Traction Control help needed

[H3XME]

The new 250 I picked up is a 2006 IS250 Sport. Not an SR, not an SE-L etc. The spec is a little all over the place but my question is.. 

Being now on third IS250, I haven’t come across this before, ever.

I wanted to turn the Traction Control off earlier. When I press it, the normal orange light comes on in the bottom right corner of the instrument cluster. However no matter how long I hold the button down for, it wont trigger the VSC and other TC light that would normally be displayed in the middle of the instrument cluster.. 

in both my previous IS250, (‘57 plate and ‘08) the traction control button would have like “double function” you press it once and one TV light comes on, it lets you do a slide, but if you hold it down for ~5 seconds while stationary it turns it off fully and additional lights come on the dash - which is what I did when I did drift days in it.

Can someone please shine some light on this? Is something broken or does this model not have the “hold down” function? 
Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to test what exactly it does when the TC is “off” currently.. but like I said, in my previous cars it wouldn’t even let you do a burnout if you just press it. I had to hold it down for a few sec to turn it off “fully”

yes I am aware of the pedal dance but that’s a little inconvenient and not the point of my what I’m saying here

[BC99]

I read earlier models required doing something with the pedals to turn it off rather than just pushing the button.

[H3XME]

10 minutes ago, BC99 said:

I read earlier models required doing something with the pedals to turn it off rather than just pushing the button.

Must be the case then. It's the pedal dance I was on about. I'll also see if it had something to do with it being in the valet mode - I locked myself out of the boot when swapping the glove box to black. Forgot to plug the connector back, but I've done it on my lunch earlier. 

 

 

[Lex_utor]

I have a 2005 and I thought I had turned TC off before. Maybe I didn't then. But I definitely didn't do any pedal dance. I gave up turning it off for normal driving. Because it wouldn't stay off once you turned the car off and I just forget to turn it off again every time I drive. Maybe the reason why is that it was never off, because I didn't do the pedal dance. Later on I will try again and see how mine behaves and report back.

But can I just say it's good to see you back in the IS250 game. 🙂

Another manual?

[H3XME]

26 minutes ago, Lex_utor said:

I have a 2005 and I thought I had turned TC off before. Maybe I didn't then. But I definitely didn't do any pedal dance. I gave up turning it off for normal driving. Because it wouldn't stay off once you turned the car off and I just forget to turn it off again every time I drive. Maybe the reason why is that it was never off, because I didn't do the pedal dance. Later on I will try again and see how mine behaves and report back.

It will be off to an extent when you just press the button. I haven't had a chance to do anything to try how much it will let you do as the clutch is almost dead (not slipping yet, but it's not far from it).

I can only compare this to the GT86 and my old IS250 as the TC worked exactly the same on both cars. When you press the traction control button, it lights up on the instrument cluster. - That's fine. However, the GT86 and I believe the previous IS250 would turn the TC back on automatically if you went over 30mph. And in this " one press mode", it would also only let you do one slide until it's turned on again - automatically. So to prevent this, I would have to stop the car, hold down the TC button for 5-10s until additional lights came on the dash that disabled VSC and TC fully. This is not the case in this 2006 (made in late 2005) car.. you can only press it once and it makes no difference if you hold it down for 2mins, it won't do anything else.

Like I said, I'm going to have to go somewhere on a bit of grass so I can try to do donuts or something without putting strain on the clutch. If it lets me do everything, it's fine. If not, I will have to start doing the pedal dance when I want to drift it. 

26 minutes ago, Lex_utor said:

But can I just say it's good to see you back in the IS250 game. 🙂

Another manual?

Yeah, manual dude! Only paid £1500 for it on Saturday last week. it was on something like 71,996 miles before I drove 150 miles home. Runs smooth, it's got a K&N intake, some weird aftermarket exhaust which I'm getting replaced by an exhaust shop tomorrow - I'm having Jap style 6" mufflers with 5" tips on - should look very similar to the HKS exhaust I had on my old one. The interior was bad in this, cream cloth, but I already swapped everything to black leather - rear seats, door cards, scuff plates, glovebox, lower dash under the steering wheel, arm rest and 2015 IS300h front leather seats. It looks a lot better now. Last thing I need to do is dye the carpet black. I have some black fabric dye left from when I was dying the headliner in my previous one. Works a treat. 

[AFlex]

On 11/27/2022 at 9:19 PM, H3XME said:

The new 250 I picked up is a 2006 IS250 Sport. Not an SR, not an SE-L etc. The spec is a little all over the place but my question is.. 

Being now on third IS250, I haven’t come across this before, ever.

I wanted to turn the Traction Control off earlier. When I press it, the normal orange light comes on in the bottom right corner of the instrument cluster. However no matter how long I hold the button down for, it wont trigger the VSC and other TC light that would normally be displayed in the middle of the instrument cluster.. 

in both my previous IS250, (‘57 plate and ‘08) the traction control button would have like “double function” you press it once and one TV light comes on, it lets you do a slide, but if you hold it down for ~5 seconds while stationary it turns it off fully and additional lights come on the dash - which is what I did when I did drift days in it.

