Hi Everybody,

I am new to the forum, I am an ex-pat living in Italy.

Until just over 2 weeks ago I was the proud owner of a 4x4 2006 multijet Panda.

I was driving around a average right hand bend actually slower than normal because the road conditions were slightly damp.

When much to my suprise the rear of the car seemed to loose grip and started a clockwise rotation.

I tried to correct the skid but the steering seemed to have no effect, we left the road and there was a drop of about 9 inches from road level to the compacted mud area we landed on.

The car then flipped and landed on it's roof less than 10ft from the roadside.

There was no oil visible on the road.

The airbags & front seat passenger seatbelt did not function.

On inspection of the underside of the vehicle drivers side (LHD) tyre was blown & steering arm broken.

Has anybody any ideas to the reason of my very sudden demise please?

The airbags will only deploy in a frontal impact I think (the sensor is mounted near the grille). Not sure what triggers the seat belts, but I'd have hoped that these would fire independently.

Do you think the blowout caused the crash and the steering arm was broken in the resulting impact or the other way round? I'd expect to hear and feel a blow out in a tyre. A friend of mine (who's not been very lucky with cars!) had the pleasure of his steering rack coming apart while he was driving down the motorway thanks to the Skoda dealer who fitted it forgetting to torque it up correctly. It was making a hell of a racket though, so he'd pulled over before any serious damage was done.

Did you see any other cars going round the bend experiencing problems?

At least you walked away and the car can be replaced

Chris

ScoobyChris said:

Do you think the blowout caused the crash and the steering arm was broken in the resulting impact or the other way round? I'd expect to hear and feel a blow out in a tyre.

Did you see any other cars going round the bend experiencing problems?

At least you walked away and the car can be replaced

Chris

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I'm really not sure what happened in what order to cause the event Chris, There were no other vehicles about so I can't comment on whether anybody else had any problems.

I walked away but my wife spent a week in hospital and the insurance say I'm only covered if I hit another car....but that's another story.

Sorry to hear about your panda but glad that you both are generally ok.

I was thinking was there any problems with the steering as you went into the corner before you went into the skid?

You are describing a very exaggerated oversteer taking place in this accident. I have a Panda 4x4 and in a simple situation of reduced grip it tends to understeer, suggesting that a sudden mechanical failure took place in this case.
I'm not sure which driver's side tyre was flat but a blow-out on a front tyre might cause the wheel rim to dig into the road surface and cause sudden severe oversteer. The forces involved would also break the steering arm.
I feel that a failure of the steering arm is unlikely as the cause of the accident, these are very strong and I have subjected those on my car to all sorts of abuse on and off road. However, if your track had been adjusted at any time after the car left the factory then the arm may not have been adequately tightened. I think this unlikely.
On balance I suspect this accident was caused by a sudden tyre failure.

doctorchris said:

On balance I suspect this accident was caused by a sudden tyre failure.

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I agree with doctorchris....

The Panda is much more likely to suffer from understeer than oversteer and I very much doubt that it would have been a failure in the steering arm, as they are made to deal with a lot of stress.

So.....I also think that it must have been the blow out that caused the incident. The sudden change in the cars dynamics would most certainly cause an accident in such a small well poised car.

'Old Dog' - you don't say if you were hurt or not. I hope you are OK: the car is replaceable or repairable, but bodywork repairs on the human body are generally more of a problem.

I agree with the others -- tyre failure resulting in the wheel rim digging into the road and a spin as a result. My 4x4 generally understeers, and occasionally is knocked off line if there's a bump (eg man hole cover or pothole) mid bend. Never experienced oversteer at all.

In reply to

ScoobyChris said:

The airbags will only deploy in a frontal impact I think (the sensor is mounted near the grille)....

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Correct: The airbags (on all cars) are triggered by a decelerometer (a device that senses sudden slowing down due to an impact) . This will only fire the airbags and the seatbelt pretensioners if (1) the impact is severe enough, and (2) if the impact is on the front of the car, a few degrees either side of 'straight ahead'. (If side airbags are fitted, there may a change to this angle?)

Pete

In addition to the thoughts already suggested, just to throw a curve ball into the mix, it could have been rear diff related? If that failed (i.e locked solid) halfway round a corner that would throw you into an oversteer situation pretty rapidly.

IMO a steering arm failure would put the car into a understeer situation.

Either way, glad you're both OK. Will be interesting to see ultimately what was the cause.

Ben

Thank you all for your good wishes.

My wife got a nasty knock to the head which caused a small brain bleed which was quite worrying at the time. She had stiches to the head and suffered bad bruising to the head. Our rear seat passenger ended up with 22 stiches to the head.

Just as a slight deviation here, the hospital were full of apologies to our friend because they made her wait 10 minutes in A&E while they found an English speaking doctor.

I was shaken & very stirred for about a week and I'm still convinced that every bend I go around in a car is going to lead to another disaster (must be getting old).

To try and answer some of you questions, no there were no handling problems before the skid.

The tyre that burst was the drivers side front tyre (lhd)

Thanks Again, and if there any more ideas keep them coming.

glad you got out of the accident ok (ish?)

the tyre does sound probable, right hand bend, right hand front tyre failure, I'm not that great with 4x4 systems but I'd presume they'd understeer considerably first, and you say you weren't going fast so I'd rule that out, unless there was a major failure in the rear diff causing the rear wheels to lock, then the flat tyre could have been caused on impact with something? the steering arms would have broke upon impact with something, they are very strong, but also brittle.
When you say the passenger seatbelt didnt function, do you mean it failed to lock?
The airbags are programmed to go off in certain situations, and your accident may not have fullfilled the criteria for them to fire (whether thats a bad thing or not) they didn't fire in my first panda when another car landed on it either.
hope you and your passengers have a speedy recovery anyway

100hpJames said:

When you say the passenger seatbelt didnt function, do you mean it failed to lock?

