Traction Control Audi S8 (cant be disabled?)

[SilverS8]

This morning was the first for this winter with below 0 temperature so some roads was pretty icy.

I have been looking forward just to test how the S8 would do in sideways action so i turned off ESP(and thought like on other cars the Traction control would also be disabled) and floored it around a nice smooth corner..

WHAT? still got traction controll?

Is there no way to turn of the Traction control for those fun moments?

[ainarssems]

Take out ABS fuse? It works on many cars not sure about A/S8 as mine is PF without ESP or TC. As far as the ESP goes I do not think button turns it off completely just makes it less intrusive. If you take out ABS fuse ESP does not know what is going on with wheel speeds so it does not work.

[HPsauce]

The manual for my PF S8 is pretty clear that there's no Traction Control (ASR) when the ESP is switched off - not that I've actually ever been tempted to try it.
It even suggests specific circumstances when this might be helpful to do, and obviously says turn it back on ASAP.
(ABS still works of course)

I think later models only have a "reduce" button, not an "off" but I'm not sure when that came in.

[ainarssems]

Or you can try to change ECU coding to tell it there is no ESP in car. That would be change from 11753 to 11653

[SilverS8]

Thank you for all the replies

I gotta figure out something since i want the ESP working 95% of the time. its just for the few times when the kid inside me awakes.

Maybe some sort of switch for the ABS fuse would do the trick but at the same time the ABS can be pretty nice to have when you find out this was not the best place to have fun and need to stop asap

[Nollywood]

Personally, I wouldn't want to disable TC in an S8. I guess being a family man makes all the difference, but that's just me...

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by Nollywood

Personally, I wouldn't want to disable TC in an S8.

Nor me. When mine was stolen some years ago it was found sideways in a hedge with the strong suspicion that someone on board had wondered what the ESP button did and then pressed it!

[Dezzy]

I have some video of me and my 8 sideways in the snow somewhere and some incar of playing on a roundabout also in the snow, i'm lucky enough not to have any of that electronic gummidge in the old girl.
What i will say tho is the 8 is a big car sideways and takes up a lot of room very quickly also compacted snow forced in between the spokes of the wheels is enough to give you serious wheel wobble

[Singh]

Seriously? The traction control light hardly ever came on when I drove my S8 hard. Turning it off made no difference as quattro still kept everything in shape.

The 335D however was bordering on undriveable in the wet with no traction control on, the other day I was accelerating hard in third at 40 mph in the soaking wet on a slip road in my 320D and it's rear end wiggled a bit, before I even had a chance to think 'oh ****' the traction control had done its thing and I had been controlled. I did a 0-60 log in the RS 6 recently (it did it in 4.4 seconds by the way) it was wet and I had the traction control off, it didn't even wheel spin - not even a little bit with 480 hp launching it hard.

The early pre facelift 4.2 A8 models didn't have traction control at all, it wouldn't stop me buying one family man or not.

Turn the traction control off, but it won't make much difference.

[billblank]

I have no esp button in my pf 97/98 s8 and wondered if it even had tc? answers any one? I think it might have kicked in once but I have reasonable tyres and don't drive like a nobber mostly.

Bill