BHORT

Would a change in geometry give me more grip in the wet. I was all over the place tonight at a speed that I would have been fine in whilst driving my wife's Corsa. Both the back and front ends were a problem whilst turning into a junction. I can not really describe the experience as it all happend so fast. I think that the front end went first and lifting off caused the back end to snake. Does anybody have any idea of what the cause may be (maybe I was a bit heavy footed) and would a geometry change help. I am loosing a bit of confidence in the wet grip at the moment and have only had the car for 1200 miles. This is not necessarily a criticism of the car but perhaps of my driving and of grip expectaions. I think that I need to do a wet grip course but I may be out of my depth with more experienced drivers of AWD cars. Does anybody know of a novices course that may help?

SDB

Hi BHORT

Geometry will alter where the availible grip is distibuted. If you go for prodrive settings or similar you will find more oversteer, for instance.

Lift off oversteer is a very strong characteristic of the Scoob and most AWD cars. Best thing is smoothness. You would probably find that the grip is far superior to the nova, but the Scooby feels slower going into corners because it gives you so much confidence. The problem with cars which have high limits, is that when you reach them they tend to come in thick and fast!

I would thoroughly recommend the Don Palmer 'Wetter the Better' course which is run at the MIRA wet handling circuit. I am there quite often testing and practicing (Don is sponsoring my Rally Team with testing assistance) and regularly see complete novices become extremely competent wet handling drivers. It's also bloody good fun!

don@drivingdevlopment.co.uk

He's a sound bloke and a great instructor. His right hand man (Colin) is an incredibly insightful and patient instructor. I did not orriginally go there for instruction but merely for practice, but Colin has given me a couple of absolute Gems, which I had never even thought of.

Great course for begginer to expert.

Cheers

Simon

kalg01

This may all be true but why is it that changing geometry and changing to Leda C in my opinion does not make any significant improvement in this areas? In fact in some corners it is even worse than it was when standard.

Jerry