How to recover a fishtailing RWD vehicle

Gaygle said:
Trust me, crap tyres and a greasy surface work wonders. Not to mention something with a longer wheelbase probably would have been easier to step out.

I remember doing it a couple of times in my Primera GT - was very scary, but just touching the throttle made everything come back into line perfectly. And this was at no more than about 30mph.
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I've had it a couple of times in my Fiesta ST, Yokohama tyres and a wet roundabout don't take much effort to kick the back end out, I find that after letting it slide I can catch it with ease by just giving it some throttle and turning into the slide (Exactly like drifting with RWD) :)
 
When I was a young lad and it snowed, we would all head off to the local supermarket, when it had closed of course and you had a massive car park to practice skids and drifting. I'm sure these days it would be different but several times coppers would come along and simply tell us to keep our eyes open and not drive silly, but left us to it. Ive done a few professional courses since then and some drift days but those early days were the most fun. The Oulton drift days are fun (well unless you are in an RS4) and I did a skid pan morning at MIRA with Porsche in one of my OPC's 911's and within maybe 3 goes I was holding it sideways for a full 360 loop. Once you get a feel for it, it's not too difficult but getting there can be a challenge.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Tom_ed1987 said:
You should never use cruise control in the rain. Pretty sure this is well publicised?
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Erm, what?
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If you aquaplane in a RWD car with CC on and are not 100% ready to react (which by having CC on the odds are you won't be) you could quite easily lose control.

I am pretty sure this fact is well known/publicised. Even my mum is aware of this.
 
There are no guidelines anywhere ever, that state you shouldn't use CC in the wet. Most cars will just deactivate it if they detect slip.
 
Tom_ed1987 said:
If you aquaplane in a RWD car with CC on and are not 100% ready to react (which by having CC on the odds are you won't be) you could quite easily lose control.

I am pretty sure this fact is well known/publicised. Even my mum is aware of this.
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That doesn't mean you should turn CC off every time its raining - only when the conditions dictate.

A modern CC system doesn't just endlessly spin the wheels when aquaplaning until you crash, anyway. You manually disengage it when approaching standing water - if its unexpected and you didn't notice its likely the car will react and cut it as quickly as you'd react and lift off if you were not using it anyway. If you've not noticed it before hitting it (whereupon you'd disengage cruise) you'd only notice it once it starts to cause wheelspin, by which point cruise has disengaged anyway.
 
To be fair a deceleration caused by standing water will cause the CC to react by increasing throttle to try and maintain speed, this may be enough to break traction very quickly.

As for fishtailing. The fact to car is going from side to side, it suggests over correction each time the back steps out, you are better off letting go of the wheel in this situation than trying to fight it.
 
Tom_ed1987 said:
If you aquaplane in a RWD car with CC on and are not 100% ready to react (which by having CC on the odds are you won't be) you could quite easily lose control.

I am pretty sure this fact is well known/publicised. Even my mum is aware of this.
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Out of interest what car does she have?

You should be driving to the conditions, stating you shouldn't use CC in the rain is garbage, and would mean you would be without its use for much of its year, if it's just raining then simply using CC poses no threat, however you'de have to be rather thick to keep using it when you have lots of standing water around.

Fox is correct in what he posts so im not going to repeat the facts.

In addition I've just found the location your mum got this information, and it's one of those spam hoax emails, I've never seen this topic covered any other place and I've been VERY into all aspects of cars for the past 20 years.
 
Lucero said:
Eh? Longer wheelbase FWD cars are harder to step out than short wheelbase FWD cars. Wifes Swift Sport will let go at the back with consummate ease for instance, compared to my friends mondeo, which won't, it just understeers.
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Are you sure? I thought long wheel base cars where easier to induce oversteer than short wheel base cars.
 
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