Does the driveway slope down towards the house? Or down towards the road? I wouldn't want an icey driveway sloping downwards into a house, would be bad news if your car started sliding!

That being said, we get a good amount of snow, but my daily commutes aren't too hilly. There's one light I hit sometimes at the bottom of a hill, but other than that I'm usually already moving if there's any uphill driving, so maybe that's why I didn't see much use in turning TCS off.

 

Having TCS off all the time isn't strictly necessary. I just come from such a snowy area that as a general rule I keep it off for the sake of simplicity. My traction control exists in my right foot.

As for the driveway, it slopes down toward the house, but the driveway is offset from the house itself... All you slide back down to is a flat area in front of the garage.

 

How intrusive is this TCS? Yesterday I was turning left on a very icey intersection(not going fast at all) and the car started to understeer a bit not a big deal but then the TCS light turned on and it felt as though someone had just pulled my e-brake half way through the turn because all of a sudden the back end started to swing around in a hurry and I had to counter-steer quite a bit to straighten it out, sort of caught me off guard. Does this sound like the TCS's doing to you?

 

You sure that wasn't also your stability control kicking in? It will apply the in-bound brake to compensate for the understeer and feels like exactly what you mentioned. If your front wheels are spinning AND the BCM determines your car is not heading where you're intending, both will kick in at the same time. I had to push it pretty retarded hard in dry conditions to get this to happen, ice I haven't tried it yet.

 

So I just drove back up to North Bay. Here's the stats, kiddies:

1) It's going to be -23C (-9.4F) here pre-windchill this week.

2) On Highway 11 on the way up, the snowbanks were often 1.5 times the height of my car. Bracebridge got 1+ metre (40+ inches) of snow in 2 days last week.

3) Getting onto my street back home, with the ESC off, I was reminded of just how awesomely easy these cars are to hold in a controlled slide. FWD snow drifts FTW.

4) TCS would have resulted in fail of epic proportions had I kept it on for all the long, snow-covered hills on the highway. Right-foot-TCS = win.

5) Swedish snow tires kick all kinds of ass.

6) My car is now dirtier than a Thai hooker.

7) Perma is a *****

...That is all.

 

If you could help me clear up the difference between TCS and Stability Control I would be gratefull. I am definately not new to sporty/sports cars but I am new to all these new driving aids (my last 2 cars didn't even have ABS lol) and I am definately not new to driving in winter.

 

Sure

TCS
Measures front versus rear wheel speed and will cut power to the front if it detects the front are rotating at a higher rate of speed than the rear. If you sit there in the snow letting it spin with TCS enabled, you'll know when it kicks in; instant loss in power as the throttle is cut. This is also how launch control works; it allows up to 30% wheelspin before starting to apply the front brakes to help counter it and gain you traction.

Stability Control (ESC)
The BCM (body control module) in your car is taking constant inputs from sensors at all times while you're driving. To save on getting retardedly technical, it measures the direction your wheels are pointing against g-force sensors which measure which way you're "actually" going. If the two don't line up the ESC will apply the inbound break (typically the rear) in an attempt to swing your backend back into shape as having more drag on that corner of the vehicle helps it come around.

I think what you felt was the stability control; it applied the inbound break hence why you felt like someone had jacked the e-brake on you to help swing the back end around. The two kicking in at the same time is a little nerve wracking, but GM did a nice job at setting their thresholds for every day driving and when popped into Competitive Mode you can definitely feel the additional leeway they give you .

Hope that helps

You're an *******

 

Stability control is referred to as ESC, electronic stability control.

You can tell when it kicks in, so yes, it's intrusive. However, it's intrusive in a good way. It works very well to help straighten you back out. Without it, you'd likely have developed a much more severe yaw, which could result in a wreck.

 

ESC that's what I was digging for but my brain was turning up a blank; I'll edit my post .

 

That definitely helps I had that tucked away in the back of my mind somewhere just had the two confused lol. Thanks alot for the help

 

No problem; unfortunately you quoted my post with my brain fart SCS instead of ESC