Can someone please shine some light on this? Is something broken or does this model not have the “hold down” function? 
Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to test what exactly it does when the TC is “off” currently.. but like I said, in my previous cars it wouldn’t even let you do a burnout if you just press it. I had to hold it down for a few sec to turn it off “fully”

yes I am aware of the pedal dance but that’s a little inconvenient and not the point of my what I’m saying here

I have the same model as you but 2007. Never come across any VSC setting. The only thing that TC button does is illuminates this skidding car orange icon on the dash - indicating that the TC has been turned off. Not sure what else you're expecting?

I'll try it out later today and let you know - you just hold for 5 seconds whilst stationary right?

[AFlex]

BTW how the hell did you pick up such a low mileage car for £1500? especially since i'm guessing that the 2006 fell into the old car tax scheme which is based on price/value at new rather than CO2 emissions?

[H3XME]

27 minutes ago, AFlex said:

BTW how the hell did you pick up such a low mileage car for £1500? especially since i'm guessing that the 2006 fell into the old car tax scheme which is based on price/value at new rather than CO2 emissions?

I don’t know dude. Good deals pop up every now and again. Yeah it’s lower tax bracket and still ulez free😅 it’s got a dent in the wing and clutch needs doing soon but otherwise a straight car

[H3XME]

Update:

I turned the TC "off" with the button on the dash this morning on the way to work, roads were a bit frosty so it was very easy to find out what it'll do. It let me do a little bit of a spin in a straight line, but once you try go in an angle as if to initiate drift, or just pulling out of a corner into a power slide, the VSC kicks in and stops it - car starts braking on its own.

As I suspected, it turns out 2005-2006 models don't have the "two step" Traction Control that can be turned off with the button on the dash. You can only press it once, it will let you do some wheel spin, but vehicle stability control etc is still enabled = NO GOOD.

When I got to work, I tried the pedal dance which is meant to turn everything off. The TC light came on, which is good, but no VSC light like it would on my 2008 IS250. It's yet to be tested, but at least I know the pedal dance does something.

To do the pedal dance you need to do this:

Start the car while holding the hand brake and regular brake
- Hit brake pedal twice while holding hand brake..hold the brake pedal on the second hit 
- Pump the hand brake twice while holding the brake pedal
- Hold it on the second hit and then push the brake pedal twice again
 

[Linas.P]

On 12/3/2022 at 4:57 PM, AFlex said:

BTW how the hell did you pick up such a low mileage car for £1500? 

Manual cars are generally very cheap so it is in ballpark, £1500 is still very good find! Automatic are always almost double.

@H3XME - didn't take you long to get another one ?

[H3XME]

1 hour ago, Linas.P said:

Manual cars are generally very cheap so it is in ballpark, £1500 is still very good find! Automatic are always almost double.

@H3XME - didn't take you long to get another one ?

About a month🤣 

nearly bought one from Croydon but it was £2.2k and 120odd thousands on the clock. So glad this popped up. 

[AFlex]

I thought the reason for the manual being cheap was the ridiculous car tax compared with the auto version - 600 pounds or whatever it is I am paying these days!

I'm pretty sure if you look at a manual BMW 3 series vs the auto, the price differential is nothing like the same.

Perhaps the market is just very uninformed and doesn't realise that 2006 models escape the obscene car tax bracket?

 

PS. H3XME glad you figured it out. Although I am pretty sure I have managed to get the rear end out with TC button pressed only once - I didnt even realise you could press it twice!

[H3XME]

7 hours ago, AFlex said:

I thought the reason for the manual being cheap was the ridiculous car tax compared with the auto version - 600 pounds or whatever it is I am paying these days!

I'm pretty sure if you look at a manual BMW 3 series vs the auto, the price differential is nothing like the same.

Perhaps the market is just very uninformed and doesn't realise that 2006 models escape the obscene car tax bracket?

 

PS. H3XME glad you figured it out. Although I am pretty sure I have managed to get the rear end out with TC button pressed only once - I didnt even realise you could press it twice!

It is part of the reason, you also have to consider clutch job into the purchase of a used car, so it essentially makes it less desirable. 
 

BMWs are a bit more sporty looking I’d say. Not to mention, once you start looking for cars over 2.5L, you’ll start to notice that manuals are rarer. 
 

but yeah, the market is really funny with IS250 and other used pre-hybrid Lexuses in general.. they’re not the cars you’d see everyday so demand is low, people just forget they exist. 
 

I say “press twice” what I actually mean is, instead of pressing it, hold it down for 5-10s while stationary and see what happens😉

it’ll let you skid once and only a little bit when you just press it