[stoffi]

â€"What would he be imagining..? I don't get it.

Driving with the ESP off will allow you to do a lot more than with it on.
When it comes on you'll lose momentum, since it's trying to correct whatever "mistake" you just did.

I have it off all-year round, unless it's totally icy. I find that it interferes more than it helps.
I mean, unless you have the Haldex uprate, the TT is more fun in the snow than it is on the dry â€"with the ESP off, of course.

 

[Black Knight]

â€"What would he be imagining..? I don't get it.

Driving with the ESP off will allow you to do a lot more than with it on.
When it comes on you'll lose momentum, since it's trying to correct whatever "mistake" you just did.

I have it off all-year round, unless it's totally icy. I find that it interferes more than it helps.
I mean, unless you have the Haldex uprate, the TT is more fun in the snow than it is on the dry â€"with the ESP off, of course.

I'm saying the ESP light flickers when ESP interferes. If he did not see it flicker then he is imagining that ESP did something to make him "fight for direction" or "understeer less".

ESP works very nice on corner entry. If you could somehow have it on for corner entry and off for corner exit it would be great. You'd be able to enter the corner really hot, steer into, get some understeer, ESP would start braking the inner rear wheel and correcting understeer and also it would be in a way trail braking(with only the rear inner) into the corner - very nice. It just sucks on exit where sometimes it reacts to small oversteer and the reaction is usually to cut power because you're oversteering with power - but this happens only with slower corners. This is what annoys me too.

Anyway, I've seen many people here claim that there is less understeer with ESP off. And that claim is completely false. ESP does not change the balance of the car, that's insane. Infact ESP corrects understeer and pretty good I might add only it kinda slows the car down a bit perhaps but if you entered the corner too hot and understeered out of the bend then you can't really blame it for slowing you down a bit and correcting your direction.

ESP does interfere to stop oversteer, but I can't really see how this would translate into having more understeer? If you can't powerslide out of a corner does that mean there is more understeer now? It seems people throw around these claims and others agree with them and they're all into the 'I turn ESP off as soon as I start the engine' thing. I'm sure some of you know what you're doing but I'm also sure some are just imagining to know and I don't really want to motivate the second group into driving with ESP off all the time.

ESP can be a life saver. I'm sure you'd make a better lap time without it, but when you're not all-out racing, but just driving along, talking with your passenger or on the phone or thinking about something or whatever, and some pedestrian or car turns up in front of you out of nowhere - you'll be glad to have ESP on. It happened to me and I'm very sure ESP is what kept me on the road. You can diss it all you want but it is proven the level of directional control the ESP provides with individual braking is impossible to achieve manually. So, yea, it might make you slower on a track day and by all means - turn it off then, but for most road driving it's better left on.

 

[macdaddy]

Does anyone have any personal exp of the Haldex upgrades ?

I'm tempted to go for the Orange Haldex but the more i read the less i'm considering it. Now dont get me wrong i like to drive "spirited" 99% of the time, But i don't want to be backwards out of a corner because the Orange has caused too much oversteer.

This is making me think that the Blue Haldex would be ample,

The Orange keeps the diff engaged under braking which i thought would be better , but apparently this just makes the back end step out. Not what i want really on a public road.

Any opinions would be helpful as i'm really unsure which one to go for.

 

[HighTT]

Black Knight is right.

I went on a manufacturer's (wet) track & vehicle dynamics day recently
where they were demonstrating stability control programmes.

The punters drove a mixture of FWD & 4WD cars on coned courses , doing various tests, with and without the electronic systems helping.

On the track we were driven round by GT3 & Touring Car racing drivers
who switched the systems on and off with one hand whilst steering with the other hand (generally sideways) in the corners (at physics defying speeds :wink .

We also spent a lot of time driving on a wet track (with instructors beside us) and I have to say that when we were encouraged to press on faster than my ability and/or confidence thought was prudent for the conditions, the systems were amazing at correcting situations where probably I would have just lost it.

My own track car has no aids at all (I don't even run a brake servo; easier trail braking) and I love driving it to and on and sometimes beyond the limit; but on the road you never know when that emergency might happen and that's when I think that the systems will probably cope better than most drivers.

 

[stoffi]

Black Knight, I definetely agree with you on the ESP-thing.

Yes, it'll save my butty in most situations, but it has also almost gotten me killed a few times. Allow me to elaborate:

Most of the time, whenever you need to avoid an accident, the reaction is to apply the brakes and steer out of trouble.
However, sometimes you're already past that moment, such as if you've entered an intersection and you see how a large truck with timber is gonna t-bone you in just a second or two.
Applying the brakes at this point will kill you, as the truck will hit you. The only thing to do is to apply full throttle on high revs to get out of the way, so if you need to shift down â€"do it.
Having the ESP on in this situation would cut the power when you pop the clutch on high revs, since it would include wheelspin. Look at stripracing for the quickest takeoff-techniques.

