Just reading through the owners manual, and I was a little dissappointed to learn that Nissan's 'Vehicle Dynamic Control' is nothing more than a limited slip system.

According to the manual, the VDC is a brake limited slip differential, which operates by applying the brake to the wheel that is spinning. Alot of other car companies simply refer to this as traction control, because that's pretty much what it is.

The traction control system itself (the TCS) does nothing but reduce power to the wheels.

I guess I should of read up on this a bit more, but I'm a little disappointed. When I heard Vehicle Dynamic Control, I thought the car had a system along the lines of Porsche Stability Management or the Stability Control on some Mercedes.

These systems use accelerometers and monitor the steering angle to determine if the vehicle is going into a spin, at which point it starts selectively applying the brakes to any of the four wheels to bring the car back under control. Its quite impressive to see one of these systems in action.

My friend has an ML430 with the stability control. There's been a number of times on bad snow days where I was sure we were going to spin, but then the system kicks in and you can actually feel it bring the car under control.

Yeah yeah, I realize real men don't need stability control and should be able to perfectly control of the vehicle based solely on the massive size of their genitalia , but I'm driving this thing through Canadian winters and I've already had the back end step out 5 times on me. Seems that if Porsche sees fit to put such a system in the 911 Twin Turbo, it can't be that bad.

Guess I'm just dissapointed that I'm not getting something that I thought I was because of hyped-up marketing. They should of just called it traction control and left it at that.

 

I think you are misunderstanding what is in the manual. The VDC does rely on wheel speed sensors, steering angle sensors, yaw sensors, lateral G measurements, acceleration measurements, etc. It then applies brakes to the wheels individually to keep the car going in line with the steering angle. I think it does what you are wanting it to do. The owners manual doesn't give the detail.

Also, TCS does control wheel spin with braking as well as throttle. See attached from the shop manual:

 

With or without traction control...if you and your friend are having the "...rear end step out..." you are overdriving the conditions. In other words, you are driving too fast.

People here in the Deep South do that whenever we have one snowflake hit the ground. That happens about once per year. People who drive on slick surfaces all the time should know better.

 

Well, you'll have to forgive me because I've driven front wheel drive cars all my life and I'm still learning with RWD.

 

Good. That sounds more like what I was expecting. If you read the owners manual, its pretty clear the guy who wrote it didn't know too much about how this stuff worked.