Super impressed with the traction control on steep muddy/snowy roads after following advice of PetrosA in an earlier post: moving shift lever to "1" allows my 2011 transit connect to "paw" its way up bad roads that requires 4x4 on standard pickups.
I recently had to go up to a job site, 8 miles up a long dirt road that finished with 1/2 mile steep climb (the owner had to use 4x4 on his f150, and had offered to pick me up at bottom since I only had 2wd). My first day up there in bad conditions (wet clay, gravel mud some light november snow) was with my summer tires: I could feel the power shift from right wheel to left wheel quickly so that I was able to maintain speed and not just spin out. When I felt a wheel break traction I noticed the traction control light flash on. Next trip and after nastier weather (muddier), I had my snow tires (studded Arctic Claws - almost too loud and aggressive for highway driving). This time, despite the messier conditions the transit barely broke traction and just hauled up that steep, slippery two track road.
Impressed that I had no loss of power (if manually shifted to first gear) - as would occur with a standard traction control of front wheel drive cars that cut torque as ABS (brakes) minimize slippage on the spinning wheel.
Now I just wish there was more power at highway speeds and in the headwinds we see a lot of in montana.
