Pajero - Getting Unstuck with Traction Control

[M.Seidam]

On 12/26/2020 at 5:16 PM, Frederic said:

When driving in sand, we always recommend to disable the traction control on every 4x4, and this goes for the Pajero as well. How to disable it can be found in below advice:

Now when it comes to getting stuck, we found out that the traction control can actually help you in recovering yourself, because when it's engaged it will cut the power to the wheel that is spinning, and that is exactly what we want during self recovery.

So if you have a kill switch, or you just pull the relay like described above, give it a try by putting it back and restarting your car whenever you get stuck and want to crawl yourself out. Give a little bit of gas and keep turning the wheel FULL left FULL right. 

We made a demo below:

This trick will work on any 4th generation Pajero, but be aware that traction control will disable again when you engage your rear difflock. In the case of our demo car this was a 2008 3.8 Pajero without rear difflock (Qatar model). This will also work fine on any 3.5 Pajero.

So the next time when you get stuck, try to enable your traction control and practice to see if you can get yourself out by using the blip-blip method (gentle throttle in bursts up to 1500rpm) and full left full right turns. You will see on the dashboard that the traction control will automatically cut the power to the wheels that are spinning.

 

 

 

@Frederic you deserve a sincere word of thank you ! 
yesterday I remembered this wonderful thread and it worked like magic with my X .

I have been in this position ( left front in the air spinning and three wheels in the sand ) before and no matter we tried eventually a tug from the back was inevitable .

yesterday I managed getting my self on same situation ( not on purpose , just didn’t navigate it Finley ) . Got it shoveled and then decided to try the trick , engine off , key out , kill switch off , key in ignition , engine start , 4L , and reverse , and the surprise after three to 4 blips and even only wiggling the steering right and left .. came out ... I could feel the difference that the power instead of going to the spinning aired wheel it went to the other three in traction as if I was in a diff lock ( no diff lock in my X ) 

cheers 👍

[Frederic]

43 minutes ago, Mohamed Seidam said:

@Frederic you deserve a sincere word of thank you ! 
yesterday I remembered this wonderful thread and it worked like magic with my X .

I have been in this position ( left front in the air spinning and three wheels in the sand ) before and no matter we tried eventually a tug from the back was inevitable .

yesterday I managed getting my self on same situation ( not on purpose , just didn’t navigate it Finley ) . Got it shoveled and then decided to try the trick , engine off , key out , kill switch off , key in ignition , engine start , 4L , and reverse , and the surprise after three to 4 blips and even only wiggling the steering right and left .. came out ... I could feel the difference that the power instead of going to the spinning aired wheel it went to the other three in traction as if I was in a diff lock ( no diff lock in my X ) 

cheers 👍

Glad to hear that ! I was not sure if this trick would work for the X as well, so that’s really good to know and I agree it makes just enough difference sometimes to get a little bit of traction to wiggle yourself out. 

[GauravSoni]

Update:  on yesterday’s  drive with @Foxtrot Oscar in Sharjah , I got to test the switch. I was crested in a difficult position on the side slope. I switched to 4LLC With R/D locked and tried steering left right to wiggle out. However the wheels kept spinning. 
Then I switched to engage traction while keeping the rpm constant at less than 2k. Self recovery Within a minute. the car got out of the stuck and coasted down the slope. 
@Frederic thanks for making us aware of this solution!

Edited March 14, 2021 by GauravSoni

[M.Seidam]

On 3/14/2021 at 4:42 PM, GauravSoni said:

Update:  on yesterday’s  drive with @Foxtrot Oscar in Sharjah , I got to test the switch. I was crested in a difficult position on the side slope. I switched to 4LLC With R/D locked and tried steering left right to wiggle out. However the wheels kept spinning. 
Then I switched to engage traction while keeping the rpm constant at less than 2k. Self recovery Within a minute. the car got out of the stuck and coasted down the slope. 
@Frederic thanks for making us aware of this solution!

Now we know that this work for Pagero and Xterra at least 😄

[Rizwanm2]

On 3/14/2021 at 4:42 PM, GauravSoni said:

Update:  on yesterday’s  drive with @Foxtrot Oscar in Sharjah , I got to test the switch. I was crested in a difficult position on the side slope. I switched to 4LLC With R/D locked and tried steering left right to wiggle out. However the wheels kept spinning. 
Then I switched to engage traction while keeping the rpm constant at less than 2k. Self recovery Within a minute. the car got out of the stuck and coasted down the slope. 
@Frederic thanks for making us aware of this solution!

