Just nailed a tree....Oops!

Tesla

Tesla

Tesla

Soldato
Joined
19 Jan 2003
Posts
17,578
Location
Bristol, UK
I have been parking the Rover on a patch of grass outside of my house, on the grass is also a tree.

I parked the car, wasnt going fast but it has been TIPPING down all day and as I braked there was 0% traction and I just nailed the tree at about 5mph. I really didnt anticipate the patch of grass to be so wet and it's really sludgy and boggy.

The bonnet has deformed, bumper not damaged but the bonnet is. I don't think the slam panel would have been damaged, I hope it isnt anyway.

I really think this Rover wants to die.
 
The tree isnt vertical, I may be able to get the dent out with a hammer and dolly but am doubtful.

Next door have gone on holiday today for 3 months so I am going to borrow there drive I think.
 
Some of the best fun I've ever had is on boggy grass. I once parked my Xsara on a patch and it iced up heavily overnight. By early next morning, I was able to sit there with the wheels spinning at off-the-clock speeds hardly moving an inch :p
 
PMKeates said:
Some of the best fun I've ever had is on boggy grass. I once parked my Xsara on a patch and it iced up heavily overnight. By early next morning, I was able to sit there with the wheels spinning at off-the-clock speeds hardly moving an inch :p
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Could have been fun if it caught traction all of a sudden :D
 
Driving on grass is great fun especially when it's wet. The only reason I still visit one of my friends (apart from the fact that I'm Best man at his wedding in May) is so that when I leave I can have some fun turning round on the grass outside his house though I normally keep on turning ;)
 
PMKeates said:
Ah well, live for the moment I say. I'd love to be able to say I launched a 1.8 Citroen Xsara at over 150 mph! :D
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Even if the car is still you will still be limited by the top gear ratio and how many rpm the engine can do, i doubt it would do 150mph in top gear before hitting the limiter.......

Oh and Bad luck mate, get a white van sorted out then you have an excuse ;)
 
Firestar_3x said:
Even if the car is still you will still be limited by the top gear ratio and how many rpm the engine can do, i doubt it would do 150mph in top gear before hitting the limiter.......
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Not the case, and the same for most cars, actually. 6500rpm limiter and 2900rpm at an indicated 70mph makes for an indicated 157mph, so an actual 145mph at pretty much worst :p

My old 1.6 Escort would be able to do an indicated 172mph at the limiter if only gear ratios were a problem! (Would hit 6750rpm down a hill and did 2750rpm at 70mph)
 
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Sorry but its quite clear your talking out of your rear.

So your saying you have sat still on a patch of grass spinning the wheels at off clock speeds, the friction would be your first enemy then how do you manage to change into the taller gears without the wheels slowing down so much they stop or you can't get enough power out of the engine to start them spinning again, if your speedo went upto 40mph then fair enough but unless thats the case i suggust you stop diging a hole for yourself which coincedently is exactly what your car would be doing, given the fact i doubt your handbrake would hold it still.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Sorry but its quite clear your talking out of your rear.

So your saying you have sat still on a patch of grass spinning the wheels at off clock speeds, the friction would be your first enemy then how do you manage to change into the taller gears without the wheels slowing down so much they stop or you can't get enough power out of the engine to start them spinning again, if your speedo went upto 40mph then fair enough but unless thats the case i suggust you stop diging a hole for yourself which coincedently is exactly what your car would be doing, given the fact i doubt your handbrake would hold it still.
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That's quite an assumption to make.

In fact, so much of an assumption, that you're totally wrong!

I stopped in an area near Basildon, Essex during the icy period we had recently on what was essentially a muddy bog/hilly bit that my friend uses to park his 93 Mitsubishi Shogun 2.5 TD on, as outside the front of his house is very busy of an evening when everyone is back home. By morning, it was incredibly sludgy, to the extent that I didn't actually get my car out of it until much later in the day with the aid of my friends Shogun.

When attempting to try drive the car away initially, I put it in first and all the car would do is sort of hunch a very small amount. When putting it in to second, it managed to get itself a bit further forward, and the back wheels came forward off a slight crest in the mud, dropping and giving the front wheels virtually no traction. I noticed as the little throttle that I was applying was producing enough torque to very quickly take the car to the limiter in 2nd. We laughed for a little while and I gave up and got out the car.

After a while, we decided to see how fast I could get the wheels to spin. So, I had him drag me forward a bit more so my wheels only had a very small contact patch at the bottom where the crest of mud in front of me was. I got in, started the car, put it in 2nd straight off and started going. I was increasing the throttle as I went through the gears, but the car had plenty of torque to keep the wheels spinning at what was indicated at a guess of 135mph (The needle stopped moving round).

I've managed to wheelspin the car (Albeit for a very short period of time) in 4th gear in the recently icy conditions up a hill, so 5th gear with virtually zero traction was nothing difficult to sustain.

So keep your slanderous comments to yourself, please.

Sorry for taking the owner's topic so far off course with the above.
 
