Is turning off VSC bad for the transmission?

[rikshaman]

Hey there,
just wondering if driving with the vsc off is in anyway detrimental to the planetary gearset? Sometimes under heavy acceleration 1 tire tends to spin out of a corner. But i let off as soon as this occurs.
i frequent the car on dirt roads and to the snow and in many cases need to turn it off in order to reach decent speeds.

Anyone else do this alot?

[patsparks]

Can it be turned off? Sorry I don't have VSC so I don't know. If you can turn it off you would still have traction control which is required to protect the motors in the hybrid system from over reving.

[rikshaman]

In my experience, it would seem that trac is also turned off when vsc is disabled.

[dogfriend]

Unless you have some sort of hack in mind, I don't believe you can turn the VSC off on the Prius. My GF's Avalon does allow you to turn VSC off; there is a button on the lower dash to defeat it.

VSC is separate from TRAC; VSC is optional depending on which package your car is equipped with, but TRAC is built into the HSD system.

To answer the original question, I don't believe it would be detrimental to the hybrid system to turn off VSC (if you could) because it is not included on all Prius.

[richard schumacher]

If you instead mean the anti-slip system (the thing that kills drive power when a wheel slips, which every Prius has) then you most definitely do not want to turn it off. That would allow the transmission to damage or destroy itself.

[hill]

Originally Posted by richard schumacher

If you instead mean the anti-slip system (the thing that kills drive power when a wheel slips, which every Prius has) then you most definitely do not want to turn it off. That would allow the transmission to damage or destroy itself.

It allows the HSD to damage itself to the extent you'd over rev. Over rev is the actual bad thing, not disabling. Yes, it can be, and has been done. Just disconnect the modular sensors. No, I'm not telling you where they are.

.

[Qlara]

You can't turn either TRAC or VSC off on demand in the Prius.
The simpliest solution is to put better Tires on for your driving environment....dirt or snow.

[rikshaman]

Not on demand. But a quick turn off and then the foot dance, and vsc turns off completely. Its quite fun actually, the prius tends to oversteer quite a bit in stock form. Shocking isnt it. It was for me.

[tumbleweed]

On my '05 Prius there was a hack to shut off the TRAC for emission control tests on a chassis dyno and I think it also shut off the ABS and VSC (if equipped). The hack should still be on this site among the real old posts.

As stated above it would not be a good idea to drive the car with TRAC off because it helps protect the drive train.

The Prius was simply not designed to be driven that way. My BMW on the other hand was and you can turn off the Traction Control or the Dynamic Stability Control independently with a switch for the track (or the street if you are foolish enough to want to). The only time I have had either of them off was when I got stuck in the snow last winter, it didn't help and I had to get a friend to pull me out with his Hybrid Camry, he still laughs about it.

[V8Cobrakid]

get better tires... like mine.. and pump up the psi if you want to toss the car through corners... with the psi high the car simply slides... but still accelerates so you can have your cake.. and eat it to...

wait... no.. i eat your cake

btw.. the prius has a really good weight balance.. with the battery over the wheel wheels.. it holds.

oh.. and get a brace.. you pick where they come from.. just get them. since you like to burn up tires, it won't matter

it's still gets better mpg than your last car.