VDC questions

[370Z/28]

As most of you know....I'm pretty old school as far as my automotive knowledge goes so VDC is new to me. I keep mine on all the time. Sometimes I like to corner hard and I have noticed a little light on my dash that is a car with 2 squiggly lines behind it. I'm figuring that means the the VDC has kicked in to keep me from sliding. OK now...this happened the other day. I was approaching an "orange" traffic light and since I was in a happy mood, instead of stopping I threw it in 3rd and punched it and that light came on. Does that mean that if I hadn't had the VDC on that at a 45 mph punch I would have broken the tires loose?

[Mudgen]

Possibly. You don't weigh as much as most of us.

I keep it turned off because on my VDC equipped turbo Subies, when you were at the limit in a corner and went to stand on it to shoot out, the VDC would sometimes dump the throttle, which can be a nasty surprise in that situation. I don't know if the G (or 370Z) will do that, but I don't want to find out.

[joe603]

I also keep mine off except in rain, night, and highway conditions. Here's some info for ya:

TCS (squiggly lines) has to do only with Traction Control.

VDC (slip indication) has to do with both Traction Control and vehicle Dynamics like unwanted side to side movement when the vehicle steps out of the line of intended path. VDC looks at steering angle inputs, throttle inputs and braking inputs as well as YAW. VDC is what you want when driving on icy road or roads that are slippery. Traction is what you want when you are accelerating and don't want wheel slippage.

[Mudgen]

I also keep mine off except in rain, night, and highway conditions.

+1 on rain and other slippery conditions. I leave it off at night and on the highway. Exit ramps are one of my favorite places to take it to the edge of drifting.

[kmckis1029]

the VDC will cut throttle... sometimes when you want the throttle, like a hard/fast left hand turn to merge onto a busy street... so i ride with it off most of the time and let my AWD do the work.

But i have experimented with the VDC and its very good at keeping the car on your intended line. Its pretty amazing to see it clean up your mistake.

[370Z/28]

K....it is all amazing to the old school folk. Who would have imagined in the 60s/70s that a 6 cylinder would have 332hp, sound good and get 19.7 mpg??? Who would have thunk it?

The 440 6bbl my first hubby and me had got 6 mpg.

[weatherfox]

How do you turn off traction control? Are VDC and TC two different switches (07 G35X). Thank you!

[audtatious]

You only have the option to turn off VDC via the button on the left. This disables both VDC and TC.

[audtatious]

VDC is what you want when driving on icy road or roads that are slippery. Traction is what you want when you are accelerating and don't want wheel slippage.

The only problem is that VDC will continually degrade power until the tires stop slipping. This is not necessarily a good thing when you are trying to get up a hill (in snow) as it will effectively kill your forward momentum and get you stuck. It's happened twice in the sedan with the Hankook AS tires in a couple inches of snow. Has not happened yet with the ContiExtreme DWS.

[weatherfox]

Thanks audtatious!