RXPhil

Just pulled the fuse to see what happens. Trac off, stability off, ABS off.

I just did an AWESOMe drift in the rain. This thing is awesome, can't wait till the first snow fall.

ghuns

Great to know. Never had a car with traction control that didn't have a button to turn it off. In my A4 I call it the fun/no fun button.

felope100

AWD is not like FWD.
AWD is a dedicated full time all-trac system.
there is nothing to turn off

ghuns

Plenty of AWD cars and SUVs have the option to turn off traction control.

There is nothing special about AWD that makes turning off the traction control impossible. Lexus just neglected to provide us with a button to do it.

I can't wait till my wife or one of the kids is stuck in a snowdrift somewhere, and I get to walk them through finding and removing the correct fuse, so they can generate enough wheelspin to get themselves out.

RXPhil

Today I drove in my first snow storm with my RX. And I gotta say. If I couldn't turn off the the traction by pulling the fuse, my RX would be for sale today

And on another note. What an animal in the snow. Wow

ghuns

Lexus engineers must have never been stuck in the snow. Sometimes spinning the wheels is necessary. We had 8 inches of snow yesterday and only the main roads were plowed. That made two feet tall piles of snow at all the cross roads. It's a major pain to bust through in the RX, while my A4, with 6 inches of ground clearance, plows right through if you just push the button to kill the traction control.

Pulling the fuse is a sucky option because you also turn off the ABS.

It's honestly the only thing I don't like about the RX.

For the 4 or 5 times a year we actually have a decent amount of snow, I can live with it.

RXPhil

I hate ABS as well I can stop in a much shorter distance without it.

These aids are great for people like my wife. Cause without the stability control the rear end swings out when turning right from a stop. Awesome for me, bad for the wife.

lexus114

What fuse did you pull Phil? Oh never mind. I re read your post......Duh

sorin9308

RXPhil could you take some pictures to show us where and how we can take out the fuse? And which one is for trac control abs etc.? Thank you very much. We have pretty much snow here in Romania and I would like to try spinning without those annoying systems... I tried last night with the hand brake which is very complicated because it needs to be pressed with the leg...but it works

Sorin.

RXPhil

http://drivers.lexus.com/t3Portal/do.../sec_04_03.pdf

Page 361. It's fuse #5 in the engine bay.

It's interesting because the foot e-brake is actually not that bad. I mean you have more control with a hand controlled ebrake but I can slide around corners, pop the ebrake out and hit the gas to power slide out of it perfectly.

SalsaGuy

Has anyone tried a switch between the fuse and the control module? Sure beats popping the hood every time you want to disable the traction control. Also is all these items ABS, VSC, TCS, BAS in the same control module? Anyone know where it's located?

iluvny

That cartridge fuse in my '04 RX330 AWD is #7, not #5 according to my manual.(however, it's in the same position) It also doesn't just pull out, you need to take apart the fuse box to get at the 2 bolts that hold it in.

@RXPhil...did you really go through all of that ?

RXPhil

Nope. In my 07 rx350 awd I just pop the hood, pop off the fuse cover, remove the fuse with needle nose plyers then throw the cover on and shut the hood. Done traction off.

Henry2024

Wow, I'm really disappointed in Lexus about this. I haven't had my first winter yet with this RX, and its disappointing to discover that the TCS doesn't work, and people have to resort to removing the fuse, which also disables ABS. I too live in an area where it can snow pretty bad, and of course, the road crew's main priority are the main roads, then last, the side streets of residential areas. So it can be a while before the snow plows clear my street, in the meantime, there's always plenty of people stuck in the snow. My Honda CR-V has AWD, but no traction control. I think one time we had to rock her out. I'd hate to think about the TCS killing the engine power when trying to rock and spin to get the vehicle unstuck.

iluvny

@RXPhil.......turns out my fuse does just pull out. So, thanks for that tip because now the symptoms I posted about in this thread : "Click Here" are now gone. (see the YT video in the op)

Of course the warning light for Brake, ABS and VSC in the dash are now on all the time. At least I've further isolated my problem to the ABS/VSC systems.