readingbabelfish

Hi everyone! This is my first post after much research. I just bought a 2007 GCL with the 3.7L and Quadratrac 1. Today northeastern Ohio got hit with a lot of snow, and that's where I live. So I decided to take my new Jeep for a spin in 8" snow throughout our neighborhood. It performed great. I have never had a 4wd vehicle and just traded our Fwd Pacifica in to get the Jeep. The Pacifica would spin its tires and that tcs light would come on with all sorts of clicks and would never really help anything. Not so with the Jeep! The only time the tcs light came on was if I floored the gas from a standstill, or if I floored the gas on some slippery snow. I didn't notice the Jeep doing anything differently between when the tcs light came on or when it was off. (1)What is it doing when this happened? It did try to fishtail a little when I pulled from one slippery road onto another one from a complete stop. (2)Is that to be expected? Not much just a tiny little bit. I came home and researched my owners manual and wkjeeps.com to see what I could learn about the ESP system. I can leave ESP on, turn ESP partial off, or turn ESP fully off. (3)What would each of these settings do for me? From what I could gather is that partial off would allow more wheel spin, and from both sources, that may be desirable if starting from a stop in deep snow. (4)Why would that be desirable? Fully off, which is recommended only for off-road application would disable all ESP functions. (5)Why would this be desirable? Remember, I am new to 4wd, and have no off-road or trail experience. Can somebody please fill me in on these 5 questions!? Thank you all for your time!

motorcity Jeepster

First off, how do you completely disable ESP? On my 2006 Charger SRT8 I could turn ESP all the way off by depressing the ESP button for 7 seconds. It was was distinct from simply disabling ESP by hitting the button once, and it released TONS more HP especially from a start. Plus gobs of smokey burnouts (see attached)
Wonder if I can do that in my 2005 GC Limited.
I need to try this....
BTW - hit the button once to partially disable ESP in all situations where you might encounter snow or slippery situations

readingbabelfish

I hold down the button for like five seconds and a light on the dash announces it is off. I still don't know why you say to turn it off in slippery situations....? I would think I'd want something called traction control ON when I need traction...? Still confused

bmrrwolfe

The problem with ESP is doesn't allow the wheels to spin and get traction, it just shuts down power to prevent slippage, which you need to get going. I almost always drive in 2WD with ESP disabled (although I don't think it ever turned fully off in my 06 KJ) and I also live in NEO although not in the snow belt... What tires are you running?
The right tires make all the difference
And welcome to the Jeep world!

readingbabelfish

I am running the stock tires on it... forterras or something... I just bought it last Sunday and it has 18000 miles, so the tires are in pretty good shape. I haven't had any problems with it accelerating or anything... I just wondered why I would ever want to turn off ESP and TCS. After some research and some helpful posts on this forum, it seems like to start in snow or going up a slippery slope, I would need to turn off the system in order to allow my wheels to spin and continue to do so if I needed to inch up the hill or start accelerating. Thank you all for the help!

motorcity Jeepster

Because the computer nanny will reduce power to the wheel if it senses one of them is, or about to slip. If you're trying to get through snow or slippery stuff (at least on takeoff) you don't wan't power cutoff, you want more power to bust through in true 4WD. The ESP disable (as opposed to completely off) does not turn off traction control, it simply allows more wheelspin up to a point. The yaw control portion is not turned off in ESP disable, and if it goes beyond 30 degrees (I believe) the nanny will re-assert control.
I will try the ESP completely off thing tomorrow. That does quash the nanny control completely (in my SRT8 it did) and allow for 360 burnouts and all that true musclecar jazz.
I always disabled my ESP when going through snow in my Charger. Made it's limited traction much more manageable. In the owners manual it says in deep stuff it says to turn off the ESP anyways.