when to use Traction Control?
 

I want to start off by saying I have a L99 2012 SS .... 100% of the time I drive around and do not mess with the Traction Control / Stabilitrak / etc. On Mothers Day ... I was crusing around with my Mom who owns a Honda Accord. She noticed the buttons and said that on nice days I should probably be hitting that button once to disable traction control to save the brakes, etc. Does this make sense. What do you guys do?

Are you routinely using enough power that you are activating traction control?

Your Mom told you to turn off the Nannies?

I very very very rarely turn mine on during normal driving. If your not losing traction (you would see the light come on the dash that it is activating) it's not in use.

In short" "Mama's wrong again!"

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/UfC4u5GCy3I/hqdefault.jpg

I thought traction control just cut power...not applied the brakes.

I ride with all of them off, but that's just me. I do not like to have my power cut if i should ever need it.

IIRC, the TC will only chop the throttle on a fly-by-wire car.

The stability control is the system that applies the brakes individually.

Unless you have some experience driving a 400hp+ rwd car at it's limits, you would be safer to just leave them all on.

Once you go to a high performance driving school, then you can play with buttons.

I've roadraced a bit, and autoX's a bunch, but I still leave these systems on for normal street driving. Simply because I'm not going to use them anyhow so why play with the buttons.

that's how it worked on my last Mustang.

Until you push it to where the nannies are active, the system is totally static, and not affecting your brakes in the slightest.

Sort of like a a parachute on a dragster: driving around with the parachute packed in the bag does not slow the car down, or produce drag... until the thing is doing 300 MPH and the driver pops smoke. Your traction control sits there doing nothing until your tires are spinning, you are sliding, or otherwise breaking traction.

That's my understanding as well, and if you are just driving normally (no high-speed starts or cornering) I don't think either one comes into play. I only deactivate them once in a while to have extra fun.
:)

(Sorry... Mama's wrong).

I leave mine on. My understanding is that it doesn't kick in until you get to the edge of the envelope.

What McRatt said, period.

Thats like saying don't use your turn signals or you will use up all your blinker fluid