Dont drive over fifty

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Bonefishblues
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by Bonefishblues »

PDQ Mobile wrote:
Bonefishblues wrote:For most people they (front wheel skids) aren't, I suggest - their instinct is to steer more, and brake/slow, both of which are necessary to quell understeer.

In an oversteer situation, there's a 'astonishing' moment before someone recovers themselves, and often the instinct to brake is exactly the wrong response, provoking and exact and opposite loss of grip.

Now neither of the above applies if we are in 'terminal velocity' territory of course - that is, someone with enough speed is going to understeer straight ahead into the accident, or alternatively go *rse-first into it, no matter what!


I have no intention of going "buttock first" into anything thankyou.
Most ungentlemanly!
But I understand that a less
experienced driver may make things worse at the back end by panic braking.

I am going to stick with my long belief and experience that the best grip should be on the wheels that do the most work.
Lighter steering and more positive response.
Better traction in poor soft conditions and a better newer casing that will be less likely to fail are added plusses.

Each to his own on this one.

Indeed - I have enjoyed the discussion, thanks :D
PDQ Mobile
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by PDQ Mobile »

Same to you.
Have a good one.
Vorpal
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by Vorpal »

PDQ Mobile wrote:An example is locally on the very steep and twisting narrow roads here.

On descending such a place on ice or snow I will use the hand bake (rear wheel acting) to increase braking at the rear. Often in neutral, as first gear substantially increases braking load on the front tyre(s).

So light and judicious foot-brake use, ready at all times to release, combined with extra effort of the handbrake at the rear to maintain rotation and hence steering at the front.

Snow is very different than ice, in that snow normally allows some traction, and unbroken snow may have quite reasonable traction. Ice is another matter. In such a situation myself, I would not attempt it unless I either had winter tyres, or some surface with a little grip. Often there is little used or untouched snow on the outside edge. I position my outside wheels in it. Then, I crawl down in the lowest gear and avoid braking as much as possible.

There are normally other alternatives, including parking and walking.

Braking on ice often results in loss of traction.
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NATURAL ANKLING
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by NATURAL ANKLING »

Hi,
Just ride a road motorcycle with road tyres on ice, that will tell you all you need to know about grip on any vehicle.

You never touch the brakes let alone the front and you use the engine / coast to a stop with feet on flat ground, always keeping bike up right, aim for gutter in snow to stop and also ride in fresh snow not compacted.

Of course I only did it (road bike) when that was my only form of transport.
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PDQ Mobile
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by PDQ Mobile »

Vorpal wrote:
PDQ Mobile wrote:An example is locally on the very steep and twisting narrow roads here.

On descending such a place on ice or snow I will use the hand bake (rear wheel acting) to increase braking at the rear. Often in neutral, as first gear substantially increases braking load on the front tyre(s).

So light and judicious foot-brake use, ready at all times to release, combined with extra effort of the handbrake at the rear to maintain rotation and hence steering at the front.

Snow is very different than ice, in that snow normally allows some traction, and unbroken snow may have quite reasonable traction. Ice is another matter. In such a situation myself, I would not attempt it unless I either had winter tyres, or some surface with a little grip. Often there is little used or untouched snow on the outside edge. I position my outside wheels in it. Then, I crawl down in the lowest gear and avoid braking as much as possible.

There are normally other alternatives, including parking and walking.

Braking on ice often results in loss of traction.

Yes different.
But snow often becomes ice, esp here in Western Britain.
Throw into that the only road in and out, a couple of twisty narrow 1:5 descents, and obtaining every last once of braking yet retaining steering control becomes a necessity.
Winter tyres good but good summer tyres not so much worse on pure ice.

On the lowest gear point, on such a descent I do disagree.
Too much braking force on the front wheels esp if one then applies the brakeas well.
My old vehicles have no anti lock system.
Nor are they 4x4. I have front and an old rear wheel drive vehicle- it works on both but the big advantage is on the front wheel drive.
Indeed on a rear wheel drive the back will slide more readily when in low gear.
The principle is the same but the other way round - if you follow me!

The foot brake in neutral offers a far more sensitive and quickly responsive control because the braking effort by descending in a low gear is hard or impossible to control- it is fixed.

With the handbrake trick outlined above this gives a way of obtaining the absolute most braking effort evenly distributed across the wheels on such a surface.

It requires practice, sensiivity(feel), and a new skill - using the handbrake while moving.
And I genuinely recommend it on steep (and slow!) icy descents!
The control is beyond anything acheivable using a low gear. IMHO
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Mick F
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by Mick F »

PDQ Mobile wrote:
Mick F wrote:I had understeer with a Minivan once back in 1973 in Cheltenham on a sharp left in the town centre late at night. Straight on into the railings. :D

Never ever had it since. What does this tell me about my driving since then?


Never had another Mini? :wink:
Or older and wiser?
We had loads of them.
Estates, saloons, vans, though never had a pickup. Eight in total.