I've gotten out of many life-threatening situations because I had it off, that's why I said that I feel that it interferes more than it helps.
In addition, it forces me to be more alert when driving â€"especially in the winter, while having it switched off... â€"but you're right,
for average driving around town; especially while seated with a gansta-one-hand-on-steeringwheel-slightly-hanging-over-the-gearbox-pose,
it'll definetely help out. I don't know how many times I've seen "cool guys" in powerful Beemers and Porsches streetracing on town.
Come corners, I spy with my little eye that they don't know what they're doing. So yes, ESP and programs alike help a lot of people.

On my dad's Cayenne Turbo, however, I don't find whatever program they have on it to be as much of a nuiscance as the ESP on the MK1 TT. I guess it's just an older system.

HighTT: what cars were you driving? Were you driving with the MK1 TT, testing the ESP-system? Porsche's systems, for instance, are quite different. What "manufacturer's (wet) track & vehicle dynamics day" was it?

 

[Black Knight]

Black Knight, I definetely agree with you on the ESP-thing.

Yes, it'll save my butty in most situations, but it has also almost gotten me killed a few times. Allow me to elaborate:

Most of the time, whenever you need to avoid an accident, the reaction is to apply the brakes and steer out of trouble.
However, sometimes you're already past that moment, such as if you've entered an intersection and you see how a large truck with timber is gonna t-bone you in just a second or two.
Applying the brakes at this point will kill you, as the truck will hit you. The only thing to do is to apply full throttle on high revs to get out of the way, so if you need to shift down â€"do it.
Having the ESP on in this situation would cut the power when you pop the clutch on high revs, since it would include wheelspin. Look at stripracing for the quickest takeoff-techniques.

Buh, I have V6 DSG, I don't have clutch dumping problems

I do have delayed downshift problems in exactly the same situations(people have complained, they even named the phenomenon - the delay of death).. but anyway, if I'm in sport mode I can't really say ESP interferes a lot in those situations.. ESP hardly cuts power when accelerating straight ahead.. it usually does cut poer when you're turning and powering and about to lose the tail or already lost it and then it cuts power pretty abruptly and yes, that is annoying, but it only happens if I really trash it around in the wet.

 

[stoffi]

Well, I haven't driven a V6 with DSG, so I wouldn't know about the characteristics of driving one.
However, with a manual 225 the ESP does interfere if you're going on the straight and poppin' da' clutch at high revs,
since it includes wheelspin. You're best 0-60 scores won't arrive with the ESP turned on.

 

[Black Knight]

I can't really tell, the only way I can dump the clutch is with launch control, and for that to work you need ESP off.. With ESP on it won't launch control..

ESP does interfere with straight line acceleration but not so abruptly.. more like traction control on FWD cars.. it also brakes individual wheels that lost grip(EDL) which kinda feels like it's cutting power slightly.. I've never got an abrupt power cut while launch... I do often get them while taking a corner and it feels horrible, like hitting a wall..

 

[matteeee]

Does anyone have any personal exp of the Haldex upgrades ?

I'm tempted to go for the Orange Haldex but the more i read the less i'm considering it. Now dont get me wrong i like to drive "spirited" 99% of the time, But i don't want to be backwards out of a corner because the Orange has caused too much oversteer.

This is making me think that the Blue Haldex would be ample,

The Orange keeps the diff engaged under braking which i thought would be better , but apparently this just makes the back end step out. Not what i want really on a public road.

Any opinions would be helpful as i'm really unsure which one to go for.

I have the blue (even though my unit is grey, they only downloaded the "blue software" into mine at Haldex)..
I asked my father who asked Jyrki (the guy who made the Haldex upgrades - ok there are other manufacters out there, but the "real ones")
It is NOT 100% locked. It is 100% engaged, meaning it transfers some torque even when breaking.

So, if you drive 99% "spirited", go for the orange! It wont get you rear-ending out of every corner.
Talk to the dealer and make them let you try a car (or try the orange in your car even?) and find out yourself if you like it..!

 

[pinotattt]

I've got the Blue Haldex and found the following article

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1726315

 

[matteeee]

I've got the Blue Haldex and found the following article

http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=1726315

Just a load of BS..!
The very single person who developed these told my father what I said earlier about the orange unit. (of course, this maybe was true in 2004 when the text was posted..?)
But the answers are crap also!
The R32 and TT 3.2 has the same setup as all TTs. (However in 2003 the hardware and ECU were changed, but the software controlling ecerything works the same, no change).
The PreX does not exist in any VAG (Audi, VW etc) car. Volvo was the first to adapt this system in the XC90 V8, and later in the S80 (new version) also with a V8 enginge. Now all Volvos with AWD has the PreX-version. No Audis or VW do (Audi use exactly the same setup as VW due to less develop costs)
A Subaru-guy in that forum says "These systems have been used on volvo's ( i believe ) tuning apps" which is totally wrong. Volvo does not approve Haldex to sell this tuning to customers (due to warranty issues). My father though had a different software in his 2002 S60 AWD, previously owned by the CEO at Haldex in Landskrona. So, it has been tested, but never applied anywhere.