raisindot

Compared to my old 2001 Maxima, my 2005 TSX (bought used with 7K miles) is pretty unstable in snow, even under 25MPH. I've fishtailed several times at low speeds even on semi-plowed streets. VSA lights come on a lot. Of course, I'm still using the stock tires. Next fall I will probably replace them with better all-seasons.

LukeaTron

This car has an open differential so by braking the free spinning wheel it prevents all the torque from going to just that tire and thus some of it ends up going to the other wheel. It's not transferring torque at the differential per say, but it is still being transferred.

The VSA doesn't seem to understand the idea of getting stuck while you're not moving. The mechanisms for it to be able to help you get unstuck are there but the software does not utilize them correctly. Instead it just fights you trying to spin the tire and kills most of your power. Your best bet in such a situation is to be very gentle with the throttle so it brakes the spinning wheel but without cutting the power out completely. Basically just try not to spin the wheel to fast.

5o9

Thanks for the tsx observation, that is what I was afraid of

Got to wory about both wheels, so no pulling over to the side of the road then. You will get stuck in some rural area without cellphone service and freeze to death.

kanonen

I honestly do not know how much useful the VSA is...one have to be driving at very high speed some 50% of the time to get something out of the VSA-- on dry conditions that is.

LukeaTron

So I guess you only drive your car on warm sunny days then? It's pretty useful for the rest of us.

5o9

Stability control can save your bacon on dry roads if you are driving like a lunatic. A heard a race pro say that if race cars had stability control, there would be no car racing

I think it is very important on suvs. In the unlikely event your car has a high speed tire blowout, it might do something.

tsxk|d

I live here in Michigan and we have gotten pretty bad storms, so far i love the TSX but i will agreed with must of you the TSX OEM Tires sucks balls! i'm able to keep the car under control but those tires really are a pain. i'm waiting for them to fade so i could get a set of Goodyears. Michellin has let me down, i never had a problem with michellin's until i got my 05 tsx!

kanonen

nope, what i said is that u have to be driving very fast, often and on dry conditions to get something out of the VSA. otherwise on super wet and snow it just deactivates itself!

LukeaTron

WTF are you talking about. You clearly do not understand what this system is doing. At no point will the system deactivate itself without you doing so manually.

kanonen

what does it mean when the VSA blinking triangle appears?

lcrazyaznl

iTrader: (1)

Loss of traction or tires slipping...

kanonen

so the VSA isn't working anymore....may be deactivating itself isn't a correct word, but it isn't contributing to what it is suppose to do.

muncher

the light means it's working -__-
RTFM

LukeaTron

Wow man, you are pretty freaking clueless. If you see that light blinking it means the VSA is actively intervening to keep the car well behaved. So pretty much the exact opposite of what you're saying.

kanonen

wow! how about this: how many of you had the VSA turn on when the car is not sliding on ice/snow (emphasize still sliding/spinning)...ie when cornering on high speed on dry...just how many times?

LukeaTron

You really don't understand what VSA is at all. It is a computer controlled system that will modulate engine power and/or brake individual wheels as needed to maintain traction and yaw control of the car. That's it. It seems you're expecting some sort of magic to happen to make the car go faster or something. It doesn't do anything unless you loose traction. This car is exceptionally good at not doing that on drive pavement so you'd have to be pushing very hard OR be pulling some kind of emergency maneuver to see it do anything on dry pavement.

The point is in, when it kicks in it's generally saving you from yourself so ideally you shouldn't see much of it.

carmagnut

Snowed last night in NY. Under 4 inches. Had to drive 40 min at 8 am. Temp in low 20's. Car handled fine. At no time did the car feel out of control, once you felt yourself start to do a little sliding, human efforts put back into place (i.e braking, accelarating, turning wheel) Only until reading these forums did I ever think the OEM tires sucked but after 3 years with car and a couple of storms car handles just fine. I did have trouble getting out of the guys driveway which had an incline so in the end I had to pull out backwards. The VSA (which is being discussed above) does help the car in a bad situation but the way to avoid most of that stuff is to drive slowly and carefully when the conditions are crappy.

Pea Tear Griffin

Thanks guys...all I needed to know!

Now to choose...TSX or 325xi ....TSX seems like a winner on this board

Thanks again.

kanonen

LukeaTron, spare the "you don't know what you're talking about", it has been 3 messages from you now with that tone...I am not here to get lessons from you. We are adults here, so act as an adult, this is a forum for people asking questions and sharing information not high school bragging about who knows better.
I know what VSA is and does. My simple point is that I do not know how useful it is, if it kicks in only when your tires are already spining on ice/snow. I have personally never had it engaged when "cornering on high speed" as stated by acura. It could be that its functionallity is very scarce (at least on my driving style). And you actually state my point by saying that the car is so good you don't need VSA...exactly!!!

LukeaTron

Ugh. You're coming in and making factually incorrect claims so yes, I am going to correct you. Or perhaps your not but your writing is so difficult to decipher I can't tell.

And please don't misquote me. I did not at all say "the car is so good you don't need VSA". I won't bother reiterating what I did say because you can just read my original post again.

davidspalding

A quick of the OM (p 262, p 65 2007 edition) explains what the VSA does and how. I myself encounter its use frequently on some right turn, uphill, accelerating freeway onramps that I use. Dry or wet, the power that the engine/tranny lays down can be too much for the tire/roadway combination, and VSA flickers. I feel it in the engine power (oscillating a little like aircraft anti-seize braking systems), and in the sudden confidence in steering. Where the car might fishtail or throw pebbles, it grabs a bit more.

