ESP ON saved our lives.

[kiwimatt]

As i sit here and type this,i am still in diss-belief of what happen today.I took my girlfriend to her first ultra-sound test today(9 weeks and 1 day pregnent),which is about a two hour drive from my house.All went well,so we start our drive home,a little way into our trip back this subaru forrester cruzers past me and pulls in front.Im not in a rush, so i just hang in behind it.We are now out in the country and things are gettn a bit faster, im still behind him but gettn ready to unleash the thunder on him,when we come up on this truck with about 5 cars in front of it,i take a peek out down past the truck to see if there is any cars coming(typical New Zealand road only two lanes, very narrow),there are cars, but i got it easly, long straight, heaps of time,the forrester has a look to and pulls back in, there is no way he will make it.SO i punch it,and this is where sh!t goes crazy,im coming up on the forrester doing about 150km/h,keeping an eye on the on coming cars,next thing the f@#k'n forrester pulls out to pass the truck as well,spilt second,no where to go doing 150+km/h,i swerve to the outside of the forrester.I am now in a side ways drift!!! at 150 in the grass and stones on the side of the road,i throw the wheel bac the other way and the car, airborn, fish tails bac on to the road,i thought for sure we were gunna roll when the tyres gripped on the road,but it was like the hand of god, the back wheels hit the road and the whole car just gripped and pulled dead straight,once i had pulled straight, i took the truck and 2 of the cars then pulled bac in to the line traffic.It all happened so fast, but it was in slow motion, if you know what i meen, i must of missed that forrester by about 4-5 inches at 150km/h,and missed going completely off the road by about 2-3 ft.This is one of the only times i have NOT turned esp completely off when driving my car,its usually the first thing i do when i get in,i have no dout had it been off, we would have got smoked,the way it pulled straight at that speed was f@#k'n amazing to say the least,so who ever was watching over me, my girlfriend and our kid,i thankyou ,i thankyou very much.

[MooNDoGGie]

Wow I'm glad everything worked out. I hope you had a chat with the driver of the forester later on.

[formerice]

Whew! The only time I turn mine off is at the track or if I want to do a burnout. It has saved my ass a few times, wet roads, driving too fast, the little car with squigglies come on= SLOW DOWN. We get bad winters here and it has kept me out of some bad situations. ESP is responsible for saving a bunch of us, no doubt.

[joseph]

I never turn off my ESP, unless I have to make a quick turn and I know that if the ESP is on it will pull the throttle back and prevent me from moving fast when turning to avoid slowing down the incomming traffic, then when I'm done hauling a$$ I put the ESP back on, never know when it will save your a$$.
Now we know it works well as it saved your a$$ from a certain deadly crash.
Bet your adrenaline was pumping hard all the way home and then some

[Pale Rider]

I, like so many, have experienced that "hand of God" feeling, when in the rain, and on an on ramp, and intentionally pushing it to have fun. I have never had to feel it by "accident".

I have a feeling, that "hand of God" feeling you had may have been more than esp.

Glad to know you're OK.

Any damage to the underside from going off road/airborne?

[Electrofreak]

Yike, that's pretty crazy! Good to hear it turned out alright!

I often turn mine off when I want to launch hard from a stop light, like the one in front of the ramp onto the expressway every day. I love launching hard from the light and charging down the ramp so that I'm going the same speed as the traffic when I hit the expressway.

Problem is most of the time I forget to turn it back on again. Despite that, remember that ESP, unless you have an SRT, never shuts off completely. The button just changes the threshold at which it activates. With ESP ON, the car will react to even minor loss of traction or fishtailing, enables torque management (tries to keep you from spinning your tires), and generally interferes whenever you're not driving like a saint. With ESP OFF, it just enables when the car is obviously out of control or in imminent danger of a roll-over.

So even with ESP OFF, it probably still would have kicked in to pull your butt out of the fire, as it sounds like the car definitely was in a bad position. However, having ESP ON might have helped prevent the situation from being even worse, who knows.

I read somewhere that tests have shown that ESP is more valuable in that sort of situation than years of professional driving experience. ESP can react faster than we possibly can, and it can do so with precision and a degree of control that simply isn't possible for us. Not to mention that there is no way we can control braking all 4 tires individually as the car is spinning out of control. It really is amazing technology and half the reason I bought my Magnum.

[ChargerGirl]

Glad everything's okay. But gotta ask, why are you driving aggressively with a pregnant woman in the car?

[kiwimatt]

Glad everything's okay. But gotta ask, why are you driving aggressively with a pregnant woman in the car?

yea good call chargergirl, i was just taking it easy until that one over take,but you are right, im glad i learnt from this and will not be putting them in unessersery danger again,i still dont know how we mananged to drive away from that it was so heavy,i did slow down up the road so the forrester could catch , but it wouldnt come any closer than about 200m behind me.When it finally caught me up i was like right, im gunna stop this fool and have words,then i see in my mirror its and 16-17 year old school girl!!! i think she proberbly had the sh!t scared out of her enough and kept on driving.

[kiwimatt]

I, like so many, have experienced that "hand of God" feeling, when in the rain, and on an on ramp, and intentionally pushing it to have fun. I have never had to feel it by "accident".

I have a feeling, that "hand of God" feeling you had may have been more than esp.

Glad to know you're OK.

Any damage to the underside from going off road/airborne?

no ,no damage at all,just to brown stains on the seats!

[ChargerGirl]

Yeah, most times people aren't picking a fight and its not personal, they are just dumb! I'm trying to cool it with my aggressive behavior. Its hard, but its more important not to get in an accident.

[Paradog]

Matt I am glad to hear you, your love, and your child are okay. ESP did help you... just remember the lesson!

[sixsicksheep]

No damage to the car? You got lucky. I forgot to turn the esp back on and about 30 min. ago I took a turn too fast and fishtailed off the road. I think I destroyed a rim, but not sure right now it's too dark. I'm going to have to check in the A.M. Hopefully it's just a tire.

[hemiwagn]

kiwimatt, I got the chills reading that story. So glad to hear you are okay.
thanks for sharing -- lesson for everyone in there

[kiwimatt]

kiwimatt, I got the chills reading that story. So glad to hear you are okay.
thanks for sharing -- lesson for everyone in there

hey thanks man,thanks to everyone that has replyed,i wasn't going to post this story but i think things like this, may make people think twice, before they do something thats 50/50 when other peoples lives are on the table.

[LowGo]

I often turn mine off when I want to launch hard from a stop light, like the one in front of the ramp onto the expressway every day. I love launching hard from the light and charging down the ramp so that I'm going the same speed as the traffic when I hit the expressway.

Just curious... you really notice a difference with an AWD turning ESP off to charge down an onramp? The only time I've had ESP kick in is when taking some very tight corners really fast.

You must have some really short onramps there too!