Leslie

SaxoBoy

Firstly I am very glad that you got away without any damaging consequences to your frightening experience. I bet you are grateful to Amanda Jane for her support.

I would not be prepared to lay any blame on you for the cause of the incident since I was not there and am not therefore qualified to do so. I own a MY94 STI 1 which has had the full bumpsteer correction and alignment at Power Station. I was not happy with the turn-in and general behaviour of the front end but the car is now a delight to drive. I have however noticed a peculiar effect occasionally, when I am driving through a medium bend with a reasonable amount of power applied, the front of the car seems to want to grip a little better suddenly and I can feel a slight difference in the weight of the steering. It becomes very slightly lighter. I must add that this is not under extreme cornering conditions, just reasonably fast. I am at a loss to explain this-there is nothing wrong with the condition of the car in any way. I can only guess that maybe the inside front wheel is just trying to spin under power thus unloading the outside front wheel which then gains a little extra grip. The front diff is not a limited slip. This would put extra loading on the rear wheels and as in your case could set the back end off into a slide. Maybe someone else has noticed this effect. I have to say though that this has only happened on a left hand bend so far-perhaps the engine torque also helps this effect to occur.

Little Miss WRX is giving you good advice-do some track days. You are correct to say we all get Scoobs to enjoy our driving but as so many have said on this thread-the road is not the place to drive on the limit-there is too much at stake. At least you made sure the road was empty and that is why you have had a pretty cheap warning. There is a world of difference between fast road driving and really getting the car wound up on a track. Most people are quite surprised how slow they are round a track until they get themselves sorted. Most racing drivers I have known also drive pretty conservatively on the roads.

I congratulate you on having the bottle to tell us about your "off". There may be a basic reason for this that we don't know about-Pathfinder might agree on that one! You may well get us all to be just a bit more careful on the roads.

Les

imlach

Leslie, you said :

> At least you made sure the road was empty and that is why you have had a pretty cheap warning

Exactly how does one know the road was empty???? That is a very basic wrong assumption!!! A track is the only place I can think of where you can make assumptions about how empty it is (and even then I would not!).

PG

SB,

re. the GF part of my post, you have my appoligies. I was just making an observation..........bit harsh to dump the poor lass for something she may post on SN AJ, watch and not make any typos !

Must admit, re."I'm surprised you get into cars at all" I prefer to be driving than to be driven there are some really bad drivers out there
Eveyone has a different way of dealing with things and if posting your happenings on SN help you deal with it good ( must admit you are fookin mad if you didnt expect the reaction you got ! ) However those who have said that your posts have made them think.....please They will go out hammer along a road come to a corner and think to themselves oh best slow down here SB nearly had a accident the other day ??? Nah !

I know you have been after a scoob for a long time and I know you enjoy the car alot just watch it doesnt end up as salvage. It would break your heart...not to mention your bank !!! and the last thing you want is those who are close to you to worry everytime you go out for a drive.
If I was going to drive the car to the same extent you do (must admit I did do over a ton once) I would be putting on a skid-lid and gettin on track.
I have decided to sell my scoob as I feel the car would be used best on a track but I just cannot justify/afford the cost and just couldnt look at myself if twisted it !
So off to a Willi Clio(?) and a bike for me

FFS stay safe !!

sexy-blue-scoob

just read the posts.

Glad to hear your OK SB.

I am sure that Kartman would agree that evryone makes mistakes - just be happy that your little incident happened while you were 'pushing it' - kartman managed to back my car into a wall a couple of weeks ago !!!! - and that was driver error ! My car is now in need of a new bumber- so I guess he'll have to start saving.

Hope to meet up with everyone soon- I am sure KM will want to show off his new toy.

TomM

Wont do that again in a hurry eh matey!!

Cant be arsed to read the 11 pages of replies but it happens to all of us, glad your ok!

We all learn from our mistakes, its what carves us out as drivers. You will benifit from that near miss more than you will ever know!

Tom.

SiPie

At the last count I think it was 112 people on this thread saying roughly the same thing zzzzZZZZzzzzz

Lets see if we can keep it going till Christmas at least

TomM

Problem with threads like this is that people like me come on after a few days away, cant be arsed to read the 11 previous pages and the post the same thing that everyone else has already posted!!

Bloody Saxo Boy starting these millenium posts!!

EvilBevel

Which obviously puts you in the dummies category, as a) there haven't been 112 people on this thread yet, and b) there were some real good comments, like from the guy that took up racing (Greg).

Are we reading the same thread ?

Do you think your zzzZZZzzz comment is useful here ?

Dream Weaver

Kenny keep smiling mate Just learn from it.

