How often do you use this feature and does the car automatically recognize upon start-up. When you press the button, it displays a yield sign with an arrow around a circle. Wasn;t sure if I was activating or deactivating.

 

ESP is always on unless you push the button. Then you will get the indicator lighting up. It will only kick in if the car detects that you are sliding, understeering, oversteering, etc. With the Quattro it shouldn't kick in too often unless you are really pushing the limits of traction. You might notice it more in poor weather.

 

Thanks.

 

Here is a related question. When ESP is turned on...does it give any indication on the dash when it does something...ie corrects for under, oversteer...etc?

I did a track day with my s4 and tried some sessions with it on, and some with it off and never noticed a difference. It was my first couple of track days, so I was trying to be smooth and learn the line, rather than go ***** out fast, so that might explain it.

 

i turn it on and off in my b5 off you definetly notice a huge diff. with it on donuts are impossible :-(, dont ask why im doing donuts, but i lobe when a all wheel drive car slides around. with it on tho its like driving in a circle, a very sticky circle.

 

a lot of peple do not know what the esp actually does, cause with these cars (read quattro) it's nearly impossible to call on the esp for anything. i had one experience with it though...here's what happened:

i was driving down a hill, windy road, unpaved. basically, it was a narrow downhill dirt path. the traction was not very good, cause it was all dirt. i was going a little too quick around a bend, and i started to lose my traction and trajectory, and started to feel the the car pulling a tangent towards the outer part of the bend...towards a ditch. This all happened very quickly, like in a few seconds; i felt the car kind of "take over for a second" and i noticed that yellow triangle light for esp come on...it felt like the car applied the brakes a bit and then re-aligned the car towards the trajectory it had been heading in before it started skidding...suddenly i was back in control of the car and headed back in the right direction. it was a bit unnerving and without esp i surely would have been in trouble. i am glad i am not in the habit of driving with it off.

if i were in a parking lot doing donuts or something yeah esp'll be off. but for normal driving and after my experience with it, it just seems like another safety feature that, while working in tandem with quattro, helps to make audis some of the safest cars on the road.

i doubt esp could be required on a dry paved road, unless you were driving ridiculously fast and turned hard into a hairpin turn. when conditions are less than optimal however, you never know when you might skid out. if you do, you'll be glad your car has esp to help keep you on track.

 

That depends on your definition of "required", and what your intended usage is. For an average, zoned-out driver I can see it helping a few time during the total car ownership. People like me however, are different. I know what my car is doing, and if it's doing it, that's because I wanted it to do it. I don't get sideways on accident, especially with Quattro on board. The only time I could drive with ESP on was rush-hour traffic. Any other time, I would get ESP intervention on a regular basis, because I push my car hard. I'm not flying at 100mph down the freeway or weaving through traffic, or anything really stupid like that. But I do push the limits around corners most of the time, and ESP doesn't like that. I've actually had ESP get me into trouble that I could have avoided had it been off, namely lift-throttle oversteer. I would do that all of the time to really maximize corner speed and once I forgot to disable ESP before initiating a turn. Now if the oversteer is caused by forward weight transfer and all of the sudden, the car hits the binders, guess what happens. More weight transfer. I nearly spun her that time, but a healthy dose of the loud pedal kept me off of the curb.