You neednt be offended.

Im assuming that you got out of the car when it happened? My point is that a diesel spill large enough to 'do this to you' would be extremely noticable; maybe its a riding thing. You can sometimes smell the diesel when you when you approach a roundabout, usually too late though. Ive even noticed it a few times in a car..... (the point being its very very noticable (afterwards usually))

In place of 'driver over-confidence and complacency' substitute 'false sense of security and failure to assess the conditions'. Itsunfortunate, but your car isnt too badly damaged and no one else was involved: luckily you werent hurt and I doubt that itll happen again.


Simon

 

Not a problem and sorry for the short temper.......

A driving instructor drove into me a month back, had the car for a week and now this.........makes you think i'm not supposed to have this car as it's been in the garage for longer than i've driven it.

You're right, I am very lucky to got away with what I did......well, lucky would just have been the stain in my briefs and a lesson learned but hey....back t spin out another day....

 

Not having a lot of luck with that car - or sympathy from a lot of people! I suppose if you had just reported what happened but not immediatly blamed the car there would be a lot more sympathy?
It's amazing how easy it is to frighten yourself when conditions are not good. Problem with wide tyres in poor grip situations - there's less PRESSURE on the road! Not for nothing do rally cars use skinny tyres in icy conditions!

Good luck mate JohnD

 

This happens very easily when boost ramps up through the corner; its easily enough to break traction and catch you by surprise. Especially if youre being crap...

 

cheers JD.....

i'm now locking her away for winter......

 

Saying all this I think your not giving ice enough credit. I came out of work at 5am, across a car park maybe 5mph and the car spun.. have to admitt it was fun like but caught me off guard.

 

These scoobs sound pants. Good job they dont rally them, bet they wouldnt do very well!!!!

 

I see that your cornering is improving; keep it up!




Subarus are rally cars really is a very silly remark to post. By that rather foolish measure Hyundai Accents are better than Subaru Imprezas because theyve beaten them on WRC rallies.....

 

First off, glad you're all right.

At only 700 quid of damage, you were lucky. There's two ways of looking at this, and I'm not trying to preach even if it sounds like it:
- you were in control of the car, and lost control of it. That means you were driving inappropriately for the conditions.
- the car crashed and it was someone else's fault

**** happens, and I'd probably blame the diesel for this one, but at the same time make sure that I checked for signs of the stuff on the road so that I didn't do it again...

I did a skid pan training day at rockingham, and that was *superb*. Not saying it would help, but on the other hand it's a fun way to explore a car's limits in safety.

 

Theres a well chaved up accent round here,swooshes stripes big ole spoiler think its even got a scoop - i have ta larf ...

 

I agree and i'm not saying it wasn't completely my fault......however I find it hard to get over the fact it threw me out so violently. So misjudging the road conditions is a factor, poor driving also maybe, I just had more respect for such a renowned "forgiving car" before this.So for xmas rockingham sounds like a must....

 

MY 04 STi used to do stuff like that, if I caught a groove in the road it would point me wherever it felt, especially if on the power, I had friends that refused to drive the thing!
Possible that this could have been combined into the other possible factors?

It was rude to call you a chimp.

But I'm sure you'll get over it! At least you're still here to do so!


Rob.

 

think you would be on your *** b4 you smelt it ... seen plenty of bikes go on diesel but never smelt it ...

 

I'm cool with the chimp thing.........I was having a moan and some people feel safer under the anonimity of a user name and a long length of internet cable then coming up to me on a meet and telling me the same thing.....but i've had some helpfull comments and appreciate the words.


I'll be back with no more than a hole in my wallet and further respect for road conditions.........untill the summer anyways

 

J4 on the M42 used to be a skating rink on a cold/frosty morning ...it was just down to a poor surface & years of ingrained diesel ...almost impossible to guage it until you were on it, by which time it was too late ...you could almost guarantee that an MGF/MR2/Boxter would be facing the wrong way with a kn4ckered alloy on certain mornings!

So dont feel too bad m8

 

Bad luck mate, roads are very greasy at the moment so it's best to take a bit more care. My biggest fright was first winter I had the car, in the wet I backed off half way round a bend with the old style Bridgestones - back end kicked out without warning. Toyo's ever since

Could've been worse, you could've lost grip and run into Redragon's car and then he'd have planted you as well (see other thread....)

 

Mate if you think a scooby snaps back at you, try a Capri!!!

Ns04

 

Yes but you'd expect a rwd capri to snap back, my old MK2 RS2000 was great very predictable opposite lock fun - didn't expect this behaviour from the Sti though.

 

You are! Im not suggesting that you can smell it in good time; you smell it (if you do) and then you fall off with no time to react.


Like I said earlier; when the car starts to come on-boost it can catch you unawares and its frequently enough to break traction...