Cant say anything that probably hasn't been said (cant be arsed/too busy to read ALL the posts).

I still drive fairly quick - not like I used to, and I always stick to 30 through built up areas, but I still drive quickly on country roads. The key to enjoying yourself is to drive quickly but smoothly. I prefer doing 65 in a NSL country road and sweeping safely through the bends, than trying to hit max speeds and cane the **** off the car.

You should buy an MR2 like me - all Impreza owners I know say "wow, 4WD is amazing" etc etc, then everyone tells me how bad at handling MR2's are So in the back of my mind I tend to slow down as I always have the "they are dangerous in the wet" conversations in my head.

With regards the trackday bunch, you all have too much money I would love to do a trackday but cant justify (or even afford) the £250 entrance fee. Therefore from that I should stop driving quickly anywhere. Hmm, may sell the car and buy a pushbike

DW

PS Every Scooby run I have been on - ALL cars push way over the limits of the average car/driver

7 Foot

Calm down Evil!

There is a lot of repetition going on.

(Resisted the obvious repeat jokes)

john banks

Kenny, it didn't feel planted approaching corners either. FWIW when passengering in your Scoob more recently your driving felt good. I suspect you were driving 7-8/10 at the time, and it was brisk and enjoyable. Get it at Knockhill and you can show me up despite having 80 BHP less

LG John

I haven't driven fast all my life at all!!!! I usually drive slower than the run of traffic as I pootle along trying to save fuel. I then, occassionally (about 5% of the time) turn of onto a twisty for some fun....just so happened last time I did this it went pear-shaped.

I've been thinking about what John Banks said and I'd like to make a point regarding that. I absolutely did not feel safe in the car with John that evening either. Not because he's a bad driver though, I think he drives well within his/the cars limits and is a very good driver...he's no bad with computer either However, when he asked me what I thought I hope he recalls me saying 'it was great, I trusted that you knew the roads' The reason I said that was because we were cornering on occassions outwith our ability to see around the corner to tell if it tightened, etc. For this reason I trusted that John knew the road and he clearly did. What I worried about was if there was a cow, car, person, UFO, etc round the corner and for that reason yes I was scared...but I do not hold that against John in any way. The reason I don't is simple, I happily accepted that risk as part of 'enthusiastic driving' - once I was confident that he knew the road and the car (didn't take long) I relaxed because I was willing to accept the risk of that which cannot be seen/anticipated. If you think about it I bet a lot of us (myself included) corner outwith our ability to see and safely stop - trusting to a degree that it'll be all clear. Be honest here, do you do this? I would however like to out that since then John posted about a scary experience where he rounded a corner to find an accident and only just had space to stop....for this reason his road driving has probably changed. Nevertheless, even whilst driving well under john personal/cars limits we were at times putting our faith in there being nothing major round the next bend. We can argue the rights and wrongs of this all day but I believe this is a risk that most of us are willing to accept more often than we'd like to think. I've yet to be driven by a scooby driver that drives within their ability to see, that's just my experience of things.

Just to be absoultely clear: I'm not having a go John, just trying to point out that its possible to drive slower and safely but still not slowely and safely enough if you want to be near 100% sure of avioding trouble.

The only thing I'd say in the VTS's defense is that it is, by its nature, a very twitchy car (hence the preference of the 106 GTI by most), all I could say is that I honestly did know how to read what it told me and other than that unexpected corner (cheers for the warning btw ) it was behaving itself.

MarkO

And another thing - people are repeating themselves a lot here.

LG John

I'd be dissapointed in myself if I went to knockhill with the attitude of trying to show you up.....
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....after all I really should be aiming for Andy F's crown

SiPie

Evil Bevel

I talked to Saxo Boy at length about the wisdom of posting this thread on S/N and the possible causes of his 'mishap', so if anyone has the slightest right (AJ included no doubt) to post zzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzz then I feel adequately qualified

You are a very sad man/woman if you really think I would trawl through the thread counting how many replies there have been . It's hard enough just reading the damned thing

Now go get a life and find something more interesting to do

Oh sorry, just noticed you are in Belgium

Kindest regards

7 Foot

Steady SiPie!

I have already leapt to your defence!

At the same time avoiding all the obvious puns. You know who you are MarkO!!

LG John

The really scary bit is that I was telling sipie the story when he was driving zzzzZZZZZzzzzzz

7 Foot

LOL. Good to see sense of humour not yet taken a total battering!

LG John

That at creme dougnuts are about the only thing keeping me going at the moment mate

7 Foot

Saxo!!!

12 pages of wrist slapping and you have the bare arsed cheek to mention doughnuts.

What's wrong with the man?