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Cute little story you have, so 135 now, you said i would like to say i'd launched a car over 150mph before.... Wait for it......

pmkeates said:
I'd love to be able to say I launched a 1.8 Citroen Xsara at over 150 mph!
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so which Xsara was this then spec age sure you won't have a problem posting a picture or even the numberplate for that matter since no doubt you have crashed it already, i seem to remember you was looking at a green 5 door xsara non of them will do 150mph and unless its the VTS 135 is doubtfull.

My comments are not slanderous since imho based on your ford escort posts many many months ago you have no reputation to uphold.

Sorry for the offtopic on this Chris i have sent you and msn mate about it.

Mark
 
Yes, it would have been a roughly indicated 150mph if the speedo were able to register that. Unfortunately, it can't, so a calculation based on the rpm limiter was necessary for the purposes of this post. (6500/2900)*70 isn't exactly rocket science.

It was a 98S Citroen Xsara 1.8 16v SX in metallic green with approx 114,000 miles on the clock. If you want any pictures, I can just pop outside my house, where it currently resides, and take as many as you want.

The engine produces 114PS of power at 5500rpm and 155nm of torque at 4250rpm.

As with most cars, it cannot rev to the limiter in 5th under normal road conditions because of the ratio's height. However, the car has an official top speed of 121mph, which would roughly equal an approach on an indicated 130mph. All this information is totally irrellevant, as the cars top speed because of its power output will be limited by aerodynamical drag on the road. A force that the car will not be subjected to when stationary.

And yes, your comments are slanderous Firestar because you have incinuated that I am a liar. Nothing I have ever posted on here corroborates that statement.

Another quick calculation - at 5500rpm the drivetrain is transferring roughly 500nm of torque to the wheels.
 
To back up PMKeates, my 1986 Toyota Tercel 4X4 station wagon (estate as you folks call them) has a severaly restricted 1.5L 3AC engine in it, mounted longitudally (front to back), even though it is FWD. This is to accomodate the rear drive system for the 4WD.

Yesterday afternoon I was late picking my wife up from work, so I had the go pedal mashed to the front bumper on a 3 mile-long straight. The absolute fastest I got was 83mph at just over 4,000RPM. And yes, my speedo is dead accurate (ask the cop that pulled me over.....)

So the absolute maximum my little engine will push me at is 83mph, right?

So why then can I go out on to my ice-covered street right now and go through the gears until the engine is screaming at 6,000RPM in 5th for an mind numbing speed of a little over 120mph? If I wanted to I could probably (for a VERY short period of time) push it a little past redline to 140mph.

And yet there is absolutely NO WAY my car could EVER do 130mph. For one thing, it would explode!! :p

Same thing with my truck. 1981 Chevrolet 1/2 ton 4X4 pickup. Big, ugly, rusted out. 5L V-8 with an automatic transmission. Flat out with the hammer on the floor it will eventually hit about 87-90mph (speedo needle jumps around due to FUBAR'd cable). And yet I can (and have) played around on ice and buried the needle to the stops (around 125mph) on ice before when doing donuts.

So for a 1.8L Xsara to do it (which is MUCH newer than either of the ones I gave as examples) is by no means ANY stretch of the imagination.

Oh, and if you want pics, I can oblige in the morning. Kinda dark right now as I just got home from work at 1AM.....

Normal automotive physics just completely go out the window when you start applying power under zero traction situations.
 
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Firestar_3x said:
Cute little story you have, so 135 now, you said i would like to say i'd launched a car over 150mph before.... Wait for it......



so which Xsara was this then spec age sure you won't have a problem posting a picture or even the numberplate for that matter since no doubt you have crashed it already, i seem to remember you was looking at a green 5 door xsara non of them will do 150mph and unless its the VTS 135 is doubtfull.

My comments are not slanderous since imho based on your ford escort posts many many months ago you have no reputation to uphold.

Sorry for the offtopic on this Chris i have sent you and msn mate about it.

Mark
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i dont think your quite getting the gist of this one mate, you will actually find most cars will have 5th gear to rev at circa 3000rpm or less @70mph so therefore if you can get the car to hit the limiter in that gear for example 6250rpm thats roughly 2x 3000rpm so roughly 2x 70mph (140mph) would be possible if you had enough power to do that. Reachin high speed your biggest enemy is air resistance that is why our supercars look like they do.
As the ground was so icy and slippery there was no air resistance due to the car being virtually stationary therefore allowing the car to rev to limiter in 5th gear. I have done a similar thing myself in an old 1.8 sierra LX of doom! reached an indicated 140mph of course the thing would never do that on the road.
Basically just doing a 140mph chavtastic burnout :)
 
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Lol Mickey, we see those police safety programmes on TV and see clips of American guys in pickups sliding all over the ice looking like it's all a surprise crashing into each other. It's nothing of the sort! It's guys like you with your right foot flat on the floor reading 120 on the speedo!

Now we know :D
 
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