Opinions on using your trail control?

[jimm cross]

4lo down hill works great

 

[DanT]

Tried it for the first time during Raptor Assault and it was very smooth for both hill climbing and rock crawling. Much more smoother than trying to control the speed/brake on my own or even using the left foot brake/right foot gas method that was taught at Raptor Assault.

Agree 100%

 

[EastEndAngler]

I actually used Trail Control for the first time the other day. I'm on the beach almost everyday and always completely disable traction control. A few times I've inadvertently turned in but never used it. I used it this morning to cruise along the beach (not hard pack, but moderately soft and with some ledges/dips) and I was pleasantly surprised. Granted I only had it set to 7pmh, it took a lot of the guess work out of throttle manipulation (the most important part to not getting stuck in our Long Island sand). I would personally never it use it, but thought it worked fairly well on sand.

 

[pbtjrlmrt]

I tried mine on a fairly steep uphill trail section yesterday just to see how it would work. It surges like crazy, very poor. If that's normal on a hill I would never use it. It has all the sensitivity and smoothness that I would have if I was drunk off my ass and wearing ski boots with bricks glued to the bottom. Is this normal? I used it once before on the flat, just to try it, and it worked fine. On a hill it's horrible. It just randomly stabs at the throttle and then lets off. I'm trying to find out if everyone else's is like that or not.

So many ignorant people when it comes to this feature. I hate that people...including some commercials and youtubers...refer to it as cruise control. The feature does so much more. You are not capable of replicating the features of the trail control feature. For example...the system will search for the wheel with the most traction repeatedly to get you unstuck, it provides hill decent control and because it's not actually a cruise control when hill climbing or going straight the system will gently "crawl" over rocks/obstacles. The pulsing could be due to the system sensing resistence and trying to gently overcome the obstacle. I agree you can generally get a better ride doing it yourself depending on the terrain but the system has it's uses and surpasses anything you can do on your own in certain situations. Like any other tool, you just have to use it for it's intended purpose and using it as a "cruise control" is not strictly what is purpose is. I'd say do some experimenting on many different terrain types and see when it works as desired and don't use i when you don't need it. Specifically in your situation if it is pusling as bad as you describe then having the dealer check it out is a good idea because mine runs as smoothly as the ones at Raptor assault but my expectations may be different than yours.

 

[GordoJay]

So many ignorant people when it comes to this feature. I hate that people...including some commercials and youtubers...refer to it as cruise control. The feature does so much more. You are not capable of replicating the features of the trail control feature. For example...the system will search for the wheel with the most traction repeatedly to get you unstuck, it provides hill decent control and because it's not actually a cruise control when hill climbing or going straight the system will gently "crawl" over rocks/obstacles. The pulsing could be due to the system sensing resistence and trying to gently overcome the obstacle. I agree you can generally get a better ride doing it yourself depending on the terrain but the system has it's uses and surpasses anything you can do on your own in certain situations. Like any other tool, you just have to use it for it's intended purpose and using it as a "cruise control" is not strictly what is purpose is. I'd say do some experimenting on many different terrain types and see when it works as desired and don't use i when you don't need it. Specifically in your situation if it is pusling as bad as you describe then having the dealer check it out is a good idea because mine runs as smoothly as the ones at Raptor assault but my expectations may be different than yours.

Yes, I'm ignorant about Trail Control. Please enlighten me. When and under what conditions does it surpass what I can do on my own? You only give one example, that of getting unstuck. I can see where there might be others, but that depends on what the computer does and how. Does it do single-wheel braking? When? Left foot braking? Do you think because mine was surging on loose rock, both up and down, that it's not working properly? It felt like it was gunning over them and then hitting the brakes. Since the trail was pretty much all loose rock, it got into an annoying rhythm of surge forward, brake, surge, brake. When I just drove normally, it was much smoother. I was bouncing up and down, but the fore and aft BS was absent.

 

[pbtjrlmrt]

Yes, I'm ignorant about Trail Control. Please enlighten me. When and under what conditions does it surpass what I can do on my own? You only give one example, that of getting unstuck. I can see where there might be others, but that depends on what the computer does and how. Does it do single-wheel braking? When? Left foot braking? Do you think because mine was surging on loose rock, both up and down, that it's not working properly? It felt like it was gunning over them and then hitting the brakes. Since the trail was pretty much all loose rock, it got into an annoying rhythm of surge forward, brake, surge, brake. When I just drove normally, it was much smoother. I was bouncing up and down, but the fore and aft BS was absent.

Perhaps set it to a faster speed. The system will try to prevent sudden speed up as it has no idea what comes next. It's trying to gently bring you over rocks without slamming into the next obstacle. The slower the speed generally the more pulsing of the throttle. I don't know the facts about single wheel braking but here's at least one video:

 

[TurboTJ]

I have found that it works great going downhill or on a fairly constant grade going up. It you are rock crawling, it will push up against a shelf and keeps adding throttle until it violently surges over it. Left foot breaking gives better results than trail control. You can be ready for it to bounce over the top of the shelf you’re climbing, your truck cannot.

 

[sixshooter_45]

I'll have to experiment a little bit. I was in normal mode, 4 hi.



It's basically a low speed cruise control for trailing.

On a hill you'd want 4W low so select rock crawl mode if it's steep. And proper speed selection is also important, to low and it can stall then surge.

I've played with it on a steep loosely packed hill and with proper setup it works great for me, smooth and no surging or slipping.

 

[GordoJay]

You can be ready for it to bounce over the top of the shelf you’re climbing, your truck cannot.

I'd expect the computer to be able to detect the sudden speed up of the wheel in a few milliseconds. An accelerometer could quickly detect an upward or downward movement. If it can apply brakes quickly enough, it could compensate. You could do this individually at each wheel, at which point it could be really smooth under all conditions. That's kind of what I was expecting. Either they're not doing that or mine is broken.

 

[GordoJay]

Perhaps set it to a faster speed.

My dentist and my chiropractor would have liked that. I tried different speeds, from slow to as fast as I dared. The sand unstuck thing does look cool. I'm going to go out on my limb of ignorance and guess that it works great on smooth obstacles and less well on steps or loose rock. I'll be quizzing the folks at RA about this in an attempt to become less ignorant.