ABS and Highway Spinout!

Way too many variables here to make a determination about the ABS. You don't even know all the details yourself.

Thank God your husband is OK, and get the braking system checked by a competent mechanic ASAP. It does seem unusual that so much brake work was done on a car with relatively low mileage.

George Adams

"All good fishermen stay young until they die, for fishing is the only dream of youth that doth not grow stale with age." ---- J.W Muller

For all you know, he didn't even use brakes.

I certainly didn't when I had my spin-out 10 years ago under similar conditions.

Cheers,

1: CHECK THE CONDITION OF THE TIRES! 2: Wet roads at the time ?

I very much doubt it was ABS issue here. This sounds like a clear cut case of hydroplaining or defective/worn tires. Also what is the condition of the road at that place? Oil or gas on the roadway? Runoff of mud from the grass/land off the road? Slippery mud?

As others have said, there's too many variables. Regardless of all the technology, the car still has to obey the laws of physics.

Something to think about is what exactly your husband did to bring on the spin. I'm not trying to point fingers, just give you some insight.

I assume that he made a hard turn to avoid the other vehicle. If the spin started then, the ABS had nothing to do with it. If he waited until the car straightened out then braked hard, there probably shouldn't have been a spin, but it's impossible to know for sure.

What I suspect happend, however, is that he turned hard and then braked hard in the turn. At that point, the car could have been at just the limits of traction and the initial lockup of the wheels, caused by him applying the brakes, could have initiated the spin. As you probably know, ABS works by looking for wheel lockup then releasing the brakes for an instant then repeating. At least one wheel *must* lockup before the ABS does anything and that might have been enough to initiate the spin.

Hard turning and hard braking are not a good combination except perhaps on a racetrack.

You said that you are very upset that your husband lost control of the car. I suggest that you and your husband take a performace driving class. That way you can truly under- stand how easy it is to lose control of a car and how you can both recover from it and avoid it.

I don't mean to sound preachy, but freeway driving is dangerous. If you want to be absolutely sure that it will never happen again, keep your husband off the freeway (:

It sounds to me that all the other alternatives to the spin were worse. The car got you through it with about as minimal expense as possible.

This is an issue of mechanical grip, which is independent of the sophistication of any vehicle's braking system or traction control system. Mechanical grip is simply determined by how much friction is available between the tires and the road, and it cannot be improved upon by any vehicle system. You can have systems that improve traction on a variety of terrain, you can improve suspension performance and you can improve weight distribution... but all of these improvements rely solely on the amount of mechanical grip available to the vehicle on whatever terrain at any given moment. You can never increase the amount of mechanical grip... you can only best utilize the available mechanical grip....

All this being said... it is very, very difficult to determine why the car spun without having a huge amount of information.... you really have to be at the site and have immediate access to the evidence to determine cause. It is very likely that your husband will not correctly recount his actions or responses at the moment of spin.... things happen very quickly on the freeway.

Be gratefull, as I am sure you are, that your husband is ok. There is every chance, as things stand right now, that some level of sophistication in the vehicle saved your husband's life. There is no evidence, given the information that you have, that some degree of vehicle malfunction either introduced or contributed to the danger inherent in the situation.

PaulW.

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I would check the tires and then get better ones. I had a similar experience in a Jeep Cherokee last winter. I was driving down a snowy road in 4x4 High and all of a sudden started to swerve and then did a 360 before I got stopped. Luckily it was a side street with no traffic at the time. I replaced the tires right after that.

ABS and AWD are worthless if your rubber can't grip the road.

As a lot of track, autocross and other performance driving instruction has taught me, a spin is nearly always due to braking during a turn. What happens is that the weight transfers to the forward tires, and the unloaded and lighter rear end then breaks loose and the car spins. The simple answer is to basically NEVER brake hard, if at all, while turning. Get the car slowed before the turn, or else try and claw through with power during the turn.

Amen.

Try not to lose it reading some of the other responses here, eh?

Most likely cause, given what you've listed, would be driver overcorrection.

On the Subarus I have noticed better performance in a tight turn if I downshift just before the turn and accelerate through it. Maybe it is the AWD, but it just seems to turn much tighter and handle better under acceleration.

ABS can't help you with a car sliding sideways.

