Lift-Off Oversteer
 

Hi Folks,

Had my car 4 Wheel Aligned at Powerstation on Saturday and had the Fast Road setup. Absolutely loving it and the car feels very grippy around the bends. Curtis is a top bloke :thumb:

However today I had a bit of a moment, nothing too serious but made me think :confused: I was going around a left hand bend pretty quickly, around 60mph, the bend tightened up a little and I therefore lifted off the throttle and felt the back end twitch (as if it wanted to come out), would that be lift-off oversteer??

I've only had my STI 3 months now and not experienced this before. I just had 4 brand new RE070 Potenza's put on last week?

My question is that is this normal behaviour for a scoob? i.e. Lift-off oversteer?

I used to have a Civic Type R before and it being a front wheel drive I used to experience this but only when pushing it to the limit. I thought the Subaru being a 4WD that this would not happen. BTW I had the DCCD in Auto mode.

Any information would be useful. Many Thanks in advance.

Its only 4 wheel drive with your foot on the throttle

:confused:


what are you on about?

If you are not powering the wheels its no different to any other car

Not always true, as lifting off sharply will apply engine compression braking to all 4 wheels, as opposed to only the fronts or rears as on a front or rear drive car. Of course if you lift off only to the precise point that the engine and wheel speed are matched, this won't apply, then it'd be like pressing down the clutch, so the car is on castors.

Most cars if provoked sufficiently can be made to lift off oversteer a bit - I've even managed it repeatedly on the track in an old Vauxhall Calibra V6 (as it was the only way to avoid the understeer it tried to default to at every opportunity). I've made my scoob do it several times, and on a couple of (mostly deliberate) occassions I've got a lot more than a slight twitch out of the back end.

The one time I managed proper tail out lift off oversteer without planning it (combination of change to road layout, plus empty road plus a little too much stupidity), I was going at speeds which would be pretty illegal were you to do them on UK roads, and found I'd caught the slide pretty easily.

To be honest, if you had a car you couldn't make lift oversteer, it would understeer like a dog in a lot of situations. It's probably just now that Powerstation have sorted your geometry they've dialled out some of the scoobs inherent understeer, which makes lift off oversteer happen more easily.

So yes, nothing to worry about. Trust powerstation as they'll invariably do a top job with suspension mods (just don't trust Andy for fashion sense ;))

The worst thing you can do in a scoob is back off goin round bends which will cause oversteer.:cuckoo:
The best thing to do is keep your foot down i know it sounds mad and its only natural to come off the loud pedal but keep your foot down,the 4wd will pull you through.:luxhello:

How many miles had you done on these before this oversteer incident?

It could be they just need scrubbing in a bit more before you push it hard round the corners.

Also cornering in a Scooby should be done "slow in ~ fast out" :thumb:

Mark ;)

Ok guys,

hades: Your probably right mate, since Powerstation did the job it feels a totally different car, much sharper and precise on steering. Love it. Your response makes a lot of sense so thanks.

ODSSOCKS41: Yes mate, slow in and fast out, I just get over confident sometimes ;)

FLAT ERIC: You have a valid point mate, to be fair I have only done 300 miles on the new tyres yet so fair point. :)

Thanks for all the replies guys, much appreciated.

Yes they do lift off oversteer. if the back does come round, get back on the power and it will be alright. If there is room! If not you'll possibly spin!

Howard

Its not an audi mate :D :p

I've never once had oversteer on my standard 05 wagon, athough saying that I'm a scaredy cat driver, and will take it to the point of tyre scrub/squeal but not past that. I've had a couple of free track sessions, but it's always been pissing down, which was the wrong sort of experience to mess around with fast cornering.

All I get is understeer, whether it's because of going into the corner too quick, or powering down too quickly, i.e. before I'm starting to unwind the wheel.

My old T reg Golf GTI was good, on a long roundabout I could alternate the tyre squeal from front to back by lifting and planting the throttle alternately. I did once even position my door mirror so I could see the back wheel, but never had the bottle to check it mid bend to see if it was off the ground...

i thought all AWD cars would pull you out of a slide(to a point) with the power on?

just ignore ring lover mate.....

[QUOTE=wrx-kris;6946766]just ignore ring lover mate.....[/QUOTE

cheers mate, think now i get the fact he likes Audi's abit to much.

something like that. his other username is AudiLover, but he was banned for talking crap about..........wait for it......... yup, audi's!

yep i know who it is now. should ban him again for chatting more of the same

pah - its not lift-off oversteer unless your going backwards :p

(From the ex-saxo owner.. who's gone backwards.. several times..:lol1: )

Thats just lack of control init prasius?:D

..or just stupidity.. you choose.. :lol1:

I blame it on the wheels being so close.. *ahem* :D

Yep, it is quite difficult to provoke a scooby into oversteer. If you want to induce it, find somewhere you can safely drive around an obstacle in a circle of a roughly fixed radius.

Progressively increase throttle untill the tyres are registering their protest and the car begins to understeer. If you lift off slightly now, you'll notice that the front just tucks back in line.

Try it again, this time lift off a bit quicker and you'll notice the tail becomming more mobile. Get in the habbit of pointing the steering wheel where you want to go and applying power again, as the car will then drag you out of the slide.

Basically, the bigger the lift, the greater the oversteer. It's simply because the sudden deceleration is causing the weight transfer of the car to be abruptly shifted forwards, making the back end of the car go light and giving the front wheels more grip than the rears.

As another poster has mentioned tyres also play a BIG role! If yours are new, they probably need a bit of "scrubbing in"

Ns04

Corrected :thumb:

New scooby 04 is right, it has a lot to do with weight transfer, lift off mid corner and the back will go light on pretty well any car. Recovery (for AWD/FWD cars) is to accelerate which puts the weight towards the back and and allows it to grip again. Recently had a skid course (driverskills.com at Elvington) where we were doing lots of this in a school Focus - great fun.

Correct mate, he upset the balance of the car mid bend and all the weight went to the front leaving the rear light!! This will happen in most cars anyway, just driver error!! 4 wheel drive or not, if you've not got your foot down in don't mean sh*t!!

Agree with the above
What I like about subarus is HOW they lose grip.
whether default understeer or provoked oversteer it tends to be progressive.

I love the sideways action (if its safe to do so ) i'd put it down to your tyres or just the fact you transfered to much of the weight to the front when you backed off causing the arse to go light and slippy.

But like you say your new to the car and going from FWD to AWD can be misleading as your brain automatically thinks AWD means loads of grip but as you found out no car runs on rails so to speak.

Just define your technique and i garuantee before long you'll be playing with the oversteer