If you have good brakes, on dry pavement, if you stand on them hard at 50mph, ABS will work. It keeps them from locking up. I can lock my IROC's up on dry pavement, no problem. It is easier on a slippery surface, but skid marks in wrecks come from locked tires (Or tires skidding sideways since they can't roll in the direction of travel). It is easy to do.

A Limited Slip rear is not a welded diff. It will not cause the car to suddenly "jump out" or hop. It helps by dividing the toque between the wheels. The tires can brake, accelerate, or turn. When you are doing two of them at the same time, you lower the ability of the car to corner and brake/accelerate as the traction has to be divided. This is why you brake before a corner and slowly (smoothly) apply power after the Apex as the cornering forces decrease.

My suggestion is to find a safe place and push you car to the limits at relatively slow speeds and get a feel for it. Most cars will not "snap" out unless you are quickly reaching and then exceeding the limit. Think like a dirt track car - Even when the rear is lose you can steer it with the wheel and throttle on a much slippier surface than pavement.

 

First of all. I did not think you were being a smartass. You are correct. This was driver error. If I had waited 25 feet I would have been on drier pavement and the spin would have never occurred. I did not hear or feel the ABS so I was wondering if it worked or if it should have worked in this situation.
You are all correct. A little practice is in order. Thank you for your comments.

 

Amen to that

 

I agree, while I don't do any legal racing, I have driven a lot of different cars to their traction limits on wet and dry pavement. The C4 definitely "warns" you before the rear let's go, it's got a good "but feel". Much better than a rear engine 911 IMO.

 

 

Not to hijack the thread, but there's a lot of wisdom here (along with some non-wisdom) and it's on a related subject. I had a little bit of a "departure from controlled driving" in my first few weeks of C4 ownership too and now I'm wondering if it was a similar driver error. (I know for sure it was a driver error, I just don't know which). I was turning left from a side street onto a 40mph limit road where people regularly do 50. The side street is slightly uphill leading to the main road, and there's poor visibility to the right. All looked clear but after I'd started rolling I checked right one more time and a vehicle was coming on extremely fast, so I jammed on the brakes and wound up stopped partway in the oncoming lane (fortunately, no one was coming that way). The guy flew by and had to be doing 60+.

Mistake Number 1: I got mad. I'm not prone to road rage but this joker scared the tar out of me, which led to Mistake Number 2: I stomped the gas much harder than I meant to, and then came off it abruptly...and the tail snapped around on me pretty violently. I think I was very briefly about 45 degrees too far to the left with the nose in the oncoming lane. But (mostly out of surprise/panic) I let the wheel come neutral and stayed off the gas, and everything came back normal. At the time, I assumed it was all just that I'd put too much power down from a standing start with the front wheels turned left, but now I'm wondering if lifting off of the gas was the problem, possibly along with coming off of the hill onto level ground which may have shifted weight forward that had been on the back...is this more likely? I've been much more cautious with the throttle since and plan to stay that way because of my lack of performance/autocross experience, but I'm just curious. (I've also avoided that damn intersection since I regarded it as dangerous BEFORE this happened).

PS: I wound up catching up to the guy at a nearby light. It was a de-badged Subaru, I think an Impreza. I tried to keep up with but when I glanced down and found I was doing 50 in a 35 in my own neighborhood and wasn't gaining on him, I realized I was being as stupid as he was and gave up.

 

It sounds like you had a similar situation to the OP, except you didn't hit the brakes. However, abruptly coming off the gas is also pretty destabilizing to the car. You aren't transferring as much weight (because you aren't braking), but you are abruptly adding at least a small amount of engine braking to the rear tires while simultaneously adding some grip to the fronts (because they just snapped from rearward weight transfer to some forward weight transfer, and they aren't being asked to brake the car at all). Think of it as going from hard throttle to coasting while applying the parking brake. I would guess that you started braking the tires loose with the throttle, and then when you snapped it shut you made the loss of rear traction momentarily worse.

If you end up breaking the rears loose with too much throttle, the ideal recovery is to countersteer however much the car is hanging the tail out, and to bring the throttle back to the amount it would take to just maintain your road speed without accelerating (so not much throttle, but not closed all the way). That's easier said than done, especially if you haven't practiced enough to make it second nature and/or if you're panicking. Like I said, I've been there too. Practicing skid recovery (or drifting or autocrossing, which will teach you skid recovery), is the only way I know of to get any good at this kind of car control. I'm glad the outcome was benign!

 

Well interesting story. But, what upset me about my spin was I have good tires and there was very little water on the ground. I thought as I accelerated that I should wait another ten feet before I give it the gas, and not much acceleration. The car just broke loose. I was very disappointed in how easy it was to hydroplane the car. I got very lucky there was no one coming from the other direction and the road was wide.

 

Many people think wider tires are better for traction in all road conditions, nothing could be further from the truth, especially wet conditions.

 

I know that wider tires are not a benefit to traction in the rain. But, I chose tires that are supposed to be good in the rain I am not running slicks on the street. It disappointing that it got out of shape so quickly.

 

There are so many factors that affect traction, it's hard to know exactly what you'll get on any public road on any given day at any given time. We have a road by my house that is inexplicably low-grip no matter what tires I have on the car, and no matter the conditions. There's another one nearby in a roundabout that's the same way. Worst place ever for low grip: a roundabout is nothing more than a skidpad bordered with curbs, and you multiple entry and exit points around it. That thing has wiped out many hapless motorists suspension. Then we have other roads that make my least grippy tires feel like Hoosier A7s. It's just hard to predict.

 

I know most of us don't like to drive our cars in other than sunny weather but since I only paid $4k for mine I don't really care. I drive it in the rain, not too frequently though, and have driven in winter snowy/icy stuff too. The road crews like to though a salt/sandy gravel mix down and I'll drive the vette in that too, I don't care. You want to slip and slide, that sandy gravel mix is the loosest stuff (even dry), only a small step down from ice. It's very easy in those conditions to push the car past it's traction limits and I do it on purpose lot's times just to have some fun. 1 thing you start to learn (and this goes for any car) is to "anticipate the slide". I don't claim to be an expert or even good at it but the more you push it the better you'll get.

 

Just a friendly comment.... You can not believe how much oil / grease / crap can be on the road) particularly in areas where people come to a stop or turn (it's where oil drips off cars). While a rally heavy rain does help "wash off" the roadway - there can be all kinds of crap on a road that can have a TREMENDOUS impact on available grip, and it gets significantly worse when water is added on top. And as you might expect - it can vary dramatically within a few feet ...

If anyone ever has a chance to do a track walk - take advantage of the opportunity - particularly if it's a little wet out. You may be very surprised how "slick" the pavement is at the end of the brake zone and in the turns.......

 

Back in the summer, I was getting onto the highway. The entrance has a somewhat sharp right turn, then another left hander once you are on the entrance ramp. I took the first corner 45-50 mph. It took that corner very well, but the second curve, I lost the rear end out of nowhere. I blame it on me being too agressive and cold tires. That was some scary ****. Luckily, nothing happened to me, anyone else or the car.