General Wow :P Almost Died !

[chris_VW_1987]

Yesterday whilst driving back from foxton locks with the gf , i was doing about 65 - 70 on country roads

i took one of many corners at this speed , however ... gravel across the road made the arse end of the car spin out at like 65-70mph this is SCARY lol

Car wanted to go (SCREEEECH)
--------->(SCREEEECH)
Counter steered (SCREEEECH)
<-----(SCREEEECH)
Braked (Gravel noise)
Downshifted to 3rd (brum)
Counter steered (gravel..)
------->
Braked again ( car wanting to stall in 3rd doing 10mph, ignition lights kept flicking on but wouldn't cut out )



i did all this without me thinking about it ? it was like i knew the car had gone before it actually spun?


When i was steering to regain control all the crap in the back was flying all over the place lol


seriously intense , i will not be doing that speed down country lanes again.

 

[drunfola]

sounds fun i wanna go

 

[Punto.Power]

Your a lucky bloke, but if it wasnt for your quick thinking who knows what could have happen?

 

[Hellcat]

Not sure what to say.

Don't do 70 on country roads - especially around blind corners as you never know when there will be a tractor/big group of walkers just around the corner. Think you've learnt your lesson though by the sounds of it.

As for your thinking - seems you've got to the point where your instincts are tuned to the car. Closest I've had to that was understeer in the Marea, lifted off and instantly the back steps out so had to turn into the slide and drifted around the corner. Scary stuff at 70 in an estate.

 

[stumpy102]

all sounds like fun wooo

 

[faster4_tec]

70mph in an estate car going sideways, why thats what they were born for


mk1's are pretty good at giving you feedback, passengers are usually pooping themselves when the car is only going 70% of its potential around corners as the ride is that harsh/unforgiving. manual steering helps a lot, for example if you were driving ANY audi, you wouldn't have noticed what you slid onto until you'd slid, crashed, rolled it, then when you saw the road afterwards, there is literally NO feedback atall, like playing on playstation driving one of them things (but makes long journeys easy as anything)

 

[smokeyjoe03]

Yeah i've had a similar experience doing 40mph round an island in the wet. Not good.

back end slipped out and was heading towards the kerb. I dropped it into 3rd, counter steered and floored it and it popped back in and exited perfectly. Looked in the mirror and there was bloke in a 306 laughing his balls off behind me It was weird how it happened instinctively and when I think about it I bet it looked kinda cool from the outside.

That doesn't mean I will be doing it again for a while, took a while to get the stains out of my pants though

 

[Xen]

happened to me going over a country road last year. The road was pretty much completely straight and I was doing around 60 and there was a slight dip in the road coming up, but because of the slightly upwards slope of the road, from where i was sat, i didnt see it was full of water on the roadside.
When i hit it, the car suddenly pulled to the left, so i pulled it to the right to avoid the wall down the side of the road, then as it left the dip it pulled hard right, so i corrected. now the ass-ends dancing like theres no tomorrow. Luckily i manged to pull it straight, but hell it was scary.

 

[crabbo_1]

I got all that outta my system at the college I went to.....and their gravel carpark.
Pulling up the handbrake at 55mph on gravel is pretty scary when you first do it.
Unless ya count the 900 cinque I stuffed into a ditch while avoiding a badger...though in my defense the badger was bigger than the cinque so a smash was a no-no

A few mentions of counter steer there....surely counter steer would be make the skid worse as you should be steering INTO the skid...i.e. rear end goes left , you steer left. Unless you punto's are RWD in which case you'd steer against the skid.

 

[stumpy102]

its all about counter steering its much more fun i try to get my car sideways is that rong ?????
iv only scared my self once tht was last nite but i will do it again and again until i perfect it lol
(sideways 70mph ish double decker bus coming round bend oopppps)

 

[Jamie]

its all about counter steering its much more fun i try to get my car sideways is that rong ?????
iv only scared my self once tht was last nite but i will do it again and again until i perfect it lol
(sideways 70mph ish double decker bus coming round bend oopppps)

hmmm, anybody else think this is dangerous and stupid


no offense

 

[Renegade_8]

Italian cars eh? Built to be driven and perhaps safer than some tanks from the snows that just try to pulverise whatever you plow into. Our MG is like that, after you have caught it you realise what you have done, I guess this all happens in the bit of the brain that stops you falling over and only comes up to the Cerebellum later so you can learn from it not go there again. Once when a car in front of us spun I said to the navigator, our car never does that "not yet" was her equivocal reply. I think counter steer should be read as opposite lock. Usually it is a phrase applied to motor cycles where you do it all the time but dont know , above a certain speed pressure on bars to left , bike turns right an vice versa. On advance m/c sourses they teach you how to use this in emergencies, counter steer and look through the bend and your bike will do what you ask.

