Car Spinning/Skidding

swinnie

swinnie

swinnie

Soldato
Joined
30 Apr 2007
Posts
3,095
Location
Kent
Hi All,

My Sister drives a V Reg 1.4 Toyota Corolla with ~56k on the clock. Late last year she spun the car 180 degrees while taking a roundabout in damp conditions. I checked the car when it got back and found the front tyres to be pretty much done, so we got those changed as the car was in for service and MOT a few days later.

Today, she has again spun, or at least experienced the car getting out of control while taking a slip road. I have looked at the tyres, and given them a good pull around to look for any issues with suspension/linkages and all seems okay. The rear tyres are probably due to change soon looking at them, as they're probably under 3mm all round.

From what I can make out, she wasn't going fast. All at relatively normal speed, as she's not a fast driver anyway. It has severely knocked her confidence. The only conclusion that I can make is that she lost grip on the rear tyres which is what has made her loose control.

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

Swinnie
 
Lift off oversteer.

She needs to brake in a straight line, heel+toe downshift, then ease off the brake as she starts to turn in. By the clipping point she should be off the brake and back on the power.
 
I did this once in a car, turned out the brake bias valve was knackered. Normally you get 70% or so to the front brakes and 30% to the rear (or thereabouts), but in this case it was chucking most of the force to the rear, didnt notice in a straight line but braking on a corner would result in hilarious handbrake type skiding.
 
To throw in an alternative theory, I once had a Renault Clio that turned out to have a faulty ABS sensor, which caused the ESC system to randomly apply the brakes, which occasionally had a similar effect to yanking on the handbrake mid way around a bend.

It might be worth having a quick look at the vehicle's diagnostics to see if there are any errors being thrown up.
 
Thanks for your replies. My thought was some form of oversteer, probably exaggerated by the ageing tyres on the rear. I did ask her to get the alignment done when she had the front tyres changed at the last service, but either she didn't ask or they didn't do it. I'll take it to my usual guys as they have a Hunter machine, will get them to look for any potential issues as well.


I have just spoken to her and she thinks she may have either braked/lifted off when going into the corner. Will get the car checked anyway, as the rears are definitely needing to be changed soon.

Thanks all.
 
Was it wet again?

I'd guess she is lifting off in the corner and because the rear tyres have just about had it the car is trying to swap ends.

Best tyres should ALWAYS be on the back. When you advised her to change her front ones they should have been rotated so the new ones were on the back.

If they are cheap tyres this issue is likely to be exacerbated.

EDIT: Just seen your update. Looks like this was the case.
 
Havana_UK said:
To throw in an alternative theory, I once had a Renault Clio that turned out to have a faulty ABS sensor, which caused the ESC system to randomly apply the brakes, which occasionally had a similar effect to yanking on the handbrake mid way around a bend.

It might be worth having a quick look at the vehicle's diagnostics to see if there are any errors being thrown up.
Click to expand...

I have a co-worker who fell foul of that - ended up with the car over on its roof. (It wasn't entirely the car at fault).
 
You've already got most of it, bit check pressures too as low profile tyres can hide low pressure pretty well and this will give you lots of back end movement if one or both are very low (or way too high)

The tread won't be helping matters neither will alignment if it's miles out, but to be perfectly honest its pretty unusual to be in a loss of control situation at low speed without there being ice on the road, even with crap tyres - unless she done something really really daft like hammer the throttle then lift straight off, then brake etc
 
Spunkey said:
Lift off oversteer.

She needs to brake in a straight line, heel+toe downshift, then ease off the brake as she starts to turn in. By the clipping point she should be off the brake and back on the power.
Click to expand...

Lol, yes, you definitely need to do this to avoid spinning a Toyota Corolla at normal speeds
 
Assuming the car is standard and hasn't had brake kits installed which can mess up the bias then the tyres need checking and the brake bias valve can be stuck as mentioned. Use decent tyres.
 
Not really sure how you can spin a car driving normally, even on rubbish tyres (unless they are bald/really really poor brand), even then you'd have to be going some.

Either there's some mechanical fault or she is driving too fast for the conditions.
 
Perhaps oil / diesel on the slip lane?
The fact its happened twice questions the safety of the car and/or driving technique though.
 
Another possibility could be a diesel spill on the slip road. From experience I can say that unexpectedly losing traction on all wheels when going around a roundabout can be a brown trouser moment.
 
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