RT owners… I keep hearing about the Electronic Stability Program, about it being on or off. Is there a switch to turn this on and off? I don’t quite understand the function of this. Can someone explain?

 

On the dash,, in the row of buttons, along with the ones that turn the rear wiper on...far right.
You should see a button that says ESP OFF...press it, and a little icon in you right hand dial guage will light up...shows a cars with squiggly tire marks!

ESP system moniters the speed of each wheel, and if one or the other, alone or in sets, starts to spin faster or slower than the others, it assumes you have lost control...it will apply brakes pluses on each wheel, as needed, till all the wheels are turning at the same speed.

Real quick, you cant tell it is doing it...and, if you stomp the gas from a stand still, and the rear wheels break away and lose traction, it will apply brake pluses to slow them down till the wheel reves match what the on boards say it should be at that throttle position.

Works great in turns..I almost got T boned by a jerk running a red light(new, city sponsered sporting event in Houston, I think!) and I had to weave around his nose at speed,,around 40 mph...the car should have had a lot of body roll and nose dive during this...but it didnt even sway...just went where I steered it, no tire squeal, no skid, I might as well have been doing a left hand turn at walking speed as for how the car was acting...

The ESP off switch allows you to defeat it...weather the DC folks put it there so you can light up your tires, or for some other reason is beyond me.

The ESP program will turn back on by itself, it is the default setting.
When you turn the car off, with the ESP defeated, next time you start the car, it will be back on.

Imagine a really smart ABS/ traction control system....
Ed

 

It's a pretty clever little deal, I imagine the programming that went inot this is pretty impressive - it monitors yaw, pitch and roll and will attempt to keep you in control . On one test drive in an SXT, the sales guy pointed out an upcoming 20-25mph corner and told me to hit it at 40, and hammer it from the apex - ok, not my car, let's go! About halfway into the throttle at the apex, I felt/heard a kind of drone sound from the right rear for a few seconds and the car just pivoted around the corner, flat level and smooth. It should have had the *** end hanging out and/or pointing the wrong way when all was said and done, but nothing bad happened at all.

And after that corner was about 1.5 miles of 4 lanes thru the woods, no where for anyone to hide, and after hitting 80-85 with the V6, I was thinking 'what the heck? these things have a freaking HEMI too? SOLD!'

But you aren't gonna do a decent burnout unless you press the 'esp-off' button :-) But the real reason I think it's there is to let you get moving in snow, or burn your way up the driveway - sometimes you just have to run with some tire spin...

Mike

 

Thanks for the info. I found some pretty good info on the system at: http://www.policedriving.com/Magnum.htm
This explains it pretty well.

 

Don't all of the RT's have the ESP Button on them above the Radio on the Dash? There were only a couple of Buttons that the Dealer didn't know what they were for, but they did explain the ESP Button, but not in detail that is listed on the above links. ESP in short; the computer puts on brakes as needed to each individual wheel to keep the car stable, controllable and on the ground, with the assistance of a bunch of cool electronics. Sorry, the articles in the links were too lengthy for me.

 

All RT's and SXT's have the ESP system standard. The SE's have the option to have it added.

 

I thought all the Magnums had it. My sales broacher shows the ESP system in the listed items included in "All Magnums". I could very well be wrong for the real-life applications, that's what it says. Interesting.

Tilt