 

[T14086]

yes

 

[Xen]

A few mentions of counter steer there....surely counter steer would be make the skid worse as you should be steering INTO the skid...i.e. rear end goes left , you steer left. Unless you punto's are RWD in which case you'd steer against the skid.

depends which way the skids causing you to head... if, such as im my case where the water caused me to head towards the wall on the roadside, countersteer probly saved my car from being a write-off, even if for the moment it did aggrevate the skid.

 

[chris_VW_1987]

Yeah the corner was a right turn

so the back end wanted to go left , i turned into it np

i dont know lol it was like ... soon as i felt the back end go i thought O s!!t and i just instantly reacted to what was happening :s

my gf SCREAMED !! lol

 

[Punto.Power]

my gf SCREAMED !! lol

Are you sure she was the only one..

 

[chris_VW_1987]

lol , possibly not lol .. but i do know i had a serious face on me when the car was going crazy lol :Z

 

[Renegade_8]

happened to me going over a country road last year. The road was pretty much completely straight and I was doing around 60 and there was a slight dip in the road coming up, but because of the slightly upwards slope of the road, from where i was sat, i didnt see it was full of water on the roadside.
When i hit it, the car suddenly pulled to the left, so i pulled it to the right to avoid the wall down the side of the road, then as it left the dip it pulled hard right, so i corrected. now the ass-ends dancing like theres no tomorrow. Luckily i manged to pull it straight, but hell it was scary.

Soz to gatecrash this thread from the Marea section, but This was not a "skid" what happened here was you got a lot of drag on the nearside front wheel (and some on the rear wheel ) from the standing water. This is very noticeable and was the cause of the 1955 Munich crash that killled the Manchester United team the slush drag stopped the plane getting airborne. In that case it acted on both wheels so it did not pull the a/c to one side. Anyway you did the right thing holding it on the steering and luckily had enough control authority to keep it on the island. Now when you came out of the dip you still had a chunk of right lock on, but the drag on the left had gone, so the car obediently goes right , it can only do what it's told. Now big steering inputs at high speed store lots of energy in the springs and suddenly relaesing them can cause big problems. I was told this years ago when I got a summer job driving a one ton bread van in a thick Bedfordshire accent the Transport Manager said " you won't turn it over going left and you wont turn it over going right, you will turn it over going flat out left, then swinging the wheel to go flat out right." Thats the extras shove of the springs unwinding and this is why you pay big money for better shockers. The advice to steer into a rear wheel skid remains good for front and rear wheel drive. AFIK the only area of difference is that if you are understering off with RWD car you can unstick the back with the throttle to get the tail out. You should never get to this point on public roads where you can hurt someone who did not choose to live dangeruosly.

 

[Xen]

yeh, it didnt start skidding until after the puddle when the car pulled right (as thats the way i was steering) then turned left to avoid the wrong side of the road. Thats when it started dancing

 

[The Sultan]

today i was playing in the industrial estate at the end of st Georges quay Lancaster

started throwing it into real tight bends at around 20 to 30 on some newly laid tarmac i.e. smooth and wet as it was raining it did actually teach me a few things about punto handling like if you so much as hint your going to lift off or brake and steer at the same time you get buckets of under steer then when it slows down the steering comes back

but the slightest touch of the throttle wile turning brings it all under control again in fact you can use the throttle to control the rate of turn

also if you give it loads of beans the tail hangs out for you in a surprisingly controllable manor incredible fun

all in all I'm quite pleased at how well balanced the punto is

so far the only down side to the punto is landing off of crests into corners for example next to the golf course on the crook road Cumbria they seem to get all out of shape and wobbly for a second or too including some over steer but as long as you keep it nailed it all calms down

ps. Im on standard wheels and suspension