Simon

 

Yes it seems it is not safe or wise to have comlpete faith in the roads surface these days. I live on the Isle of Wight and we have some rediculously neglected pot-holed roads in places. It's amazing how one can crop up overnight on a route where there wasn't one before. Furthermore the island is mythically renouned for not being suitable for fast cars. Not the case. Someone i know has achieved over 160 here in a modified Evo (for the purposes of being PC assume it was on an undisclosed private road - yawn!). There are some good road stretches to the south of the island. In addition we have a rather tiddly third of a mile stretch of dual-carriageway. If your car can't do over 100 going up it it's ****. A good scoob should be able to get 120 some of the time. Some skyline GTR's have achieved 140 before the end of it. The point i'm coming to though is that there was a trend a little while a go for some people's scummy hood-wearing offspring to apply fairy liquid to a slight bend near the crest of the dual. Not that amusing when cars 'could' be doing 100-120 by then. Indeed there was a real cluster of serious accidents where even front wheel and 4 wheel drive cars spun on that bit of road for no apparant reason, and a couple of times resulted in hospitalisation and usually a written off car. It's a shame to have to think "is this road going to be like an oil-slick or has someone tried to make it into one for a laugh" before having a blast, but i feel this far-fetched thought is becoming increasingly justified in an increasingly absurd society.

 

You should realy expect it from any car; it's a matter of propensity to do it and magnitude of the "snap" when it does regain grip. The problem with AWD performance cars like the Scooby is that everyone thinks they're foolproof and -of course- they're not. People tend to be quite clumsy with them and then get surprised when they bite. The common scenario is that people come off the power too abrupty and wind on too much lock, causing a voilent lurch the other way. Minimal lock and modulating the power would be better better. STis can be particular culprits cause of the front diff, it gets the front wheels purchase on the ground before you can wind off the opposite lock and whoa!!!!.

AWD only provides a traction advantage when you're applying the power.

Anyone still think Scoobies don't handle cause Subaru designed them to understeer at the limit? All this talk of controling oversteer is well and good, when its on the road, with obstacles in the way and in your pride and joy- the theory tends to go out the window to be replaced with panic!

NS04

 

Depends on the roundabout as to what speed is regarded as fast doesnt it

 

Not until you've lifted off midway through a fast corner in a swing-spring 2-litre Vitesse or GT6 can you say that you've experienced the sheer terror of *violent* oversteer

One of my first brown trouser moments in a car

 

I think it would have to be quite a large roundabout for 40mph not be considered at least "not exactly driving like miss Daisy"

Ns04

 

So what happened? Spit me out isn't a term I've come across when it comes to cars.

Did the front end slip or was it the back end? Maybe both?

Did you lift off rapidly, brake or anything else like that.

Were your tyre pressures correct?

The RAC claims:
- 90% of tyres are incorrectly inflated
and
- Over–inflated tyres cause poor vehicle handling, reduced stability in braking, cornering and reduced grip.

 

Average handling.......but great grip sums it up really. The last few days its been really slippery everywhere, I was drifting around a roundabout today at about 20mph which surprised me! Im sure the salt makes the roads more slippery!!!!

 

I couldn't agree more, my 03 STi is probably the worst handling, least controllable and, therefore, least predictable car i've ever owned. I believe it to be fundamentally flawed and my MY99 was a much, much better drivers car. On bumpy roads the STi is a disaster, from my perspective, and on some that i know well it is at least 20mph slower on many sections than the MY99 is. As for putting it sideways? Well in the MY99 if you were sideways you were having fun, in the 03 STi if you are sideways you are having an accident.

I can't comment on other newage models but I could certainly see the STi stuffing you through the hedge on a random whim and with insufficient feel or control for you to stand a chance of catching it, though it would probably have plenty of that famous Subaru grip right up until it totally uncontrollably dumped you. Now MKII RS2000 are a different thing altogether, i never washed the windscreen on mine, only the side windows as they were the ones I was usually looking up the road out of. Amazing fun though and i could still be tempted to look around for one :-)

 

Tyre pressure were 32's (just done them) and the back started spinning up, then front's followed suit but by then the car was sideways.........

Tried to hold it with op lock and even power but it just kept on sliding round on me so I just had to hold on and say a few last min hail mary's....

 

Sorry to hear about the accident. I tore the rear wheel off a Passat a few years ago doing exactly the same thing ... it began to slide, then before you could say "WTF" it had done 720 degrees off the roundabout, intersecting the kerb on the way.

Cold makes a huge difference to tyre adhesion. I dropped my Fireblade on a frosty evening in completely boring conditions just because the tyres hadn't warmed up - definitely no diesel or ice (you notice that sort of thing while lying on the ground ;-))

 

probably because your a bit of an gimp