As per my knowledge and experience with xterra as soon as rear diff lock is engaged tranction control will be switched off automatically. Because technical its not possible to lock free spinning 1 wheel when its mechanically locked to spine simultaneously to the other side wheel. Hence my guess is you got out because of rear diff lock. 

But i might be wrong coz i dont have any experience in Pajeros. Please correct me if im wrong. @Frederic@Frederic @Gaurav Soni

[Frederic]

4 hours ago, Rizwanm2 said:

As per my knowledge and experience with xterra as soon as rear diff lock is engaged tranction control will be switched off automatically. Because technical its not possible to lock free spinning 1 wheel when its mechanically locked to spine simultaneously to the other side wheel. Hence my guess is you got out because of rear diff lock. 

But i might be wrong coz i dont have any experience in Pajeros. Please correct me if im wrong. @Frederic@Frederic @Gaurav Soni

That is correct @Rizwanm2, the trick is to activate the traction control and let it do it’s magic on the front wheels in the case you have a rear difflock button. 
 

This trick works great on Pajeros without rear difflock as well. 

[M.Seidam]

@Rizwanm2 I agree with @Frederic too . No need for diff lock for the trick to work . Think about it this way : with out the kill switch performing long sidys for example could be even trouble some as the car senses the different resistance ( traction ) while on incline cutting or reducing the power to the least resistance which may let the wheels to spin unevenly which could be dangerous while at top of after bowl for example. But this doesn’t happen when your all your electronic car controls are off by the kill switch. So we are utilising this into advantage while in stuck situation to bring back the control in action aiding to unstuck . My X is a no off road version ( no diff lock ) and up to now I managed so far getting my self out from soft sand be it on level ground or tripod crest or even the perfect crest ( as in my profile picture 😅 ) where all 4 tires in the air , but the last one is slightly different story and the trick slightly different 😉 .but same in basics 😄

Edited March 21, 2021 by Mohamed Seidam

[Thomas Varghese]

1 hour ago, Mohamed Seidam said:

@Rizwanm2 I agree with @Frederic too . No need for diff lock for the trick to work . Think about it this way : with out the kill switch performing long sidys for example could be even trouble some as the car senses the different resistance ( traction ) while on incline cutting or reducing the power to the least resistance which may let the wheels to spin unevenly which could be dangerous while at top of after bowl for example. But this doesn’t happen when your all your electronic car controls are off by the kill switch. So we are utilising this into advantage while in stuck situation to bring back the control in action aiding to unstuck . My X is a no off road version ( no diff lock ) and up to now I managed so far getting my self out from soft sand be it on level ground or tripod crest or even the perfect crest ( as in my profile picture 😅 ) where all 4 tires in the air , but the last one is slightly different story and the trick slightly different 😉 .but same in basics 😄

Hopefully I will remember this trick in time to get myself unstuck in any of my future drives. Thanks @Frederic & Dr. @Mohamed Seidam. I didn't understand the reasoning behind removing the keys from the ignition and putting it back on when turning the ABS kill switch off. Whenever I finish the drive and switch off the ABS kill switch ABS springs back into action in a few seconds or minutes. Can somebody explain the reasoning behind removing the key and putting it back on? 

[M.Seidam]

9 minutes ago, Thomas Varghese said:

Hopefully I will remember this trick in time to get myself unstuck in any of my future drives. Thanks @Frederic & Dr. @Mohamed Seidam. I didn't understand the reasoning behind removing the keys from the ignition and putting it back on when turning the ABS kill switch off. Whenever I finish the drive and switch off the ABS kill switch ABS springs back into action in a few seconds or minutes. Can somebody explain the reasoning behind removing the key and putting it back on? 

I am not an electrician . I think it’s a set and reset mechanism and the kill switch is a bypass mechanism . In order not to disturb other functions like 4H function it’s advisable not to turn on or off the kill switch while the ignition on . Safer when the keys out completely. 
maybe some one can explain it technically better than I did 😅

[Rizwanm2]

Thank you @Frederic @Mohamed Seidam. 

I agree and thank you for the clarification.

my point is who ever wants to use this trick should not engage rear diff lock (if its equipped in their vehicles).  

i am big fan of rear diff lock, its been piece of cake for all self recoveries. but will give a try next time to use this trick 😃