tyre pressures in the wet

most people who get into trouble, say on a bend too fast if the back comes out slamm the brakes on, seen many spins, having only owned and wont have nothing else other than a RWD. Back off or brake in a rwd while over steer will cause a spin due to the weight of the car being transferd to the front.

My car is a nightmare to drive in the wet, it has damn hard racing suspension with no give. opposite lock is norm, but the front gets mass understeer too. dry is perfect, wet takes experiance.

I have always preferd to push rather than pull.

Agreed. These control systems may help prevent a skid in the first place but they don't alter the driver actions needed to correct the skid if it occurs.

I was not considering tyre wear. "Merely" road safety. Since a front wheel skid is more difficult to control (and the control has an element of luck in it) than a rear wheel skid, I consider it better to try to prevent the front wheel skid first. Of course, it is much better to drive in such a way as to not skid at all.

I take it that you have never had a skid pan course, then.

Howard Neil ( snipped-for-privacy@REMOVETOREPLY.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Tyre wear is an indication of how hard the tyre is working. If one end is wearing much more rapidly than the other, then you're using those tyres harder, and they're going to be nearer the limit of their grip.

Howard Neil ( snipped-for-privacy@REMOVETOREPLY.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Nor have 90% of the drivers on british roads.

The message from Howard Neil contains these words:

Yup - and found rear enders harder to control than fronts.

like

Oh more like 99.999% surely? Unless you count Sainsbury's car park any wet Friday night in Chavsville.

I think you are forgetting that steering a car (particularly at very low speeds) scrubs the tyres more than anything else. Also, the front tyres take much more of the pressure when under braking conditions. None of this wear has anything to do with the geometry of the car prior to a skid.

You are probably right but that is the only way to accurately assess the behaviour of a car (and, therefore, your reactions) when the car is skidding. I would strongly advise any driver to undertake such a course. It makes a real difference to your capabilities and may well save your no claim bonus (or more) at some time.

That really surprises me. It contradicts my own experiences, those that I know who have undertaken similar instruction, and the instruction itself. I suppose there is always an exception to everything.

I had fun on the skid pan, since I am used to banger racing I could keep my granada estate sideways all the way round, time after time. The high speed road trip afterwards with a class one police driver was far more frightening.

mrcheerful

That amount of practice is cheating. :-)

I can imagine. My training was as a police driver in London (I am now retired) and I always preferred to be the driver when answering a call. No matter how much faith you have in the driver, you are always thinking "has he seen the (insert hazard of your choice)".

The message from Howard Neil contains these words:

Imagine what instructors feel like!

: If a particular car is SO nose-heavy that the rear tyres are going to : perish rather than wear out, it's a fairly good indication that the rear : tyres are so under-used and over-specced that it's a complete waste to put : new ones on the back.

While I take the general point about fitting new tyres to the back (rear end letting go being worse than front end) I also agree with what you wrote. The back wheels on the DS have so little to do - they are really jsut there to stop the back rubbing on the ground, and the rear brakes are weedy compared to the incredible front ones - that I would always like to see my best tyres on the front, as long as the back ones are adequate. It's different for other, more balanced, car designs.

Ian

I have often thought about that. My gut reation is to feel very sorry for them but then I think "what the hell, they are not forced to do this job. They do it because they want to". In the end, though, I have nothing but admiration for them.

: "How little" while inflated, see what happens when they are flat.

Hmm. Interesting question. Bearing in mind that the D can be driven with one rear tyre missing, I wonder if a flat one would matter?

Ian

The message from Howard Neil contains these words:

Having done it for some years - it's not that bad. You're a mug if you take someone way beyond their ability and let them get into situations that scare them - after all they want to feel safe and won't come back if they're scared.

The only time I ever had an adrenaline rush in five busy years was when some woman finally did an emergency stop /properly/ after ten minutes of tickling it. Hot fresh tarmac, warm brakes, warmed up tyres - s*it, I thought the wheels had fallen off.

The worst bit was training other instructors - I had one who simply wouldn't use the duals no matter how dangerous it got - she simply relied on me to not /actually/ crash into the back of the parked van and so on, and would justify it saying "See, I knew you'd stop."

Not according to my Renault 25 handbook, they don't.