Thread: Driving in snow
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      01-18-2013, 10:54 AM   #14
ovekvam
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bradbury View Post
The traction control isn't all about stopping the wheels from spinning while accelerating. It also helps you control the car when it goes sideways. Even at 60 km/h it's pretty scary when the car goes into an unplanned slide, and in those situations I want the electronics to kick in as soon as possible.

At these speeds and higher you will hardly ever experience that you don't have enough forwards momentum to get up a hill. Should this ever happen, then switching DTC on could help you. But leaving it on for all driving on snow, that is just begging for an accident to happen. Unless of course you've got mad skills.
But in Traction Mode, the stability control is still activated, and with decent winter tyres you have quite a lot of grip on snow anyway. It takes quite a bit of provoking to set the car up sideways. When the car senses that you don't correct the slide, it will still cut the throttle to help you.

If you enter a corner a bit too fast in regular mode, the car is less likely to make it around than in traction mode, as the car will not allow enough slip angle to get maximum grip. BMW could just as well have named the traction mode "Snow" of "Gravel", as it has settings optimized for a loose surface.

I think the traction mode is safer on snow than regular DSC even for rookies.

Personally, I prefer the DSC completely off, but I don't recommend that to others.
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