How to Drive in Snow on Hilly Roads - Traction Control Does Not Always Help

I watch this every year to remind myself.

Not a clue luv it

Maybe if you had more fuel in your tank the extra weight could help

Traction Control does not directly create traction. It just reduces power to a wheel to help keep it from spinning. If there is no resistance between the tire and the road surface such as with a patch of ice the wheel will not spin because power has been greatly diminished to that wheel but the vehicle may not move either since there is reduced power to the wheel since it would only spin without any traction which is not created with Traction Control. A great tip that truck drivers use in icy conditions is to drive the vehicle in manual shift mode if possible and manually downshift using the engine to slow the vehicle and use the brakes as little as possible because even the slightest tap of the brakes under no traction conditions can seed the vehicle into a skid and control loss.

The worst ever is Seattle Snow. Steepest Hills ever with temperatures near freezing where there are 4 different layers of snow slush ice & freezing rain. Everyone that moves hear from Back East thinks they are an expert until they drive in the 1st snow here.

The most annoying thing i saw in the video was that you had to do through multe menus to turn it off. I'm glad I still got one button on the dash to hit.

Wow! I believe I have traction control on my car and I'm losing so much speed up the snowy hills! I know I have that symbol of a sliding car, and a button that says "trc off", so I guess that should mean I have it, right? I started wondering about this button as I was struggling up these crazy hills. I really ned a 4wd, but if I don't have to get a new car, that's the best.....I'll try with trc off and new tires first. Great video, thanks!

My drivers manual says to turn traction control off when going up a steep wet surface or when driving in mud. I'm in Australia

Buy a subaru and even with all season tires u will go right up the hill but it was a good video

My dinky little car (Fiat 500 <3 ) gets stuck EVERYWHERE haha. I just tried turning my esc off in my car and am amazed at how much easier it was to get it unstuck this morning!

I like how he’s doing this on empty.

How do you lock your brakes up and slide with abs

I got stuck on the bottom of a hill in near complete icy conditions with all season tires. I swear I tried everything to get unstuck. The only thing that worked was two big men pushing my little car from behind until I had enough momentum to get out of there.

The lesson here is, while there are plenty of ways to keep and regain traction, ultimately your tires matter way more than anything else. Don’t be an idiot like me and try to drive in a mountainous region with icy conditions unless you have winter tires or chains. It does not really matter if you have AWD or 4WD if you don’t have the right tires

This is a dangerous video because you don't mention when abs should be allowed to kick in. You CAN steer with locked up wheels with abs. In a panic stop you should NOT pump brakes.

Thank you for this! Still figuring out driving in snow in the Colorado winter.

Hi, Great Video! Unusually We've just had -Jan-2023 here in North West UK -about 8 inches of sudden unexpected snow fall here where I live plus the roads where I live have so far not been gritted! ( I think the snow is deeper in other UK areas.) We've got a few fairly steep road hills nearby and will be using a front wheel drive only BMW (18i petrol) X1 to get the vehicle up the hills. This vehicle DOES have a Traction Control button (TC) that I've I never used! I needed a brain refresher on how the TC works and having watched your video, it is explained and demonstrated very well... just the job! Many Thanks for posting! 🙂

Yup, keep everything smooth

Start out in second gear.

You ran through that stop sign didn't you? 🤣

I switch to lower gear !

Relays in a Dodge caravan 2006 I need a pictures

Second gear or third gear not first

I bet it would be easier in a car with a manual box

It's actually better to not let it spin any more than necessary. You have best traction in edge of when it's starts to slip. Especially in icy conditions. If you have four wheel drive with locks on differential, it would make sense to let some wheel spin in snowy conditions. Yeah most traction control systems are crappy enough that it's better to do manually.
If you could lock you differentials from spinning wheels, that would make things a whole lot easier. Since when wheel starts spinning, differential will make it so that only tire that has less traction will spin.
I live in area that costantly had icy roads. And everything I said is based on my experience.

This is great, but what If it’s like Seattle in the snow? Everyone thinks we’re incompetent because of little snow days, but…we’ve very, very steep hills with 2-3 inches of ice right below 1/4 “ of snow. Regular snow is simple. We’ve just ice and hills. Will this work?

The traction control isn't the fault, it's that you only have two wheels driving the vehicle forward, once they lose traction, your solution is to power out of the loss. This turns the road below to ice as you compress the snow. Sure turn the mode off, but high gears are the best solution or 4x4

If you have lower gears below D (drive) and/or the M (manual) option, shift down. That can help you with traction going up a snowy hill too. In that last situation, I would be in 1 (first gear).

Thanks! My neighbor was stuck on a little nothing of a snow covered hill in a 2wd Jeep and this will perfectly explain what happened to her.

Does wheelspin when starting on a hill cause the transmission to overheat? I mean the torque converter probably doesn't see much of a resistance, but what if you do it for 5 -10 minutes?

Disabling traction control is nice way to polish the snow, ice, and mud under the tire and to move torque to the wheel with the least grip. That's why I rarely disable it.

Put the car in neutral going downhill so that there's no force other than gravity pushing you downhill.

Put some Gas in it, lol

I should've watched this video 2 weeks ago. I was stuck on not even a hill, but a slightly sloped road. I had my traction control on and at the time I wasn't even cognizant of it cuz it's been always on by default. I couldn't go any inches at all so I backed up all the way down to the bottom of the slope, and forced my car, fighting off traction control lol. was going like 3~5 km/hr, created some traffic jam behind me.

1. Start car.
2. Turn off "traction
control".
3. Drive, understanding that traction while braking, is compromised by turning and turning traction is compromised by braking.

Not so easy to remember to not hit the breaks, when there are cars on sides 😂

That was kind of exciting! I drove in the alps in my 20s but have been low snowfall flat land since.

Get a wrangler. Problem solved 👍

Traction control will control thr wheel spin. Unfortunately this vehicle has the words traction when he switches off the stability program. This kills the power to wheels, so you cannot go to quick. Tc will help if you use the revs around 2000rpm. I have used tc in snow, ice, wet grass, sand, mud ,gravel in 2wd cars and in 4wd cars. Turning tc off in the cars I've used is not possible. It is a button or a System to turn off stability programs. Tc does help. It just depends how the manufacturer has designed the car.

Lol

The Russian's never seem to use your techniques..... What, with a little ice, a little snow
and a little. vodka, what could possibly go wrong????

my car doesn't have traction control haha

This right here is why I stay my ass in Florida

Who here from east Texas 😂 Feb 17, 2021

ohhh man that happened to me today i got stuck on three separate hills ... i had to reverse my way down ... i didnt know i had to shut off traction control.... i put it on 4x4 and it didnt do jack .... as a matter of fact my front tires locked and only the rears were spinning... i have no idea how i was able to get the front tires to unlock but i did and was so glad i made it home without getting my truck towed ..

I always turn off the traction control in snowy conditions. It's good for dry roads and rain puddles but useless in the snow.

U cut it at the stop sign, show us stopping

Helps if you put it in neutral

What a long way to turn off esp :D it should be simply one button on dash.