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New car + wet road = close call

2K views 8 replies 7 participants last post by  mosc 
#1 ·
Hello fellow wrx'ers. I have probably read half the threads on this site but this is my first post here. Hopefully I'm posting in the right place.

I have had my 2007 WRX TR for a couple of weeks and observed the breakin rules religiously. Yesterday I hit 1,000 miles and did my first speed tests on dry pavement and was seriously impressed.... but then it started raining.

So, after it had stopped raining (roads were still somewhat wet), I took a turn at maybe 20mph and the car stuck fine... then I got the car and steering wheel straight and I gave it about 1/2 throttle in 2nd at 3500rpms (read: peak torque) and the car immediately turned sideways!!! I am a previous honda owner, and I've driven FWD cars my entire life... so this was something terrifyingly new to me.

In an attempt to get her lined back up, I cut the wheel in the direction I wanted to go and bliped the throttle. The car immediately did a 180 and I was in the same scenario, only now I was facing the ditch on the opposite side of the road.

My 2nd attempt, cutting the wheel in the direction I wanted to go (no throttle), waited for the car to begin to spin back around, and immediately cut the wheel the other way, and then back straight. This worked (thank God)!

I am now officially scared of this car in the rain. I have 2 questions.
1. Has anyone else had a similar problem with the car immediately and without warning, turning sideways during straightline acceleration in slippery conditions?
2. Some of you have alot more experience in this car than I do. What is the best way to recover from an accidental sideways drift such as this one?
 
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#2 ·
Yea, driving an AWD takes some getting used to. First of all in the sideways situation or anytime the wheels are spinning you want to keep your foot on on the gas. Not much but keep the wheels moving. It sounds wierd and is hard to teach yourself, but the symmetrical AWD system will balance the car.

While the wheels are spinning and if you keep the gas applied the system will take power away from the wheels that are spinning and apply that power to the wheels that have more traction. If you slam the brakes, this distribution will not occur and you will slide.

The reason you spun around when you blipped the throttle is that quick blip sent all the power to the wheels in the normal distribution and from what you say I bet only the rear wheels grabbed and the car spun around. This will all make much more sense when you get to practice in the snow!!!

Hope that helps.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for the quick reply. That all makes perfect sense and puts it into perspective.

Based on what you've said, I assume that in order to prevent the problem in the first place I should gradually apply throttle (rather than immediately going from 0 to 50% throttle) to allow the AWD system adequate time to adjust before its too late and the car is already sideways. Does this sound right?

Also, might anyone have an idea on what the delay/latency is on the AWD system making adjustments? I was under the impression that it was relatively fast, however, I went from straight to sideways in way under 1 second, so it might not have had time to adjust.
 
#5 ·
Your thinking about it too much. Just remember... that gun is loaded. And get rid of those stock tires NOW!!! Before you find yourself backwards in a ditch at 70mph like I did.
 
#8 ·
it does not really matter if its AWD, FWD, or RWD this could have happened regardless. WRX06TR is right about staying on the throttle. If you keep a little throttle the car will stay 'planted' there is stability under power because the weight of the car is distributed well.

however, WHENEVER you 'lose control' of the car, and it begins to slide you HAVE to steer into the slide. if you don't, any and all other inputs are a complete waste. if you are not pointing the car where you want to go it does not matter what else you do. So, if the ass end starts coming around the left side you turn the wheel to the left. and vise versa. dont turn the wheels further then you have to either. you cant catch the slide better with more steering input. just keep the wheels pointing where you want the car to go, not where you ARE going, this is a huge problem with most drivers. people always look where they are going, its called target fixation. as long as your eyes are looking down the road, where its straight and safe, your hands and feet will do a lot of it by themselvs. but if you are looking at that telephone pole or tree you really really dont want to hit, guess what. thats where your going.

the reason you got all squirley is not because you went to the throttle. its because you came right back off the throttle. by 'bliping' the go juice you disrupted the weight.

WRX's handle more like FWD cars then AWD cars, primarily due to the way they understeer instead of oversteer. in a FWD car, you can come off a corner and floor it, worst case scenario you start to push to the outside and your forced to pull back on the throttle a little bit. in a RWD car or more tradational AWD car, that same set of circumstances would spin you out very quickly.

thats not to say you cant exert oversteer in a WRX, or a FWD car for that matter. with big entry speed and weight transfer you can induce lots and lots of oversteer.


the main thing to remember is to treat your inputs (steering and peddles) like volume knobs instead of on and off switches. the key to being fast is being smooth. a great visual for me was to imagine a string connecting the throttle to the steering wheel. with the wheel straight you have full range of the throttle, it can touch the floor. but as i start to turn the wheel it pulls on that slack and gradually reduces the amount of throttle i can use. with the wheel all the way on the rack stops i have very little available throttle. the idea is to program yourself to roll on the inputs. as you unwind the wheel coming off of a turn you gradually roll on the throttle. you dont slam back on the gas as soon as you have passed the apex and are tracking out. working under these psudo conditions will really burn in the basics of what the car wants you to do. later on you will find that these are more guidelines then actual rules and you have a lot more room to play around with.

after a while you will begin to anticipate what the car is going to do instead of reacting to what its already doing. F1 drivers have reaction times that rank with professional bowlers.


edit:
as for the stock tires. i ran them for about 5K miles more then i should have. there was literally NO tred on them. but they where fine. there not super great tires but there not crap either. ive torn down HWY17 at 80 in the pooring rain.
 
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