Older and wiser is the difference.
Driving properly and within the limits of the car. It takes more skill to drive gently than to drive hard.
Mick F. Cornwall
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Mick F
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by Mick F »

softlips wrote:In my days of sports cars none of them ever had spares.
Scan of a photo of Daughter2 in 1981.
Her sports car had a spare! :D
Sports Car.jpg
Mick F. Cornwall
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RickH
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by RickH »

The vehicle manufacturer's recommendations, if they give them, are probably the best thing to follow. Especially if you have a car with unusual features.

Slightly OT - We had a Citroën Xantia estate for a while. That had the handbrake operating on the front wheels. It had a sort of passive rear wheel steering, centred by big springs so if you cornered hard it went round better. That was probably the car that had a switch that turned off (or at least greatly limited) the rear brakes if there was no load in the rear. For MOT brake tests you needed some weight in the boot.

On winter car tyres, having been convinced of their usefulness in cool (~5C), wet conditions we started running winter tyres over winter & swsppjbg to ordinary tyres in the warmer months. In the last few years we have gone over to Michelin Crossclimates that seem to give (most of) the benefits of both - good wear rates of ordinary Michelins (which offsets the higher price) but still perform in winter.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
rmurphy195
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by rmurphy195 »

Bonefishblues wrote:OTOH, and taking a different tack, how much additional weight is carried around for how many miles by how many cars at what environmental cost for the once-in-a-blue-moon event of a puncture?

The last one I has was on the bottom end of the A40 and I decided it was simply too dangerous to do anything other than call the man.


My blue moons - or rather, blue language - seem to occur every 18 months or so - at present I have languishing in my garage yet another wheel with a perfectly good tyre on it with a screw embedded in it near the edge. The day after it happened I was cycling along near where the puncture happened, and found a pile of the screws in the gutter! (So I picked them up and kept them, very useful).

When the family bus finally expires I always look for a replacement with a proper spare wheel, when these things happen its rarely just outside an open tyre depot with a tyre in stock that exactly matches the other three!

A friend's experience was "interesting" - didn't notice the pothole until it was too late, and there he was stranded at the roadside with a burst tyre, a wife and a car full of luggage. A two seater with a skinny spare - and nowhere to put the wheel that came off the car! On Mull. Someone came out from the nearest town (opposite side of the island) and sorted him out with the only tyre he had in stock of the right size - a cheapo, which he then had to replace later with a tyre to match the rest.

A former colleague found his brakes wouldn't work after he fitted his skinny spare one rainy day - the ABS kept going nuts 'cos the tyre wouldn't grip! Great safety aid that.

The gunge? - I was horrified to find my Mazda puncture kit (no spare) had printed on it a warning about driving over 50 if the gunge was used, and almost as an afterthought pointing out that the gunge would wreck the tyre even if it was otherwise safely repairable (not to mention specialist cleaning of the rim before a new tyre can be fitted)! That is of course even if it did work, and even if you were able to use it correctly - anyone whose read the instructions or actually tried to use this stuff will know what I mean.

I'll settle for the old-fashioned approach thanks, much safer and easier and lower impact!

As for the weight penalty - marketing! If the manufacturers were that concerned they would make the cars an inch or so smaller all round (keeping the spare wheel, not to mention glass in the headlamps so they don't cloud over), not keep making the "same model" bigger and heavier with each new version. Seen the latest Mini, Micra and Fiat 500?

Best grip at the front? Perhaps not, there were some interesting safety films on TV a while back, comparing sliding into a kerb front wheels first and doing so going sideways after the back wheels lost grip first. The one that understeered into the kerb rode over it, causing damage to the front susp and bits under the car. The one that oversteered flipped-over - much more dangerous!
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Bonefishblues
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Re: Dont drive over fifty

Post by Bonefishblues »

As for the weight penalty - marketing! If the manufacturers were that concerned they would make the cars an inch or so smaller all round (keeping the spare wheel, not to mention glass in the headlamps so they don't cloud over), not keep making the "same model" bigger and heavier with each new version. Seen the latest Mini, Micra and Fiat 500?

Worth just picking up on the para I extracted above. Cars can indeed be made smaller and lighter by manufacturers, should we wish, but we'd be in the realms of mildly exotic and certainly more expensive materials to achieve it, courtesy of ever-increasing safety standards (in the main - I know that we also have our electronic fripperies, but balance that with the fact that we're also as a population getting increasingly chuffy, too, so we need bigger everything).

Latest 500 vs the original, or Micra, or Mini you say. Yes bigger, much, but I know what I'd rather be in when encountering Witherley Tipper Man, as I did the other day. But tbh, they are different cars with the same name, aren't they - fundamentally so.

BTW you can't have it both ways - lighter plastic or your preferred heavier glass you say. I polish our ageing Volvos' headlights every other year or so. They're still rubbish on dip, but that's just the design, not the newly-clear plastic's fault. (Others of this Parish might suggest that that might be a safety feature, I expect) :)
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