JamieMacdonald

I'd replace 'driving' with 'drinking' in my case.

MGJohn

Well done Saxo-Boy for having the wossnames for going live with this - excellent thread ..

There are a number of lessons here for Saxo Boy, me, you and anyone who drives, particularly those who like to "press on a bit" occasionally ..... step forward most/all drivers ? ...

Here's a few:

The Subaru, in common with all cars, does have its limits. But in common with any car regarded as superior and of higher performance, when exploring those limits and even beyond, the outcome is often MORE severe than say when granny over cooks it in her 1.0 Metro ... as happens ... Never be lulled into a false sense of security because you have a "superior" car.

Lost count of the times people I know have come off badly thinking their "superior" car will look after them .... remember that "Volvo" mentality? ... my car is bigger, safer and stronger than yours so when we crash, I'll be alright ... er ... not always ... . What happens when you meet another Volvo head on? I have in mind one with six axles and forty tons all up weight ... It's possible that an "inferior" car may have avoided that accident your car could not.

So you've been driving n-years so have seen it all .... NO you have not .... You're maybe young and/or fit with good reactions so obviously must be a better driver ... er NO ...

Always remember ... Every time you get behind that steering wheel, forget those sooper-dooper-ABS brakes, AirCon, LSDs, AWD and all the rest which make driving such an easy pleasure (?)... When all said and done they will not guarantee you anything ... under certain circumstances they can make things worse. Remember that false sense of security? No, the best feature of any car you drive must be the quality of the nut holding the steering wheel ... go figure ...

Happy, and above all "Safety Fast" MotorinG

carl

The Scoob is a very safe car, IMHO, providing you drive it at less than ten tenths. Eight tenths in a Scoob is v.safe and will **** all over a number of other cars driven flat out.

T.J

SB,

There is some very good advice being handed out here. Unfortunatly you don't seem to like it. Some admittedly a bit harsh but on the whole well intended.

If you want to explore the limits of you car, club together with a few mates and rent an airfield track and teach yourself. These conditions will be closer to road driving given the state of most perimiter roads on airfields. Best of all , the public are safe and so are you relatively.

I hope you don't learn the hard way.

Cheers

Tony

wrxmark

Saxo Boy I admire your honesty here and pick up on JASEY's point.
The cars we all drive be it Subaru, Metro whatever all have limits.
The road is not the place to push motors to the limits.
To try and find a possible fault in the car whether a mechanical defect or tyre wear leads me to think that this will not be lesson learnt by you.

Someone very dear to me sounds like you. He will always take everything on the road a little further than he should. He can't hold back when common sense suggests otherwise.
I really do fear the outcome of one of his ACCIDENTS.
You will have no **** left for the scooby to bite if you don;t take stock of yourself.
Be safe and live long you lucky man.

Paul_H

I've read all of this thread, and MY interest in it comes down to this.

I don't want to meet you travelling backwards on my side of the road, thank you very much.

ThePoorMansScooby

I agree with many other people who have posted in this thread you do want to slow down Saxo Boy or at least leave it till 4am to avoid other road users! U sound a bit like my mate who wrote his car off when i was 18 and left me in the DRI with a broken leg, fractured pelvis, broken ribs, broken cheek bone,,,etc blah blah!! Yeah i drive a scoob but only so i look good because driving fast doesnt really interest me anymore because when you crash it does hurt!!! if not even worse...

MGJohn

... one final thought ... what if Saxo-Boy met "himself" coming the other way, doing the same thing? ... DOH!

Always .. Safety fast ...

DocJock

Wow, thread still going strong !

A last couple of points from this old git.......

SB said,
>>I was thinking about it again this morning and I couldn’t figure out how the hell I didn’t get back on the power when I felt the backend let go.

Eerm, sounds a bit like LOO to be honest..

The fuel starvation thing..I would have thougt you would have had that when

>>I fired hard round a left-hander with the car drifting nicely across the road (still in my ample lane). I then floored it down the next short straight and then down into 3rd (give you an idea of the speed) for the long sweeping right-hander

it is much more common through left hand corners, although as PTMW! said previously, the car just tends to bog down, not spit you off backwards.

Dreamweaver...250 quid entrance for a trackday ?? What are you taking ? Mellow is flogging Oulton for 85, JohnS regularly does 'em cheaper at KH

Eagle7

saxo,

I agree with you on most of this (also understand others points too which are well made) up to the point where i read the following regarding driving faster than your stopping capability:

If you drive around corners knowing full well that if there is a granny with a zimmer frame crossing the road you WONT be able to stop in time, then sooner or later this WILL happen!

A similar thing happened to me once on a country lane in the wet. I was going fast enough so that i thought i would stop just after my line of sight. This is no good as i found out. Half way round the bend there were 2 old ladies standing in front of their broken down car. I had to brake hard and swerve partially so that i wouldn't hit them.