JamieMacdonald

I read the first few pages of this one (it was growing quicker than I could read it ) so I guess I'll probably be repeating what others have said....
I'm pretty much the same age as you Saxo Boy - 23. I've had my Scooby for about 18 months, coming from a Golf GTI16V so we probably have very similar driving experience in terms of the cars we've driven (so far)!
I had a 'close call' within the first couple of months of owning my Scooby. Basically, I was going across a big empty roundabout on my way home from work. I was going between 60-70 mph when I entered the roundabout and the next thing I knew I was looking straight at the middle of the roundabout . I gave it some opposite lock and fish-tailed(?) back the other way and managed to recover. Like you I thought "The Scooby's never done that before" and "my Golf used to take that roundabout just as quick and be ok" etc etc. I checked the tyre pressures as I was sure something must be wrong but all was ok. I'd never even heard of lift-off oversteer and from that point on I realised I had a lot to learn.....
I still drive fast, but NOWHERE near the limits of the car (don't know what they are - don't want to find out what they are ) - you don't need to in a Scooby and you can still go fast. I am so glad I had that experience (and got away with it ) as I beleive it has made me a better/safer driver since. There is a danger of feeling invincible - I've been on the road for 6 years and I've never had so much as a fender bender, but I know I've just been lucky. If you are are still adamant that you KNOW the limits of the car and that there was some sort of mechanical failure then I'd get it booked in to a garage ASAP m8 .

Stay safe dude,
J
PS I really want to do a track day now to find out the real limits of my car!
PPS My sister has just bought a Saxo today so I'm going to start calling her 'Saxo Girl'

Dave_A

SB said somewhere back there....
You don't actually need to see around a corner to be able to tell if it tightens or not. I'm sure most people here already know this, so I'm preaching to the converted, so to speak, but for anyone who doesn't know, next time you are out, try this -

Travelling towards a right hand bend, watch where the hedge/fence/curb etc disappears past your visible line of sight on the outside of the bend. As you travel towards the corner, if the hedge moves away from the apex, you know the road is opening up, and vice versa. Its a technique the police use for assessing the severity of a bend, and its one I was taught when I first passed my test, and it has never let me down since. If you also take account any trees etc, you can spot any switch backs or double apexes. It used to be very handy when cars were underpowered compared to todays standards, as you could stand on the gas the moment the bend opened up. These days you are best showing some restraint....

I think EvO also covered this in its advanced driver article some time back.

Sorry if you already knew about this technique...

john banks

Saxo, we should be driving on the road so that we can stop in the distance we can see to be clear. Thankfully when I rounded the corner upon the accident in front of me I managed to pull up (just) so clearly I was on that occasion driving to match speed with vision. My local roads do have a lot of open corners, and I try to reserve giving it some tick to those rather than the ones you can't see across, although sometimes I probably get it wrong.

jasey

Hi Saxo

you seem happy to defend this

but don't seem to want to answer this
The reason I was asking is this - your original post got me thinking "Oh well he's had a fright and learned his lesson and will move on" - however since then you have been digging away defending yourself because you seem to think we're all attacking you and that you consider this episode as being one of life's little setbacks in finding all driving your limits on the road - I don't think you actually think this but it is the way you're coming across.

I don't think anyone one here wants to be reading about the next time you find your limits from a member of your family or AJ.

NINJA

when are people going to understand that the road is not a racetrack or rally stage.they are not richard burns and the scoob is not a foolproof machine.these cars are fast and handle well but if u act like a maniac then u will come unstuck and when u take that bend pray to god there isnt someone innocent on the other side..if u want to show how good u are go to the track

LG John

I was aware of that corner 'reading' technique but good of you to post for the benefit of others. John, if we all drove like that all the time would we really be able to get up much more speed than the posted limit anyway. This isn't to suggest that we should all go out and speed but surely if we are going to drive safe all the time cars like the scooby simply have no place on our roads??

Regarding where I see this ending up:

1 I'll sell the car and get an oil burner (fuel economy) I've not had much reward from it yet, the image honestly IMO is worse than the VTS's (probably the noise the full-decat makes) and it costs a small fortune to run.

2 Keep the car and continue to learn about it and driving in general. I have to laugh at the peeps that think I will carry on in my blinkered life without a second though for whats happened. Your talking to someone that can worry himself about things to the point of being physically sick (no really).....thinking and reflecting is what I do best.

jasey

2 sounds good

TaviaRS

shouldn't that read "driving, thinking and reflecting is what I do best."

LG John

Can I opt to substitute 'driving' for '********'

Just joking before you all start on about how I think I'm god gift to women!!!

TaviaRS

Have you taken "lessons"?