completely stupid (as I'm apt to do) and you're going to completely lose the car.
But there's another mode. On the BMW I like to call this the "save my ass" mode. This is what happens when you press the traction control button once. In this mode the car will let you do whatever the hell you want. Want to swing the ass end out? Great. Want to sit there and shred the tires? Have at it. Where it really shines though is when you have an amateur like me behind the wheel. I can do whatever I want and the car will save me. It won't let the ass end come around and if it senses that happening, it puts an end to my fun and snaps me back into a straight line faster than it would normally take me to shit my pants if traction control was completely off.
How does it make the car more fun to drive? Simple: There are no longer any more limits. I don't need to wonder if I'm pushing the car so hard that it's about to break loose. There's no fear because if it happens it's fixed quickly and smoothly and because of that I can push it as hard as I want, harder than I would ever have the guts to do if there was no safety net and thus the car is even more fun to drive.
Some lament the intrusion of technology in newer cars, citing how disconnected you feel from the road. I'm not one of those people. I've never driven a car that felt more connected to the asphalt than my 550 and it has assloads of gadgets on it. I embrace this new age. Things like launch control, multi-stage traction control, the active sway bars on my car that tense up in a turn and the list goes on. When properly implemented, these things all make the car more fun to drive and they allow an amateur to squeeze near peak performance out of a car that might otherwise be too much for them.
I like traction control. I'm a pussy. I'm cool with it.