Ever since day 1 with my cooper I noticed when I drive through a puddle or drive in snow the tires spin, and when they spin the tires have to stop spinning in order to start up again. I could have the pedal to the floor, but the engine won't rev up or anything until the tires stop spinning.

Its just a hassle cause I almost got rear ended by somebody. Why can't it be like a normal car, and accelerate or keep the same speed until you are through the puddle or snow? Doesn't matter if the puddle is a few inches x 2ft. wide it still does it.

Just wondering if thats normal? If its a saftey feature? And how to fix it or disable the safety feature if thats what it is.

 

Is the ASC light on your tachometer flashing when this happens? If so, try turning it off with the toggle switch.

 

Yes. Sometimes it flashes, and sometimes it stays on. I did try the toggle switch already when it was on, but just stayed on. Shut the car off, turn it back on, and its gone until I hit a puddle or snow and have the car act up again.

 

When the light stays on, the ASC is turned off.

 

OK. What exactly is the ASC? Should I have it turned off all the time?

 

Active Stability Control, means that it tries to control a slide (loss of traction) by cutting power so you don't get yourself into worse trouble. Dynamic Stability Control will actually apply brakes and power to keep car going as straight as possible. Drive it with the ASC on, it will save you...especially if you don't know what it does.

 

ASC = DSC button next to your window switch.

ASC cuts the power from the wheels when the tires are not gripping. I keep mine on unless I'm driving aggressively or in snow to keep the power going.

From BMW


Automatic Stability Control (ASC).
On uneven or slippery road surfaces the Automatic Stability Control (ASC) system ensures you can accelerate out of each bend safely and with maximum traction.

Automatic Stability Control (ASC) is an element of the Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) system. It prevents loss of traction on the drive wheels when setting off, when accelerating out of curves and in other critical moments. When one wheel has good traction but the other is on a slippery patch of road, the wheel with less traction is braked until it is again able to gain a grip on the road surface.
If both wheels lose traction, the engine management system also intervenes and reduces the power output, which significantly reduces the danger of the rear of the vehicle skidding out. The entire process takes place in milliseconds.
Thus ASC quickly brings the vehicle back to stability and restores traction. Drivers wishing to attain a degree of wheel slip, for example when aiming to have a certain amount of "drift", can disengage ASC if desired.

 

ok, thanks for clearing that up for me. Glad its something easy.

 

And if the weather is inclement, i.e. snow, rain, and ice, etc. make sure you don't turn it off...

 

That would explain why I had issues last winter. I hit ice, and the car slid sideways, nothing I did fixed it until I hit a sidewalk, but I wasn't going fast so it did no damage. My last car I was doing the speed limit on wet roads, went around a turn which wasn't that sharp so I always do 50mph around it cause its the speed limit, of course black ice on that turn, and the car went straight into the snowbank that was plowed, bounced back out onto the road, but still a little in the snow bank, I put it in reverse, and it backed out, went straight to work, and no damage was done to the car.

I learned my lesson not to think that cause the road is wet, cold weather that all roads will just be wet.

I thought if the asc light was on that means the traction control was on, thanks for clearing that up. This winter I don't plan on driving in the snow cause when the state of emergency is in effect I won't be on the roads like I was for my last job. They made too much money to shut down over a state emergency snow storm, and if the employees got in an accident, fined, ect. That was the employees responsibility. A snow plow was going down a road, and hit an employee's car dead on not slowing down, and the employee tried to fight, but the snow plow driver won. Plus that company wasn't paying its employees enough to be driving in bad weather.