Velocity-8

Ahhh, it's a wonderful day here in the great Northeast. Yesterday was 55 degrees and sunny and today it's 32 and snowing with freezing rain.

So I'm driving to work and it's snowing lightly but not really sticking to the road. I cruising about 53 mph and the car starts to feel loose. I lightly let off the throttle and lightly tapped the brakes. The car immediately slid sideways and drifted into the on coming lane. I counter steered and it slid in the other direction now towards trees. The DSC was working like mad to get the car back on track. It went back an forth about six times before it finally settled down. I thought for sure I was going to loose it but the DSC managed to keep the car in enough control to prevent it from spinning out.

After I got to work I was talking to a few co-workers that drive in the same way. They said they saw about six police cars with there lights on heading back in the same direction were I almost crashed. I imagine someone else wasn't as lucky.

Anyway, I have to go change my shorts now...

cruzdreamer

Great to hear a good ending...be safe....it's crazy with the weather changes like that. Thanks for sharing!!! And a big thanks for DSC technology!!!!

bowman

I am glad to hear that there was no permanent damage done.

btw-What tires are you running?

Imp

Ok, let's review for the audience at home.

Snow + freezing rain + not the best tires for conditions + weight transfer off the rear of the car due to lifting + additional weight transfer off the rear due to fantastic grippy brakes = dirty drawers.

Yep, that sounds about right.

Lesson 1: Don't brake. Too much weight off the rear of any rear driven car in nasty weather will most likely cause what yo uwitnessed. Try engine braking and let the rear tires grip before the fronts. Since it's a little slippery, the clutch won't take that much of a beating and the rear tires will try and dig in before the fronts. The only weight bvalance that will shift forward will be when you put the clutch in, and it won't be that much because I'm sure you were at a constant speed.

Just something to think about in the future.

--kC

Velocity-8

bowman
I have the good 'ol stock Bridgestones. You know, the ones everyone say not to drive in snow with. :D


Imp
I hear ya. I know not to lift throttle or brake in bad conditions. The mistake I made was underestimating how icey the road really was. Most of the road was drivable but this one section was really bad. I caught me off gaurd.

Oh, one detail I left out... The road is two lanes with lots of trees lining both sides with no run-off.

RX-GR8

glad to hear you're ok.

RX8Lover

'Nuff said. I'd rather walk than drive with those in the snow.

Imp

So it was a rally stage? :D

Good to hear you made it out unscathed. Ice is a beotch no matter what tire you have. (Unless studded of course).

racerdave

what Imp and RX8Lover said. Now you can see why all the snow tire talk was not just smoke being blown out of low-lying orifice.

Glad all turned out ok.

Velocity-8

Thanks for the kind replies guys!

Guess what website I'm on right now??? Tire Rack!

Kaliken

hmm the suggestion of engine braking brings me to a question.

now you suggest not to use the brakes because it would lessen the grip of the rear tires..

Makes sense, as the brakes will slow down the car causing a change in acceleration and mass transfer forward. thus causing your rear tires to lose grip.

but when you say engine brake, isn't the same thing going to happen? I mean you are going to be changing acceleration the mass will still transfer to the front and you will still experience the loss in traction on the rear.

please let me know what I am missing...

edit: the only thing i can think is that you are suggesting that you have better control over engine braking than with your brakes.. hmmm... its and interesting as I have seen a lot of accidents where people have put their car into low gear leading to them spinning out.

Velocity-8

Kaliken,

The situation I was in today was unusual. I was going to fast for the conditions and the stock tires sure didn't help. I was caught by surprise and there wasn't much I could do. I did not make any abrupt moves but the road was so slick that just a little change in weight transfer was enough to upset the car.

Imp

I'm not talking about downshifting a gear and popping the clutch in that lower gear. I'm talking about letting the car 'coast' in the current gear it's in, putting the clutch in, letting the revs drop, and then easing the clutch out a little bit, sample the traction, and adjust accordingly.

You'll still slow down, and it's only slowing the REAR wheels. The front wheels have no braking force applied to them whatsoever. The weight transfer in doing this method over applying brakes (on a front brake biased car as most cars are) will be more beneficial in certain situations than stopping all 4 wheels from spinning.

When that happens, it's like just having rear brakes. The fronts are still avalable to roll and offer no resitance to the surface.

--kC

Kaliken

i see.. thanks for the clarification.. i assumed by engine braking you were suggesting feathering the clutch in to drop speed in a controled manner.


thanks..

Smoker

Yikes ! Being someone who been living and driving in the Great White North over here, I have to say Please DO NOT use the Downshifting method if you are in situation where you are approaching a turn or when you feel the road condition is bad.

