E39 Traction Control
Discussion
Evening all,
I took the E39 for a spirited drive this morning and noticed (whilst playing with a nice 550 on the Rustington bypass) that at higher speeds the Traction control cut in, now I'll assume that it had traction as it wasn't wet/icy etc (about .9 leptons).
Has anyone come across this? It's a 1999 E39 528 Sport btw.
I took the E39 for a spirited drive this morning and noticed (whilst playing with a nice 550 on the Rustington bypass) that at higher speeds the Traction control cut in, now I'll assume that it had traction as it wasn't wet/icy etc (about .9 leptons).
Has anyone come across this? It's a 1999 E39 528 Sport btw.
Cemesis said:
You need to explain alot more. You were flooring it at 90 and the ASC/DSC cut in? What tyres do you have?
Are you saying that it cut in where it wouldn't cut in at a lower speed?
Sorry, yes it was under acceleration, tyres are Pirelli (iirc) it's only under acceleration when it does it, rising at that speed will just drive normally. Are you saying that it cut in where it wouldn't cut in at a lower speed?
ChrisDT said:
Sorry, yes it was under acceleration, tyres are Pirelli (iirc) it's only under acceleration when it does it, rising at that speed will just drive normally.
What is the tyre wear like on the rears compared to the fronts?The reason I ask is because the traction control can start misreading the wheel speed comparison between front and rear wheels if there is a big difference in the tread depth of the front tyres compared to the rears (basically, if the rear tyres are worn right down and the fronts have plenty of tread left it picks up on the fact that the rear wheels are rotating slightly faster than the fronts for the same road speed under acceleration).
It could be that you just hit a damp patch on the road (oil, diesel, coolant or whatever), and the car was just slightly spinning up the rear wheels.
Or another possibility is that one of the wheel sensors is starting to misread.
ChrisDT said:
Tyres are all approx the same depth, could be a possibility that it was just dong it's job properly but just felt strange as I'd never come across it before.
If it's just happened on this one journey then I'd say there was something on the road that triggered the system to operate and not to worry about it too much.If it starts happening on a regular basis then you need to get it looked at.
It kicks in when your wheels lose grip.
This could be because:
a) Your tyres are a bit crappy (Not all strains of Pirelli PZero are any good)
b) The road was greasy
c) There was something else on the road that affected grip
Regardless of how much internet heros like to think anything with less than 400bhp is run of the mill you have a reasonably powerful car and applying full throttle will occasionally result in you breaking traction.
Mine used to cut in far more than I was happy with until I threw away all 4 Dunlop SP Sport 2000E's it rolled out of the factory on and had been subsequently fitted with for its entire life and moved up to some Eagle F1's.
This could be because:
a) Your tyres are a bit crappy (Not all strains of Pirelli PZero are any good)
b) The road was greasy
c) There was something else on the road that affected grip
Regardless of how much internet heros like to think anything with less than 400bhp is run of the mill you have a reasonably powerful car and applying full throttle will occasionally result in you breaking traction.
Mine used to cut in far more than I was happy with until I threw away all 4 Dunlop SP Sport 2000E's it rolled out of the factory on and had been subsequently fitted with for its entire life and moved up to some Eagle F1's.
Fox- said:
a) Your tyres are a bit crappy (Not all strains of Pirelli PZero are any good)
b) The road was greasy
c) There was something else on the road that affected grip
+1b) The road was greasy
c) There was something else on the road that affected grip
Additionally, if you have Pirelli P6000's, it could explain quite a lot. In my experience of the P6000 (which has quite a hard compound), I always used to find that at this time of year they would perform noticeably worse than they had through the summer months. The colder weather and greasy autumn roads combined with the hard tyre compound led to appreciable traction degradation!
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