Hi, thanks everyone for the insights, I have an appt. to bring it into the dealer in a week and get everything checked. Roads were dry but my husband (who along with the Forester is now safely home!) swerved into the breakdown lane to avoid a collision. He thinks he swerved and then breaked which put the spin in motion. As I said they were going about

60 which to my understanding is fast enough to make bad things happen... Anyway I'm going to take my car into a parking lot and make sure the antilock brakes are deploying... I don't think I'll be taking the precision driving lessons though thanks for the suggestion, Jim. :-) I AM grateful the car didn't flip and therefore contributed to keeping my husband and his sister alive!

I think the car was innocent. ABS will not prevent a spin and is not intended to. I personally prefer the lower center of gravity offered by the Subaru Legacy because it handles MUCH better than the forrester. Tall vehicles with lots of ground clearance handle poorly, look at the skidpad numbers. TG

Please make sure you have good tires in good condition and that they are properly inflated. You would be amazed at how much difference they can make.

-rick-

Another contributing factor: the breakdown lane, or shoulder, often has gravel, dirt, bits of tire, and other debris which make for very poor tire adhesion for either braking or steering.

Ed P

In my experience my WRX likes to understeer just shade under hard 1st 2nd and 3rd gear power, It starts to get neutral at 90 odd and would prolly oversteer above (No STI wing to pin the back end down and all that). The understeer progressively turns to oversteer as you get faster.

It oversteers slightly going into the corner on idle up to about 50 and is easy to correct (by hitting the accelerator) after about 50 it starts getting a bit more pronounced and opposite lock along with some gas might be needed!

It absolutely hates it when you brake when cornering hard (even lightly before abs gets a sniff of a lockup) this causes her to start oversteering all over the place due to the shift of weight (And grip) from the back to the front. I was cornering hard at about 70 and encountered an obstacle and stupidly dabbed the brake lightly. I hit lock both sides before I got her back in line!!! I then drove home at 40 mulling over my new found respect for the laws of physics!!!

All these characteristics can be made worse by poor tyre setups, prolly the most dangerous is new tyres on the front and old on the back which would make the oversteer lethal under simualtaneous cornering and braking.

I suspect the hubby of the original poster turned hard then braked. This being the instinctual (but wrong) thing to do. thus causing the car to spin. Subaru AWD cars will corner beyond most peoples own limits of fear, you just need to learn what to do when you go past your own limits this usually involves concentrating very hard on NOT doing what your instincts tell you and doing what your head tells you.

Ross

Heh...I had same experience coming around a bend at about 70 one night, to find a possum trotting across the road. In very rapid succession I found myself closing on the ditches on BOTH sides of the road ;-)

I'll toss in another tidbit for the groups consideration. If something jumps in front of you, your best bet is to hit it. Sure, tromp on those brakes, scrub speed, stop if there's room, but don't swerve, don't swerve, DON'T SWERVE!!! Try to hit the offending object dead center, with your car traveling straight. Let your bumper and frame absorb the force of impact, and trust to your seat belts and air bag systems to protect you; this is _exactly_ the scenario where they are designed to work best. This is counter-intuative, but any other action can, potentially, cause your car to spin into oncoming traffic with horrendous results, or into the ditch, usually resulting in a roll-over. Even a partial spin that results in hitting something off center is far more likely to cause injuries to you and your passengers than a straight frontal impact. As to the _other_ object . . . er, sorry. I pound this into my teenaged drivers until I'm sure they're sick of hearing it, but it really is a potential life saver.

ByeBye! S. Steve Jernigan KG0MB Laboratory Manager Microelectronics Research University of Colorado (719) 262-3101

I really think ALL drivers should be taught to drive properly. The above is simplistic and dangerous BS, if you ask me (I know, you aren't). Sure, under some circumstances, it's probably correct to steer straight toward an obstacle, but that situation is rare. Under most circumstances, the instinctive reaction (to avoid hitting the obstacle) is also (surprise surprise) the correct one. Where most people come unstuck is in knowing the correct actions to take that will result in avoiding the obstacle, and that's where educators should be concentrating their efforts.

-- GW DE Lacey... 45 year no claim driver (just lucky, I guess) (or maybe a Volvo Driver)