As we discussed, this is on a car with more electronic wizardy then the early space shuttles, and I will personally give you the car if you can spin it on sand :) and yeah you can drive it at 70mph and yank the wheel as hard as you like, or even in the wet if you like :P
Tell you what, ill whack the vid cam in the car and do a real time test, hows that :) Unfortunatly I live about as far away from Aberdeen as you could be :(
Ok I will expain, and I have done tons of research on ESP and EDL and ABS.
IF you hit a corner in a car that is fitted with out ESP and you turn the wheel to navigate the corner 2 things happen, you either oversteer or understeer, as you know.
A car fitted with ESP monitors YAW as a car goes round a corner, if it senses the car is losing traction, it does not matter if its US or OS it will compansate by applying 1 of the 4 brakes to slow the wheel in question to bring it back in line it also slows the engine to a stop if it needs be.
No person could brake 4 wheels independently of each other like ESP can, and yes Physics does play an important roll in US and OS, but like it or not you "CANNOT" make a car with ESP working correctly understeer or oversteer.
Turn the ESP off and it's a different ball game.
Your theory is a stupid one as it would not matter if you had 500 quid tyres or no tyres you are still going to hit that wall or ditch if you do not perform a preventative manuevour .
The only thing that cheaper tyres would cause a problem on a car like mine is stopping distances, which would be slightly longer as the grip is less than a Fast road tyre oh and long livity.
If you think you can make my car understeer or oversteer I have offered you a challenge, you are only 30 miles away, and to make things more interesting I get your Passat if you don't manage to oversteer/understeer my car and lose it :)
Laws of physics dictate that it will eventually either oversteer or understeer. Steve's right, you've not got ANY understanding of physics and mechanics at all...
It most likely won't spin out. It'll understeer straight off the bend. The computer's set up to promote understeer rather than oversteer so that you get to use your crumple zones when the inevitable occurs.
Here's the basic gist:
You enter a corner too fast. You attempt to brake and corner at the same time. In a none ESP / ABS car, one of three things happens - a) you lose traction on the front end, lock up and slide straight off the road, b) you slow enough to get round the corner (in which case, you weren't actually going too fast on the corner entry), or c) hard braking causes the rear end to lose traction and you go off the road backwards. Obviously you can get a slight overlap where oversteer / understeer occurs but you still get round the corner.
In an ESP / ABS car, a) you can't lock up the front wheels, but you're still going too fast, so you understeer straight off the road. b) You could just not be going too fast, and still get round, most likely without any real understeer / oversteer drama. c) ESP intervenes to stop the back end losing traction, but you still slide off the road in an understeer situation.
SteveH's scenario, of going round a corner too fast and lifting off, will result in the car spinning, no matter what you're doing, unless the car has
*very* conservative setup (ie, a smart). The ESP has no control over engine braking, so unless the ECU makes engine braking non-existant by opening the throttle, you'll transfer weight to the front, unweight the back, and go off backwards. You have to be going *very* quickly to do this. You could feel the Ka twitching a little if you lifted off the throttle at the absolute limit of traction, and if you didn't get back on the throttle and countersteer, it would go round.
Of course, you may say that you never go *that* quickly, but there are plenty of chances to hit corners that tighten as you go round them, or have some nob pull halfway out of a junction. The end result is that it's still much better to have decent tyres than shit ones.
well, i've managed a mild front end drift under acceleration once so far. It wasn't violent but I thought I was going to hit the kerb, lifted off slightly and the steering came back. Do I win a prize?
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