I am new to the S2000, got mine last month, and have a VSA question.

I was driving on a highway yesterday with cruise control set to 45 mph. The speed limit was 45 mph so there were plenty of other drivers going +5 mph or more over (eg, I remember getting passed by a Pontiac Vibe). The 4 lane road I was on had gentle curves, certainly not windy or anything out of the ordinary (eg, Tail of the Dragon). In the middle of a curve, the VSA blinks and cancels cruise mode. Weather is 60 deg and road was clean of debris.

Google "FM 2222 wb, austin" and you will get images of road that I was on.

Is the VSA overly active or did it save my butt? I don't have autoX experience, but I drive like grandma (I don't even go 5 mph over). For reference, my car has brand new tires and is OEM all around.

 

I have to try pretty hard for VSA to engage with Star Specs. Before I put them on the VSA engaged all the time (some random "summer" tires, I forget what they were exactly, but certainly not on the tier of Star Specs/RE-11s/AD08s etc).

 

It usually goes off If I ever make an aggressive turn or anything that causes loss of traction.........and you were just driving normal and it started flashing???

 

I have a 2005 so no VSA and I kinda wanted a 2006 partly for that safety feature. What I'm finding though is the car has far more grip than I imagined and I've had it for just over 4 months and only had a little bit of a slide around a corner 2 weeks ago. Even in heavy rain the car won't break loose like I expected would happen though it probably depends on tires. I'm sure the VSA kicks in far before any noticeable issue so it's probably nothing to worry about. If I had VSA it would be flashing often and probably worry me more than anything else.

 

I had an '05 and traded up to an '07 specifically to get VSC...the limits of traction are very high for this car but once you exceed them, it's very difficult if not impossible to "catch it" and get it back under control in the space available on the street.

to the OP, doesn't sound like what happened to you is "normal" ---rare to see it intervene unless there is a slipping tire or it senses you're going to rotate.

maybe check your tire pressure if you have'nt done it in a while---one of the things the VSC "reads" is the tire RPMs and differences in tire pressure would make a slight difference in tire diameter which could result in different RPMs for different tires at a given speed which could be "noticed" up by the VSC. thinking it would have to be more than a couple of lbs difference in the tire pressure for it to notice but something to check out. hope it's something as simple as this...

 

I've noticed it allows for a bit of slip before kicking in. Pretty unintrusive IMO

 

Agree!

IMHO, there is zero reason to ever turn it off on the street

If folks really think they can routinely drive in the 1% margin on the street that you may get with the VSC off before it spins, they're an accident waiting to happen---it's very rare to see an 06+ wrecked from a spinout and those that have have almost always had the VSC turned off. It's set to intervene at a high level and save the car, the driver, and everyone around it from a disaster---not impact the foks driving at 9/10s.


If you want to turn the VSC off, do a track day at your nearest track--- great fun and once you do it and experience the true limits of this car, doing it on the street will not be nearly as fun.

 

VSA.

And VSA doesn't allow you to drive the car anywhere near 9/10ths. Closer to 5/10ths. It IS rather unobtrusive though, to the OP, no way VSA kicked in because of lack of tire grip or slipping tires, it is possible it detects when you have Cruise enabled and going through corners putting load on different tires? Even just hitting a bump with Cruise enabled could cause VSA to freak out a bit.

I wouldn't be concerned though.

 

Personally, I've found VSA largely unobtrusive for daily driving. On occasion it'll kick in when I'm trying to screw around a little, which can be mildly annoying, but ultimately I think it's a good thing, especially proven how how many s2k's get totalled. Taking the car autoxing I left it on one time by accident and it kicked in alot. I've found VSA really tries to prevent you from getting in a bad spot by sensing when the rear is starting to step out a little and stopping the car in its tracks. It takes away a lot of the "fun" of really driving the car and counter steering and catching the rear end when it starts to step out, but it's very easy to turn off. For daily driving, I'm a-ok with VSA. I can see how in situations where it's rainy/wet out it could save someone's butt.

 

likely the new tires. I had a hell of a time on some crappy (conti DW) ill-suited tires on my ap2. VSA was going nuts from the tread squirm / soft sidewalls.