So to answer the question, YES, it does activate even in dry conditions. It has done so for me frequently in 18 months of ownership

And FWIW, the original statements ...

... Also indicated to me that you either haven't had VSA come on for you very often (which could be normal for your driving, your driving conditions) and/or you weren't sure how the system worked (which, of course, could be a happenstance of not seeing it come on very often). Sure, Luke wasn't being very gracious or tutorial, but you can't expect everyone here to be Princess Di. I have several runts on my ignore list that prove that we have all kinds here. Make like a duck and let the rain roll off your back, you'll have more fun here.

kanonen

fair...I just didn't have it activated unless my tires were already spinning on ice/snow, which pretty much seemed useless by that time. Not sure if it did come on on dry.
Thanks for you message which made a lot of sense till you hit the Princess Di part, but I am having fun and thx again.

davidspalding

You probably haven't driven in such a way that VSA has kicked in on dry pavement. But it does happen, trust us.

Princess Di = sweet, courteous, gentle
Acurazine users = The complete spectrum from to

kanonen

btw, davidspalding when you say "the sudden confidence in steering" do you mean when the steering stiffens a bit?

baghouse

Thanks for the great info on the tires. Essentially why I joined the group. I love my 06 TSX AT. All has been good, no problems at all. But, has been trying in the snow, esp our slusshy/icy winters in the lower NE. I will be checking out the snow tires option. Otherwise, great car!

davidspalding

Haha, good to know, here in the RTP area of lower NE, I've kept off the roads (WFH) partly to avoid putting my car in peril, partly to avoid getting slush/salt/dirt sprayed on the lower quarters.

darmok

Weird. I must not be the only one not to have any problems in the snow. Even on stock tires the TSX is fine for me. Just remember that in bad conditions you can't drive like you're on dry pavement and hope the VSA will save you. It HAS stepped in several times for me in icy patches mid-intersection and does great to make sure that I keep going the direction I mean to be going. There are several bad intersections around here where I used to have horrible understeer or fishtailing going around a corner in winter no matter how slowly I took it. The TSX just turns right in.

Pea Tear Griffin

Anyone live in the North-East and have a story/comment on the TSX in the snow....since we got dumped on!

The snow started early over here (around 5am) and by mid-afternoon, there was a good 20-25cm on the ground, with pretty much nothing plowed. I couldn't make it to work by car because I basically could not get off my street.

This really makes me want AWD+snows...then again my current daily FWD has all-seasons and is really garbage. I was unable to get up a small hill on my street...I even tried deactivating the TCS, and starting in 2nd (manu-matic), but I was going nowhere fast....something really strange with the TCS system in this car. I hope the TSX isn't like this!...I'm sure that with snows it would be great.

Cheers!

carmagnut

Where I was it was in NY mostly rain after the snow stopped. Car handled fine. Roads had awful weather related potholes though. Car gets abused.

gdcwatt

I recently did some back to back snow tire comparisons between my 06 6MT and a 05 Mazda6 4cyl with 4AT.

At the beginning of their 3rd winter I put my TSX's 205/60-16 Dunlop M3's, still with 8/32 of uniform tread, on the Mazda6: this car has traction control, only. In 4" of mostly virgin snow, I did a 30-count to complete a right hand city turn from a stop sign on a small incline and out of the intersection: there was no way I was going to let anyone else drive this car! With the TC on or off these "performance" snow tires were dangerous in their inability to get the car going. These tires had only ever been good in deep snow when they were new, but I didn't remember them being that bad on the TSX at the end of last winter.

So, I did some testing. I ran the TSX with 225/50-15 Yoko Advan S4s' (8/32" uniform tread depth) and drove into a neighbourgh's driveway, and onto his lawn, when I missed a 90 degree city turn at 10kph (that's about 6mph), because there was just no grip for braking or turning! I slid slowly through the second stop sign I came to, and then painfully couldn't climb a small hill...still with the same 4" of snow around. With VSA on or off, this car was completely useless in the snow. Back to the house.

I put the Mazda6's OEM 215/50-17 Michelin MXM4 (about 6/32" - 7/32" tread depth) rims and tires on the TSX; their inability to contol the car or get it started or stop in the same conditions was dangerous (in particular, leaving me an almost sitting duck in the middle of an intersecton) - as many people here know.

Canadian snow tire inventory this year has been seriously depleted by Quebec demand, so I took what I could find: ultra-cheap Chinese made Champiro WT snow tires, size 205/60-16. I had the Champiro's put on my Motegis, and then onto the Mazda6. I bought some steelies and had the M3's put on the TSX. During the next month, we had several snowfalls, and 6-8" a couple of times. The Champiro's were awesome in deep snow, are very good everywhere else, and are better than the M3's ever where.

The M3's work much better on the TSX than on the Mazda6; theyre not great, but I can at least use the car in 2-3 inches of snow. Given their generally poor snow performance, and mediocre wet traction, I wish I'd bought the M3's in 215/55-16 (to reduce the understeer), or not at all.

Next winter, when the Mazda6's lease is up, the Champiro's will move over to the TSX.

bradykp

i don't have snow tires and i've done a trip to Vermont in a real bad snowstorm and a drive from Hunter, NY to Windham, NY in a few inches. It was slow going, but it was doable. It's tough getting up hills, but if you're used to driving in the snow, it's doable. I would imagine snow tires on this baby would make it pretty sufficient in the snow.