Yikes!!! 1999 E300 in snow!! - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

braverichard · #1 12-04-2005, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

No offense but you need a little more practice driving in the snow. E300D's are great in the snow. My friend and I drove around in his all last winter in some really bad conditions and never had a problem. He had 60% gone Conti's on it at the time. ESP helps a lot but just learning how to drive it and keeping off the turbo is the best.

He keeps the car up a Uconn in upstate CT, they get a heck of a lot of snow. He passed many a stuck SUV.

What year is your friend's E300D and does it have ESP from what you know?

Just because a vehicle is an SUV doesn't mean it will always been good in snow... rear wheel drive SUVs can actually be worse than our rear wheel drive cars due to the large tires. I've seen too many of them stuck on snow around here.

Hatterasguy · #2 12-04-2005, 09:03 PM

98 E300D and it does have ESP, I think it has ASR as well.

ESP is nice when you shut it off you notice the difference.

We passed a Ford SUV with 4wd badges on it. The owner had taken a corner to fast thinking that since he had 4wd he can go as fast as he wants. The truck rolled over stop sign and became stuck in someones front yard. We passed him and laughed.

braverichard · #3 12-04-2005, 09:10 PM

But that renders what you posted before completely useless because your friend can get around due to the fact that he has both ASR and ESP. The Mercedes ESP system can't really be "shut off" and the switch that makes you think you're shutting it off doesn't actually do that. It disables the engine-torque-reduction capability and thus reduces the computers' intervention capabilities to about 20%. But even at that, when the system detects that it is needed, it will step in and reactivate the engine-torque-reduction control mechanisms and then once it feels that it is no longer needed, it goes back to the 80% mode. With all that in mind, an ESP equipped Mercedes-Benz vehicle never moves without ESP (unless the light is on and the system is malfunctioning or something).