Hey guys, I am a new member to the Jeep family and forum here and am loving it so far. I just got a 2012 Liberty Sport 4wd. Its a great vehicle so far. Being new to Jeeps though I of course wanted to try a little offroading. I took it to a pretty steep dirt hill with loose rocks and dirt. I kicked it into 4wd low to climb. When I did this, It showed that ESC turned off but when climbing it began shuddering and making a ratcheting type noise and the ESC dash graphic lit up when this noise was happening. It also made this noise when going downhill with the deceleration assist turned on. Is it normal to make a noise like that when those things are engaged? Thanks!
Traction Control does that. It stops and restarts the tires to keep traction and avoid free spinning. If you press the button to turn it off but when you switch to 4WD it turns back on and will do it again. New computers thinking they know best haha.
I had read on here that it stays on, even when turned "off" but it was just the noise that concerned me. All 4wd vehicles I have owned in the past were old models with no computers and that noise was a little.... disconcerting haha
Excuse the language, but the computers are pieces of s!@#. Jan 21st I wrecked my baby because I forgot to turn it off (you can disable it to a point but in extreme cases it will kick back in) and slid sideways into a telephone pole. Computer took control of the wheels and I couldn't re-fishtail to recover.
There are a few people who have wired a switch to turn it off-off though.
Anyways, yes it's normal. Its the tcs. Even when off, it's still on. All it does is tolerate more slip and stop killing the engine's power. When you were in 4low spinning tires going up hill it was kicking in. When going down, you said you used hill descent control. That uses tcs to slow the jeep as well, so yes all the noises were normal. Might seem weird and you're gonna hate hearing them, but they are normal. Not gonna lie, it's part of the reason as to why I don't use hill descent.
I find 4LO and 1st gear keeps you pretty well under control when descending hills. I imagine the hill descent control would be for extremely steep offroad situations where absolute control is required or you end up :doh:
completely normal
in a way that traction control works like a locker to prevent excessive wheel spin
just get use to it.
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