i would just go with new tires get some nasty rubber on their and you should be fine

 

It's the tires man, you don't need to buy a new truck cause your tires suck. You'll get an 09 with just as lousy OEM tires. You need better tires, traction control is overated

 

Exactly. I cant stand this truck in winter driving. Some guys justify it as a safety device but it is the complete opposite in the winter. As a winter driver, what is the last thing you want to do when you lose traction? HIT THE BRAKES. I find this traction control to be more of a hindrance to driving performance and safety than actual safety feature. I might as well be driving an all wheel drive car... but most of them you can fully turn off traction control too.

 

yeah traction control is one of the things that i hated about chevys and now ford has it. i have one friend with an avalanche that can't even power brake to do a burnout because of it and another with a newer chevy that cannot get the tires to spin by flooring it on a dirt road. it takes the fun out of everything lol

 

They must have changed something in 2010 because in my 2010, the traction control seems to be off until I physically push the button to turn it on - which is unlike the AdvanceTrac in my wifes 2008 Expedition.

 

When you press that button, it turns some of the traction control features off... not on.

 

I'm still confused to why people would want to spin their tires? When ever i watch any kind of off roading on tv and they show you technique to get out of tricky situations they always say that you never want to over spin your tires with high rpm!!! Once you lose your traction from to much power your not getting it back unless you drop your revs. I can get my wheels to spin upto around 30mph with traction control on. Don't understand why anyone would wanna go any quicker than this off road anyway. If tractions that bad your gonna be lucky to be doing anymore than 30mph.

 

Traction control is not one of the reasons to buy the new F150, if you are having trouble with Traction...buy better tires. I've got a 09 with the aweful SR-A's for my summer rubber (can't wait for them to wear out so I can get some Nittos) and I have some Cooper Discoverer Studded snow tires. Have never felt unsafe in this truck and the TC does help a little when you are going up a hill and the tranmission drops a gear, my old shorty Z71 used to kick out sideways on a icy hill, the new ford keeps on going straight. Again TC is nice...but it's all about the rubber that is meeting the road.

 

When you need momentum you have to have good tire spin...

 

It's more to do with bad throttle control more than the Truck TC being bad. As anyone who knows how to drive in snow/Ice/Mud when your revs increase at a faster ratio to speed you back of the throttle. You DON'T give more throttle. It's the most basic teaching in driving control courses? More tire spin equals less traction that will result in less speed and either under steer or over steer. Saying give more throttle to keep momentum up is like saying wheels spinning from lights gets you a quicker launch.

The only thing it stops is burnouts!!! only idiots do them anyway.

 

Unless you are in mud with mud tires, then wheel spin can be beneficial to clean the tread and keep the tire chewing through the mud.

 

Which 30mph should be more than enough to do.

 

The traction control is a good feature but it is not as sensitive or as quick to respond as the traction control on my 2000 Volvo sedan. Ford aquired the technology when they bought Volvo in 1999 but it seems they might need to fine-tune the programming to make it more responsive. The Volvo's traction control kicks in faster and in a more subtle manner which helps maintain momentum and traction under marginal conditions. On a snowy/icy road it allows me to accelerate faster than I could by skillfully modulating the throttle. The Volvo's stability control is amazing. That's the feature where it uses gyroscopes to detect sideslip in a corner and apply one brake at a time to pull the vehicle back on line. I don't have enough experience sliding the F-150 in corners to compare very well but the one time I punched it on a oil/rain slickened freeway cloverleaf to test it out it let me get crossed up nearly 90 degrees before it kicked in suddenly. I was not too pleased with that. Maybe with a few more years experience Ford will get the right parameters programmed in there. But it's better than nothing.

If you just want more traction I would focus on installing a limited slip differential (if you don't already have one) and good tires of course. Tires are what makes the biggest difference and it's generally not the most aggressive looking treads that produce the most traction. More, smaller biting edges work the best for me in most low traction situations. The Silent Armors are great in the taller narrower sizes. Avoid really wide tires as these often do not have enough pressure per unit area to get good traction.

 

The volvo traction control (for some vehicles at least) is actually from landrover, as ford used the LR3 platform to develop some volvo cars.

I am actually quite surprised that about all of this. The LR traction control system is amazing, perfect on and offroad once setup right. I would have expected this system to have moved over to the f150 without much loss.

 

This is true; however, when the truck cuts power and you don't get it back for a couple seconds, that is where the danger comes in. I can play with the throttle back and forth on a truck without TC and never be scared. It becomes scary when you have to wait for the truck to decide its ok to go before you really can. You become a sitting duck...