Ever since this I never drive faster than the distance I can see permits (taking into account the conditions and braking performance of the scoob). This does not mean I'm a slow driver as most of the Devon/Cornwall boys will confirm

As someone said earlier: 'Imagine if a mirror image of you was coming the other way at the same speed doing the same manouvres'

Have fun, but dont take chances.

cheers

jasey

I can't believe you've used this as part of your analogy - I used to own a house in Teddington that was opposite a Tesco's car park. One day a Granny in her metro (I think it was 1.0) got it horribly wrong and she ended up in the front room I think I've still got the piccies somewhere - will try to dig them out later

Old age exhuberance can be just as dangerous as the youthful type

john banks

Saxo, agree with points above - if you want to avoid an accident at some point you absolutely have to drive in this way, otherwise the "unexpected" (unplanned for) will happen "suddenly" (you didn't anticipate the possibilities). It is amazing how people after accidents deflect responsibility onto someone else - again we all do it. Things rarely come out of nowhere, just bad planning in most instances.

SCOSaltire

SB
Dont feel got at...
Theres a whole lotta love here...
And thats not taking the ****...

p.s.

I can relate to Tuk's thoughts...

Sometimes u find urself getting less and less safe - u dont realise it until it starts to get a bit mad. Well, u might realise it, but u just think - ah, its meant to be driven like this.

Then something happens...
either
u get it out of ur system (like Tuk does with a track day)
or
u get a scare because of a lucky escape (like i did on mud about 2 weeks ago)
or
something bad happens and makes u think
or
something bad happens and u cant think

Steve Wilson

I have only managed to plough through about half the posts here but I think I've got the gist of it.

I applaud Saxo Boy for having the courage to make the post and accept he can learn from the experience. Fuel starvation, tyres, driver error .... whatever; it does no harm for us all to reassess our behaviour from time to time.

Concerning fuel starvation - I used to have an STI 4 which I had from new. This used to suffer terribly from fuel starvation exiting roundabouts. You could create the effect at will with anything less than 2/3rds of a tank. However I never managed to get the effect on track days even with slicks on & I used to push along fairly well. I can only assume that starvation was due to the rapid direction changes associated with roundabouts.

The problem completely disapeared when I had Prodrive coils & dampers fitted.

LG John

Morning people....I am listening, honest. The problem is a lot of you are lecturing me like I'm some cap wearning, spotty, ned, hell bend of racing everything I see - but I'm not like that and if you read the posts from the people that know me well you should get an idea for this. Whatsmore, everything being said to me is stuff I've thought about or reflected on already...believe me when you've just spun at those speeds you tootle along at 30mph afterwards with a que of traffic behind you thinking about what you did wrong, what could have happened, etc. Nevertheless I still maintain that something unexpected happened in the car (something that doesn't usual happen) Either way its still driver error because I did something wrong at the time or didn't ensure my car was fit to be driven at those speeds or both....please realise that I am well aware of this.

But we do need to examine some facts here and end some SB myths. I don't drive fast, in fact, I would argue that I drive slower most of the time than most of the driving public and this is reflected in my economy figures. I get annoyed with the rocking motion from the scooby when its sitting on the point of boost (i.e. spooling up) for this reason I tend to sit in a high grear at low revs. I observe the speed limits in town and it always amazes me how many people cruise through the twisties at 45mph (in a 60) and then batter on through a village (30) at, you guessed it.....45mph!! I don't do this. I don't race everything I see but I do admit that, yes, if I feel its safe to do so I will sometimes have a play on the road and I will sometimes have some fun on the country roads....that's why I bought the scoob afterall. I have a clean license and always have, I haven't had been crashing or even having minor bumps, I've only had about 3 parking tickets in my whole life, I don't drink and drive, and so it goes on. By now it probably doesn't matter because most people who have read this thread will have either fallen asleep, topped themselves or made their mind up all ready but what I've told you above is fact and most of you can't argue against it because you don't know me!

Leasons learnt

Travis, didn't need lessons - I'm a natural

So now your calling me a bad planner john [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

LG John

Is it so hard to believe that I might know the limits of myslef and my car more than the people that have posted in this thread?? I know what I can and can't do and I also know what my car can't do and have a fair (but not complete) idea of what it can do.

Knowing your limits doesn't automatically make you safe anyway - you still have to stay within them and that requires a level head all the time and any human on this site that says they can do this all the time really should have a long hard thing about themselves....robots need no apply

SiPie

Kenny

Time to drop this one mate and I wouldn't even bother defending yourself on this board as you are on to a complete loser.

The usual cross-section of a large amount of self appointed advanced driving instructors , coupled with some very sound advice from people who seem to genuinely want to you stay alive

Stop trying to defend yourself as there is no need.

Best advice I've read through this whole thread is obviously the driving tuition and the person who mentioned that 'if you are going to do any fast road driving' then go out at 4am in the morning on quite country roads.

