Strange Traction Control Behavior/activations

You obviously know NOTHING ABOUT ME.

Like for instance, the one and only moving accident that I have ever had was a "rear ender" caused by me following too close........in 1965.
Some people learn from their mistakes and some like to get defensive and make excuses and argue when good advice is offered.

YOU need to work on being able to tell the difference.
Good luck.

 

Sam's right about the following distance. But when I rear ended someone, the trooper who gave me the ticket was a whole lot nicer about it. They won't care why you hit that car, so make sure you allow for surprises.

 

I made a polite, casual suggestion.
I can not control other people's reactions........or OVER-reactions.
You are, in effect, shooting the messenger when the message is good and well intended.

 

That explains it. We're just working from different definitions of polite.

 

I worry that typographical guidelines can only go so far. A nice refined bold font with graceful serifs could still be wielded pretty inconsiderately, were a writer so inclined.

 

Are you going to be the grammar and style police for every post.....or just mine ?
And if that was your intent, my spell checker flagged "realise" and "capitalisation" in your post.
Can we just chill please ?

 

I once nearly ran over a child - their body would have been badly damaged, hitting a square-edged late 1980s Nissan at 50km/h. Looking in my rear-view mirror, they were playing 'chicken', hiding behind a parked truck, and running out (the challenge being to run as late as you dare, so the oncoming car gets v. close but doesn't hit you). I didn't even have time to apply the brakes! The unexpected does happen - however, I would have to drive at 5km/h, and stop at each parked car in the city, checking someone isn't about to jump out on purpose, in order to avoid that risk - any other way, I am driving too fast).

The Prius 'control' system is badly programmed in my Gen 2. My Nissan Leaf has proper traction control, and ABS, also my 200SX, and the many different work cars in the work car pool I drive. The Prius 'lets go' of the brakes and cuts the regen at the slightest slip of the front wheels. I accelerated from 30-35mph once, down a steep hill, because I was braking on the way down, and the 'control' activated on a tiny twig on the road. (note - it may be badly programed if it was meant to be 'ABS' or 'TC' (or electronic stability control), but it might be protecting the HSD in some way, and thus may not be badly programmed).

The take-home message is : If driving certain cars with a tendency to do this kind of behaviour, driver further back than you would appear to need to in any other car - but it is not your fault for being surprised by this particular odd behaviour!

 

This is exactly what I do; on my Gen 2, the re-gen is cut back to the 'simulated engine braking' only, and if I keep the brake applied lightly, it can stay in this mode for tens of seconds. Even releasing the brake and reapplying doesn't reset the regen unless you can release for a few seconds. I brake before and after anything that could trigger the control system, because otherwise I lose a lot of useful regen!

 

Very strange! Just tapping the brakes makes it go into hard braking for short time? I can't imagine what would cause that unless your brakes are really grabby for some reason and your regen isn't working quite right. I can't fathom cold making it worse either. Maybe a sensor or cpu failure, but I haven't a clue..

Yes, that sounds scary, and I can definitely say my car doesn't do that.

 

Why?

 

This. What's happening at this stage is not that it's giving you ABS or TC, but that it is preemptively switching from two-wheel to four-wheel braking so that it will be able to give you ABS or TC if needed in the near future. It's doing a thing the 200SX and most other vehicles in the work pool don't ever have to do, because they don't have a mode where the braking uses only the wheels that steer.

It's not doing that to protect the HSD but to protect you. Really, you want it to switch from two to four wheels at the first hint of a sign that road grip could be hinky. Alternatively, it could be programmed to wait until unmistakably past the point of losing control, and then try to regain it, but that really wouldn't be better (even if it would sound a little bit like our current strategy on climate).

Now the Leaf, it presumably does have a two-wheel regen mode, and also switch from that to four wheels when circumstances warrant, and if Nissan found a way to make that switch less obtrusive, well, that could give Toyota something to strive for. But the comparison to other conventional cars is apple/orange, because it's doing something the conventional cars never have to do.