I have friends who say in all sincerity, "my car corners in the wet just as well as in the dry" and "My car is just as fast with 5 people on board as it is when I'm on my own". It scares me to think how out of touch they are with their car's limitations or potential.
Tim
What car is it? Is it a genuinely fast RWD car, or a nippy (but fast to your misses) RWD car?
Exactly my point. With a bit of experience of the limits of grip, she'll probably be as good or better than I am (and naturally, being a bloke, I'm almost the World's best Driver).
There are different times and places to gain that experience...
Once she's used to the car, no. But there are a lot of busy and awkward junctions and roundabouts round here where the cars she does drive *need* full belt to stand a chance of pulling out before midnight. habits like that take a while to fade.
I'm talking about cornering behaviour, especially on greasy roads.
193bhp, 207ft.lb, 1350kg, 7s 0-60. I think that qualifies as genuinely fast, even if it isn't up to supercar performance.
PCPaul gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
...and you just don't trust her to be able to tell the difference...?
PCPaul gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
No, you were talking about BRAKING. You were fairly explicit about that.
I wonder why all the purpose built single seaters like F1 cars are rear wheel drive? perhaps there is a clue there as to which can handle better.
I know how hard or not RWD is, I've had several 200bhp+ RWD cars, without modern aids like traction control to take the edge off. I've also driven a 150bhp LSD RWD car on a gravel rally stage with no surprises - I love driving sideways!
But I also know that a powerful RWD car can catch out a novice. The same way I let my 13yo use a scrollsaw but not a tablesaw - when things go wrong, there is a difference in how quickly they can get well out of control.
FWD or RWD can slip on a greasy corner. If the slip is caused by excessive power then the failure mode of RWD is IMHO more dangerous than for FWD.
Hmm. F1 (and saloon) RWD cars allow some driving techniques to be used which can allow you to corner faster or retain more momentum - but those techniques shouldn't really be used on the roads.
To fo back to the original point, if it was a 200+BHP FWD car I'd be concerned as well. It's just so much easier to break grip by being rough with the throttle in a quick car compared to a slow one.
I sense a skid pan session in the near future.
Hi Mike,
Could you give your Outlook Express auto signature setting a look at?
It's pasting your signature including "-- " at the top of the reply thus marking the following text as also part of your signature ...
Must admit never seen an Outlook Express post do this before...
Looked at it. Removed it. OE 'Options/Signatures' doesn't appear to give an option to paste a sig at the bottom, and I'm not savvy enough to sort out why. Mike.
There's a free app called 'Quote fix' which IIRC brings OE into line with almost what a decent newsreader should do. Including sorting sigs.
With respect I think it's both common knowledge and common sense that fwd is inherently less likely to swap ends than rwd when pressing on hard and more or less impossible to make do so by excessive use of throttle in a corner. It'll just understeer more. No matter what car you drive if you slam the brakes on half way round a corner (anti lock excluded) you'll probably swap ends but you'll only do that with the throttle in a rwd car.
For a novice driver fwd is far safer although to be fair I think you have to be something fairly dickish to crash any modern car on decent tyres unless it's like sheet ice. Compared to the Vivas, Marinas, Capris and other assorted s**te I grew up driving the grip of modern cars and modern tyres is little short of astonishing.
It's about what Tiff defined as "adequate" on a 5th Gear many years ago. I can't disagree with him but his definition may have moved on since then.
No more than 'nippy' by any modern standard I would have said. Now the mildly tweaked 300 plus bhp 1200kg Impreza I got a shot in last year was what I'd call fast. Definitely not a tool for keeping your license long with though with 120 mph available in seconds on a whiff of throttle anytime you wanted. I only drove it for 15 miles or so but christ it was good fun. When the turbo spooled up it didn't seem to matter what gear you were in or how fast you were already going - everything else on the road just went into reverse. However it was still totally tractable and hadn't been spoiled by silly boost levels and an on/off switch type of power curve.
Stick 250kg of sand in the boot.
Think that's more down to the appalling suspension on those cars and of course the tyres. No BMW made since about '90 wants to swap ends as readily as those - even without electronic intervention.
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