Personally I find that Monday and Tuesday between 1am and 3am about the best as roads at their quietest , however you will have to wait longer for an ambulance to find you in that ditch....if there's still any point in them arriving

LG John

Its not just as simple as that!!! If you went round a corner once at 60mph and were fine, went back in did it 2 minutes later (in the same condition) and did it at 40mph and lost it would you still have been going too fast??? No, you just did something wrong/or something went wrong. The speed I was doing was high but it was not so high that it, in itself, was the cause of the problem. The speed in this case just contributed to the severity of the spin and/or gave me less time and space to react to the original error/problem. If I'd been going too fast into that corner in my car it would have understeered first and then went **** up thereafter. The front held no problem.

LG John

I'd just wait for you to come along a tow me out mate

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

One quick little saying that always sticks in my mind

There are a lot of young fast drivers,
there are also alot of older quick drivers
but there are not alot of older fast drivers.....

Tony

carl

As you've only had it three months, yes, it is so hard to believe.

john banks

40mph and 60mph are very different kettles of fish in terms of cornering forces!

If you slip then you were going too fast for the conditions. Yes it is a retrospective assessment, but so is ending up in a ditch and seeing if you can still move your toes.

Margins for error is what you need not 10/10ths as much as possible. It sounds like you were driving like a town planner would if they put an unfenced electricity substation in a playground. No I don't think you are a bad planner

juan

Well since you asked... Yes I'm afraid that it is becoming harder to believe.
I've not seen any other poster claim that they know all the limits. That just sounds ridiculous.
and you are the one saying you go round corners blind
and you were the one sliding down the wrong side of the road facing in the wrong direction.
Now if that is knowing the limits I'd hate to see you in a car you didn't know the limts of.

Jeepers, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being a person who's just passed their test and 10 being schuie you might rate a 2.0. Don't take offence, I may well rate just a 1.8. The point is there is more to learn than anyone can possibly learn, and you sure can't and shouldn't even try to learn very much on public roads.
You can never know it all, and if you don't believe that then thats where the problem lies.

Why not just bite the bullet and go on one of these Don Palmer or some such courses instead of doing your next mod. Sounds like you'd absolutely love it and chances are you get much more pleasure out of it long term than that next mod too.

Finally, so what if you drive sedately most of the time. Do you think most of us don't?

BigDude

Saxo Boy,

Are you reading your posts before submiting them??? I now know that you are a godly driver but please give up on this thread it's starting to look a little pathetic. You might also consider reverting back to a true driver's car which would be so much more rewarding and safe for you such as your VTS, Punto or perhaps a Lupo.

Also please keep this thread. It will be most entertaining for you in 10 to 20 years time.

juan

looking outside I see purple rain drifting over my x-wing fighter.

aw heck I'm not attacking anyone. Just making observations like many others have done in the previous pages. Trying to be constructive not destructive. Ne'er mind eh!


cheers

SiPie

Juan

And certainly not attacking you old chap but as I mentioned earlier in the thread, roads are crammed full of idiots out of their faces on drink and drugs, in uninsured and un-MOTed cars and old biddies valiumed out their heads so they don't have a panic attack in trafic jams

Saxo Boy ain't even close to being the most dangerous thing on the roads and I would be AMAZED if the higher percentage of Impreza Drivers drove 'sedately'.

All credit to you if you do Juan but I feel that you are a bit blinkered if you think we all drive sedately

Regards

LG John

Well your wrong, I suck.....seriously

A lot of my posts in this thead - particularly at the start - were made in anger. I was frustraited and deeply offended at some of the stuff being said and lashed out. I really can't be bothered to go back and read through them all again and try to drag this thread on for another 14 pages counter-justifying myself. I know what I am and my friends and family don't feel unsafe in the car with me and if they did they know me well enough to ask me to slow down or stop. To me thats all that really matters.

With regards to knowing all the limits of my car of course I don't, nobody ever will. If anybody did they would be able to drive the car at 100% of its ability all of the time and would make even shuey look slow round the F1 tracks. I guess the point I was trying to make is that I can usually look at a corner, assess the dangers and pick a speed that will push the car to near its limits but not over. Apparently I got this wrong last week but I'm trying to point out it was nothing obvious that I got wrong. I didn't think, '**** I went in too fast' or 'I should have seen that patch of oil' or 'oopps I lifted off' All I was trying to say is that whatever caught me out this time was not one of the 'normal' errors. It was either something new that I haven't heard/though about/experienced or my inability to react to something the car did that it usual doesn't! Therefore, the whole point of the post was to get you lot to realise that even though your doing everything as you normally do there still might be something about you, your car, the road, other road users, etc thats just waiting to bite you in the ***. Shame this very simple message got lost and its a shame a lot of you can't realise that if I can recognise these limitations and problems then I'm clearly not that careless or wreckless a driver! I just screwed up like all of us do every now and again. Maybe it was lost in the delivery, I don't know, I've been known to be as subtle as a house brick through your window with a note saying '**** you' so maybe I've failed to correctly put my point across.

I think this thread is at an end now, don't want to prevent freedom of speach but it might be worth considering locking.

carl

You keep using Michael Schumacher as an example. I think you should know that John Lyons (HPC) points out that most racing drivers don't make good road drivers.

JamieMacdonald

Give the guy a break now.

Floyd

iTrader: (9)

Thread dead.

F