I just bought A used 2007 Sonata 4 cylynder and was wondering how to turn off ESC.

Thanks
Warren

 

There is a panel of switches to the left of the steering wheel. The left most switch should say "ESC OFF". Press it and it will be turned off. See pages 2-13 and 2-14 of the owners manual:





Why would you want to switch it off? I would suggest just leaving it on at all times.

 

NovaResource: Thanks for the reply. I found the switch.The reason I am looking to turn it off is because tonight going up a hill full of snow ESC did not give me enough power to get up it. It seemed like when I accelerated the slower I got and eventually stuck.

Warren

 

The ESC is also linked with the traction control. It cuts power to prevent the wheels from spinning on slippery roads. You want the ESC on when driving in snow. Your problem is with the tires, not the ESC. I'd look into better tires for the winter.
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tests/...y.jsp?ttid=135
http://www.tirerack.com/winter/tech/...jsp?techid=122

 

Thanks for the help. I will have to look into new tires.

Just an FYI...I turned off the ESC and got up the hill perfect. I could give it more power and the wheels seem to spin faster to get me up it. Although if I had better tires this might not have been an issue.

Thanks again
Warren

 

I've also experienced times when the only way to make progress in snow was to turn off ESC until I got going. When there is a new snow 4+ inches deep - especially a wet snow - ESC and traction control sometimes seem to "fight it out" especially when starting from a dead stop. Most of the time they work together very well, but there are times ESC seems to want to go brake happy when traction control is just trying to pull you along. Although I can't speak for the state of warren83's tires, the tires on my car have less than 10K miles on them so I can't say I think it's necessarily tire related. I think it's just one of those things that happen in certain slippery situations. They way I look at it, if ESC and traction control were a match made in heaven, they wouldn't have put an ESC Off button on the dash.

 

Turning of the ESC turns of the traction control as well.

 

Never knew that. There are still times when the best way to get going is to turn off ESC. The front of the car will tend to torque pull a little bit, but in certain conditions it will get you going much more quickly than using ESC.

 

Anyone who says that the ESC should never be switched off has never gotten stuck in a snowbank during a snowstorm in Minnesota! I got stuck in the snow this weekend and the ESC applies the brakes and/or limits the power to the wheels so you essentially go NOWHERE!

A time-honered maneuver in these parts to get unstuck from a snowbank is the "rock back and forth" method and, if the tires will not spin, it simply does not work and you are stuck and going nowhere! Quite simple to fix, however, thanks to the "On-Off" switch that allows you to disable the ESC. This allows you to spin the tires as you damn well see fit and get yourself out of that snowbank.

My bride was stuck for several hours in the new snow and she knew nothing of the ESC system and therefore did not disable its features. Several good-samaritan passersby that stopped to help her knew nothing of it either and they were all rather exasperated with the car providing virutually no power at all to the drive wheels. She thought she had destroyed the transmission or something. She finally got ahold of me and I told her to switch the ESC off....she did and was able to get out immediately! Hoo, Boy.......Dreamboat was pretty angry on that one!

 

Anyone who has gotten stuck in a snowbank doesn't know how to drive very well. Don't drive into snow banks.

And spinning your wheels without traction only digs holes in the show.