Hello all,

Was wondering if anyone else had any experiences with X351's ELSD not locking under full acceleration in the rain and snow with traction control fully disabled.
This isn't too much of an issue when driving in the rain/snow with traction control on, as the TCS and ESC prevent both wheels from spinning.
It's also fine in the dry with the TCS and ESC fully disabled, the differential locks when accelerating and both wheels break traction and spin.

However whenever I accelerate heavily (especially while turning) on wet surfaces, ~90% of the time it only results in one-tire-fire while the car turns complacently rather than having the back end step out.

I'm unsure if this is normal behavior for the car, or if I should be looking at getting the differential serviced.
It's unfortunately rather difficult to get information on this topic due to this car's ownership audience likely being much more mature than me. 🙂

 

I can't guess whether you're talking about a supercharged or NA version.
But I did notice in the wife's NA XJ when we had just bought it and it had the Pirelli P zero nero's on it, it would easily break loose with the throttle at or near full open throttle from a stop.
It was kind of liberating and emasculating, although at times annoying.
But we took care of that with better tires.
Since we've been putting the Michelin's (A/S Sport) the traction is too good to let the tires spin like it's got more power than it does. It just moves quicker now instead - gets up & goes instead of wasting tire rotations making noise.
What tires you have on there makes a big difference.
Still, these do of course have more than adequate power to break loose in rain/snow, but then what doesn't?

 

Babu,

There's a section in the owner's manual that covers selection of Sport, Dynamic and TSC off/on etc. Each selection, or combination of selections, has an effect on the command laws to all manner of systems on the car, and how the interact with each other.

The e-diff isn't fitted to N/A cars. TTBOMK

wombat

 

P Zero all seasons,
They're fine enough in the dry, it’s on snow and rain when it feels worse. Id assume all seasons would be better than summers in the wet.

edit:

The issue isn’t with breaking traction in the snow, it’s with the differential feeling like it’s not locking. Thus traction feels like it breaks on one wheel only, like an open diff car.

The diff could still be giving a power split to the inside tires but it certainly doesn’t feel like it. My understanding of LSDs could be mistaken though.

 

Have read the owners manual for the 2011 MY a few times, IIRC there isn’t anything mentioned regarding the e-diff changing with different driving modes but you can definitely feel it locking more in winter and competition mode, though I still get one wheel peel.

Think you’re correct on the N/A RWD cars coming with an open diff, it was a prominent factor in the purchasing decision for me considering canadian winters.