When you downshift, you are doing exactly who Imp described, you are JUST BRAKING with the rear wheel , you can easily put your car into 180 spin as soon as you do that in a icy condition. Do that if you want to drift around in a parking lot but NEVER EVER do that when you are a road. The problem with just braking just the rear is that first of all, if the braking forces exceeds the traction of the tires, you will loose traction on the back end immediately and since you are doing engine braking, guess what ? No ABS for you so unless you are real quick and are able completely calm in a sudden panic situation and managed to disengage the clutch ASAP, this is like having your parking brake pulled on you.

You have no idea how many times I have seen this on the highway when we have a flash snow storm. You would see that car start loosing a bit of the traction when they apply the brakes and you see them sliding a bit left and right then all of a sudden the brake light goes out, and tail just swings all the way around on them. If they are lucky, you would hit a wall somewhere, but more likely someone else from behind or from the next lane would hit them hard.

Here's what you should do in the event if you feel you are loosing traction or are approaching a slippery turn: do all your braking in a straight line. Just slow right down to a safe speed when you are still on the straight part of the road and let the ABS do their work if it is slippery. As long as you keep the car straight, you are fine. When you are at the curve, coast throught it, don't tap the brakes, don't down shift, just coast. You want 100% of your traction spent on Turning and not on Accelerating or braking.

Remember this you will be fine.

Imp

I've been found out. I just wanted to have a few banged up RX-8s so I could build my own Franken-8.

Actually, if you do like I described, you're not really breaking traction too much.

You're only breaking a minimal amount of traction on 2 wheels instead of 4 (brakes) with less weight transfer forward to let the weight stay on the rear. Just keep in mind... you're on Ice... there's not much you're going to do to save the situation either way. But at least with the front wheels still rolling, you have a better chance of not skidding/sliding.

I also firmly beleive you're a fool to rely on ABS on snow/ice. No traction means ABS activates. The whole idea of ABS is to keep the tires rolling for accident avoidance maneuvers ONLY, and as many find out... that really only works in the dry. When it's wet, and your ABS kicks in, I can bet you $50 I'll stop better without ABS than with your ABS equipped car. Add snow in the mix and I'll up that to $200 (canadian... it's only like $4 US right? )

To stop faster on the snow, you need to get down to the surface through the snow (you should know this being from canukistan). ABS will NEVER allow that to happen... it'll just keep you rolling over the snow, failing to build a wedge of snow in front of your tires and not digging down to the pavement, dirt, whatever and increase your stopping distance quite a bit. This wedge in front of your tires creates friction when it encounters more snow. Ever pack a snowball? Ever get hit with a tightly packed one? Same principle. ABS is a curse to those in snow areas (like I am in the New England).

Just my .02 US. (That's like $20 in canada right?)

Tinkerer

Velocity,

A few bags of sand in the trunk might help while you're waiting for tires. Get a few hundred pounds over those rear wheels and you'll get better grip, starting and running. I'm sure Home Depot still has sand this time of year...

Tinkerer

Ajax

Sometimes, I'm glad I live in texas.

D MENAC 7

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! What are you trying to build another Franken RX-8? This would only throw off the front to rear balance where as your *** end will catch up to your front end and you will be off in the ditch, or other lane of traffic, even faster. Do not weight your rear end with sand, this is a bad thing. Let up on the gas, throw it out of gear and steer it to safety, if it's not too late. On ice, you have little chance to do a lot of steering but eventually, the ice patch will end. Just hold your breath and do a bit of praying at the same time. Afterwards, change your drawers.

Speed-ER doc

I'm ALWAYS glad I live in Texas.

Related story: when I have driven to Colorado in winter, I noticed that the locals who spotted my Texas plates would just stop where they were and wait for me to get out of the way.

Guess they had experience with us ice virgins. :D

Imp

:D

flatso

What a day to take my car in for the recall. I can join the club who say do not drive this car in snow! I could not get any grip going up any hills and it wanted to slide sideways on every turn. Leave this car at home when its snows.

Velocity-8

You Northern NJ'ers got it worse that us down here. We just had invisible ice but no real snow. :D j/k

Seriously, take it easy on your way home.

VikingDJ

I hear ya Velocity. I am in PA right on NJ border, and the rx8 is in garage. Luckily I have a beater vw golf, but even that thing wasn't having too much fun in today's weather. There are some downright nasty spots. We are getting pounded with almost all pure snow now at 5 inches and rising, and to think yesrerday it was almost 60 degrees and I had sunroof open on rx8 with music blaring. WOW!!

Saint_Spinner

You wear shorts during the winter??