Ric

Just had my first scary moment in my S, after about 6 weeks of driving it. The temptation, I have found, is to push just that little bit harder each time I'm out for a blast around the lanes, to test out where the limits are. Well I certainly found the limit today, during a spirited twenty mile trip to post a letter.

So, I'm approaching a right turn at about 60 - 70 mph in 5th, on a dry country road. Noticing that the road surface looked a little damper than the stretch of road beforehand, and realising the bend was tighter than I first thought, I dropped down into 4th to knock some speed off without braking. Approaching the apex, still a little surprised by the tightness of the corner and turning in quite hard, I feel the rear end sliding out. Oh sh1t I thought. I was quite surprised how smooth it felt as it went - no squeeling tyres - quite graceful really. Anyway, I instinctlively corrected with opposite lock (actually not complete lock - but I don't know what you call it??), and managed to keep the rear end from sliding out any further as I went around the apex (with which I actually quite impressed myself considering my only experience of power sliding a corner was Colin Macrae Rally on the Playstation), but what I hadn't expected was on exiting the bend for the rear wheels to suddenly and visciously bite, throwing me into oversteer in the other direction, and with the nose now pointing scarily at the grass verge at speed. Once again into opposite lock the other way, to save the car from leaving the road, then yet again the rear wheels bite and it's back the other way again. At this point I'm thinking I'm about to totally lose it because each flip to the other side seems to be more severe than the previous one and more difficult to correct (is this called fishtailing?). However, this time the left side of the car hits the curb on the left side of the road with a very loud thud, and thankfully that seemed to steady the car and I'm back in full control. Needless to say I drove home very slowly feeling rather embarrased.

Just checked the side of the car, and there's no sign of any damage to the wheels that I can see, and it still drives in a straight line, so I'm counting my luck stars that I got away with it. At least now I have a better idea of where the limit is, and hopefully will stay under it in the future!!

UK_S2000

I would hate to have seen yet another silver on Colin's list.

mjirvine

scary and you almost made CC's list!!

probably worth getting the dealer or someone to look over your suspension +/- alignment as you wil probably at least have knocked that out if you were luck enough not to break anything.

Good luck

MJI

...still awaiting my first scary moment

zero_to60

classic tank slapper.......same thing happened to me at Keevil only I was doing in excess of 100mph.....not a nice experience and I imagine even worse on the road

trouble is unless you keep both hands in the same postion on the steering wheel it's fecking difficult to work out which way the front wheels are pointing........so you correct the initial slide..........but don't know how much lock to take off....so the rear wheels regain grip and you go the other way

We are doing Keevil airfield on the 28th June....fancy coming?

cheshire_carper

Please double check your wheels. It sounds like a classic entry to my list.

Any scuffs and yer on.


Come on, WE NEED PICS.

Ade

What's wrong with third?

mjirvine

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ade

LoudMusic

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ade

Durzel

Did you keep accelerating at all while this fishtailing was going on?

Reason I ask is that it happened to me once in my Skyline, ended up getting into an endless overcorrecting battle with the car. Eventually, because I had let off the accelerator completely (probably the wrong thing to do?) it had gotten so slow that it after about the 6th swing of the back end it didn't need correcting. Needless to say it was a huge brown trouser moment.. To this day I don't know how I managed to miss the kerbs on either side of the road.

I must admit accelerating harder during all of this was the last thing to cross my mind, although several people told me afterwards that I should've done this to let the active LSDs, etc do their job.

Whats the correct thing to do in a situation like this? Accelerate harder? Maintain same level of acceleration?

GSi

I think ease off very gently. I stand to be corrected as it's just a guess.

If you ease off quickly, weight will transfer to the front of the car meaning that the rear wheels, which are already below the point of minimal grip, will have less downforce and therefore even less grip.

Gently Gently does it.