Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications General Mods installing traction control

No need of a TC in snow.
All you need is good winter tires and snow-driving skills.
Maybe a hand-brake to have fun......

In case you haven't been to "sarcastic school" (I graduated with honors): that was a semi-sarcastic comment.

To answer your question:

I've weathered several blizzards and spent three years in Great Lakes, IL. (North Chicago, on the lake, in the Navy) We went through I don't know how much snow. I know my 95LX was buried above the roof in packed snow.. I had to dig DOWN to see it.

I've been flown in to and out of Antarctica, being stationed there for.. WAY... TOO.. LONG(Williams Field.. but the Navy stopped being there in the beginning of February.), and I was stationed in Keflavik and in Reykjavik(not QUITE as severe as the great lakes, or New England.. but decidedly cooler year round.. average year round temp is 32F.)


Ray

My heads tired, sorry Ray.

Oh, I fell asleep as you started with that "I walked up hill both ways bla bla" story... I'll read tommorow. No, actually, pretty cool story there Ray, Antartica is one of those places I would Love to go and hate!

(goes and reads sarcastic post)

Oh... haha, lol... I get it now.

sorry about that, i forgot the contour is wrong wheel drive. you've gotta remember im used to lugging around in a 400hp lightning during the winter so i needed all the help i could get.

I have traction control in my contour. I haven't run my contour in snow for over 4yrs now but when I did it was nice to have but if you where in a parking lot lets say and you cleaned off your car get in and try to move you are going to spin naturally but the traction control would kick on and the car couldn't get out the of the spot since you need alittle spin to get over the windrow.

If you switched it off you could get some wheel spin to get momentom to get out of the spot. the nice feature of the tc is when you are driving along either up a hill or slippery road and you catch a icey spot you will see th tc light flashing indicating wheel spin yet never feel it. it was nice when climbing slippery hills you wouldn't slip going up. I have seen my tc light falsh whlie driving on the highway in the rain if I hit some standing water or starting from a stop on a wet road.

If you already have it then it's a nice feature, although not worth installing or spending money to add it. I agree with the others that the car drives great in poor weather and with good tires and driving skills you don't need it. also it 's a nice rare factory installed feature on contours, not sure how many had it but it does seem to be a rare find.

Yeah i can second Rays description of great lake weather, we get some real nasty stuff up here (im sandwiched between Huron and Erie) What makes me wonder is why they got rid of the traction control. I mean in Canada block heaters come standard and is part of the Extreme Weather package or something ridiculous like that. I mean if they think its gonna be THAT cold youd think they would have kept the traction control for canuck cars, no?

i would really like to install it just for the added safety feature. but odds are i wont just because it seems as though it would be a nightmare to install. i really wish i knew of someone on here that has done the mod.