ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

The most brown pants moments is if your arsing about with your foot to the floor...Then the back end starts drfting round...what do you do? The average person craps themselves dials in opposite lock, and lifts the throttle.....oh dear, and off the road we go!

Obviously when your driving fast its, to be expected. But the most distressing times in my experience, is when your driving normally on a wet road, and an off camber bend causes it to drift out. Or a slippery exit on a roundabout (diesel - the bikers cry). Or when it occurs whilst in an an emergency stop/avoidance manouver. You correct it, and it snaps back the other way.

If your quick/lucky/experienced enough and using a combination of throttle and steering you can catch it and stop it (or fish tail back the other way again), I think the point is not to rely soley on, and use too much opposite lock to correct the oversteer, you must keep some sort of throttle control to balance it.


My uncle did it on his first test drive of a Sti...whilst overtaking a coffin dodger and hitting a dip in the road on a very slight bend. He's hated Imprezas ever since

white

Watching it a few times over, it looks like he dabs the break mid bend as I'm sure you can see the brake lights come one just before the back end snaps.

Pendulum effect.........

MaDaSS

I too have lost my MY03 WRX in a fantastic amateur move on an island 3 years ago. Again, too fast into the roundabout, back end started to go, i shat me pants and let go off the gas pedal and the rest is 2k worth of damage. Anyway, i have always said that the curb on the exit was in the wrong place! LOL.
But even since then i have had some "weird" things happen to me. I just feel sometimes that i am not on the limit of the car, yet it either drifts or starts to understeer and it is a shock as i just dont feel that the car is that far on its limit?
Recently i came off a roundabout again very fast, the car undertsteered, or it drifted, whichever, so i just eased off the gas as on that exit there is a lovely center reservation with a massive piece of lovely barrier bolted to it, anyway, i eased off the gas, and the front end that really severely snapped back in line, but to me the shock was how severe this felt to me in the car.
I kept control, but i was surprised by how much it sort of snapped back into line.
Is easing off the gas like this stupid? or should i be having more ***** and just hold it or someat?
Weird, but i felt like if i held the gas as it was i would have hit the central reservation before it sort of straightened out.
And before anyone says it for me, yes i am ****! LOL

hedgehog

Even if he did brake through the corner, and we can't be sure that he did or wasn't just doing a bit of left foot braking, then it is clear that the car behind had to brake to a stop and yet it avoided hitting the mountain. Now there is no question that the Subaru has lots of grip etc. so the question is why did it drive into the mountain when travelling at a reasonable speed and when the car behind could make it around the corner under braking? There are lots of excuses you can make but I know I'm not the only one saying that there is a chassis "feature" that causes the new age to be an evil handling creation.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

The classics do it do too. Which is worse is anyones guess.

hedgehog

Well, I had a classic for 4 years and a new age for 3 and there is no question that the classic was capable of a similar thing but at least you could feel what was going on in the classic. There is no feeling at all in the new age and it also all happens in a much more unpleasant manner. I've said it on here before but: when you are sideways in a classic you are having fun when you are sideways in a new age you are having an accident. From my experience it was quite simply as clear cut as that, though I'm the first to admit that driving styles etc. vary. However I will be sticking by my claims that the MY03 STi certainly had a very fundamental chassis flaw and was and awful handling car, despite having lots of grip.

KiwiGTI

Are the MY06's the same?

bigknd

No so long as you keep the DCCD in Auto IMHO

hedgehog

I certainly can't comment on a MY06 as I've never driven one. Since the MY03 Subaru have made regular changes to the suspension and it is my belief this was an attempt to correct for the fundamental problem. With this in mind it would seem reasonable to assume that things have got better since my early 03 car. It must also be said that most of (perhaps all of) the people who have contacted me over the last 3 years to say they agree with my comments that there is a fault and that the car handles "like a pig" as one put it have been driving 03 cars.

KiwiGTI

So what's the explanation for this one :

http://skifreakz.com/track/WRX_Crash_LimeRock.wmv

Roojai

That is a great vid. The driver and passenger seem convinced there is oil on the track as that other car had a similar problem at the same place.

It sounds like the car belongs to the passenger due to all the apologising at the end, poor guy.

I guess he took his foot off the accelerator when he should have kept it on to pull the car out of the slide

MaDaSS

Just look at post 33 above, and tell me the way out of this.
Am i right in saying then that if you do end up in a sort of slide coming out of a corner, as long as its a nice gentle slide, you should actually keep the power on to get it back? Or is it ease off the gas? Or like me on that island you shat your pants and lose it all ways round, but you get that with them! LOL.
I think the point being, to get myself booked in with mister driving expert and learn how to handle the ******* thing properly i suppose.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I've done many a fish tail like that blue Impreza in the early part of the Video. Seems funny after it happens, but it ain't funny whilst it happens.

Bloke at the end does appear to be blaming the bend. Whatever!!! There is always an underlying cause to a skid be it driver, speed, road, camber, bumps etc. It still prooves that they are hard to "catch" and regain control when it does step out - especially with such small run-off space, as once your on the grass you can forget about trying to save the car.

billythekid

Depends, but yes if you are starting to slide lifting off the power can induce the spin, as with the second vid on here, he could have got away with just a spin to his near side if he had booted it, assuming the car had the power.

The first clip was just one of those things, not going all that fast but it looked like a combination of the biker who was apexing it and it also looked like the corner was getting tighter to me. Jumped on the brakes and then it was game over, I dont anyone would have been able to save it after that point. Looked quite dusty too.

hedgehog

As per my previous point though the following car also had to jump on the brakes, in fact he had to brake significantly harder than the Subaru because it lost most of its speed in a transfer of energy with a mountain. The following car didn't hit the mountain and, in fact, seemed to maintain its line around the bend. As others have said I don't think, judging by the passing vegetation, that they were travelling very fast at all.

So, in engineering terms it is possible to make a car that has no problems getting around that bend under emergency braking. The Subaru, on the other hand, suffered a most dramatic loss of stability and may not even have been braking at all. It wasn't just a simple loss of the back end, the car suffered what looked to me like a totally uncontrollable sequence of events one of which compounded the other.

JTaylor

**** driving. The boy panicked when the car twitched and over reacted; I'm just glad some unsuspecting biker wasn't coming the other way. Good job he wasn't driving quickly!

Edited to add:http://www.donpalmer.co.uk/

JTaylor

KiwiGTI

Just for balance

http://media.disloyal.org/Videos/415...te_crashes.wmv

And speed in videos can be deceiving - look at the following and I wouldn't have said 180mph, so he could be going faster than appears.

http://www.corvettekillstories.com/p...4busachase.wmv

JTaylor

And the answer is: because the driver's a dopey cvnt

billythekid

Hmm I see what you are trying to get at, its very difficult to tell from a chase car exactly what was happening in the car ahead. Its quite clear that the Subaru had large steering input just before and during brakes where as the chase car did not. What my post was saying is that had the lead car not put these inputs in then he would have got away with it, but after he did there was no stopping the accident.