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Basically the seatbelt restrained my wife very little.

She ended in a crumpled heap on the roof of the car after hitting (we think) the rear view mirror.

The rear seat passenger had seatbelt bruising, her injuries we think were caused by the front head rest.

If you roll the car conventional 3-point belts are of little use. That's why rally drivers have competition harness and a roll cage. Air-bags will not deploy unless the sensor on the slam panel detects significant frontal impact. ENCAP does not test cars in a crash scenario such as yours, only frontal and side impacts where the car stays upright.

John

Though I don't know how the system works, but depending on how it is controlled, a blown front tyre could cause the rear/ front/rear diffs to lock. If a momentarily loss of traction was detected on the blown front it will engage the diffs to enable power to be supplied to the other wheels, this may be when you first noticed the back end coming round as more power would be driving the rear wheels. This is the system working correctly, but usually at low speeds where the driver can control the direction easily, but on a tarmac road at speed and without a front tyre, it would be different story.
Like others I believe you had a tyre failure, as the damge to the suspension was done as the wheel minus height of tyre dug in the verge, if it had been inflated and in place before leaving the road your car would have suffered dmaged to the chassis pan and the steering and suspension would have more than likely to have survived.

Herts Hillhopper said:

Correct: The airbags (on all cars) are triggered by a decelerometer (a device that senses sudden slowing down due to an impact) . This will only fire the airbags and the seatbelt pretensioners if (1) the impact is severe enough, and (2) if the impact is on the front of the car, a few degrees either side of 'straight ahead'. (If side airbags are fitted, there may a change to this angle?)

Pete

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As said above by Pete, the airbags would not have deployed because it wasn't a fontal impact. The angles of frontal impact are at an angle of upto 30 degrees of the front normally

John R Smith said:

If you roll the car conventional 3-point belts are of little use. That's why rally drivers have competition harness and a roll cage. Air-bags will not deploy unless the sensor on the slam panel detects significant frontal impact. ENCAP does not test cars in a crash scenario such as yours, only frontal and side impacts where the car stays upright.

John

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Just like to clear up what John's said, he probably means exactly what I'm about to say, but said it slightly differently, so I'm not trying to put him down, the sensors, whether in the slam pan, Front chasis legs, or anywhere else, are activated by severe deceleration, not impact or crumpling.

Below is a fasinating video of a car's airbags going of dispite no damage to the front of the car: (Your waiting for the 4x4 at the end. No crash damage as such, just the bollard mounting the engine/gearbox and so stopping the car dead)

Derv drinker said:

...If a momentarily loss of traction was detected on the blown front it will engage the diffs to enable power to be supplied to the other wheels, this may be when you first noticed the back end coming round as more power would be driving the rear wheels. This is the system working correctly...

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An interesting point there. The Panda only engages the drive to the rear (via a viscous coupling) if one front wheel is going at a very different speed to the other. So if a front tyre goes down, the drive will be shifted to the rear, and since the front can't grip well (with flat tyre) the rear wheel drive effect could push you into a spin (like old rear wheel drive cars with too much power for the front to contain, like large-engined Ford Capris -- don't all start debating this one: any 1970s or 80s not so well engineered rear wheel drive car will do)

As to the broken lower arm, isn't there a video clip somewhere of a Panda being pulled up onto a breakdown truck with a failed front suspension? (I'll search YouTube) Maybe that's what happened here? Steering arm failed (under cornering load too), 4x4 engaged rear drive, front wheels at odd angles owing to broken steering and car heads off the road?

Herts Hillhopper said:

isn't there a video clip somewhere of a Panda being pulled up onto a breakdown truck with a failed front suspension?

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Found it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tg2KZQVXzE

You don't get to see when or how it failed, but your steering arm (in the clip it looks more likely to be lower arm or balljoint) could have caused a problem like this?
P

This is why I equipped my Panda with ESP. People argue you don't need it but it's instances like this that make it 100% worthwhile. I don't understand why Fiat doesn't allow fitment of ESP to the Panda 4x4!?! I would have had the 4x4 if I could have specified ESP.

Sammyboy said:

This is why I equipped my Panda with ESP. People argue you don't need it but it's instances like this that make it 100% worthwhile. I don't understand why Fiat doesn't allow fitment of ESP to the Panda 4x4!?! I would have had the 4x4 if I could have specified ESP.

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Not sure ESP's going to be able to do too much about a sudden tyre deflation or worse, suspension failure!

Millsey69 said:

Not sure ESP's going to be able to do too much about a sudden tyre deflation or worse, suspension failure!

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I'm pretty sure the ESP still functions with a deflating tyre - it would just have to work harder same goes with the suspension failure - the ESP is not linked to the suspension so it would just try to counteract the skid. The ESP possibly may not function properly if the tyre is deflating - however the ESP obviously works with the tyres at different pressures.

Millsey69 said:

Not sure ESP's going to be able to do too much about a sudden tyre deflation or worse, suspension failure!

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Correct. Will throw the whole car, esp is great when the car is functioning properly, but with one tyre out the car wouldn't be able to grip properly, and ESP is designed to be used with 4 and not 3 wheels