Painrace

I know you guys think I am crazy but I hate Traction Control and Active Handling. I feel it doing what I think is crazy things to upset the car all the time when I am driving sprited! I just don't like it doing things that I don't expect. Unless the codes tell us something I bet we will never know. Hey, I feel the same way about antilock brakes so just call me an idiot.

Sorry about your problems. The car does have a lot of power. About a week ago I was going home and a yellow Mustang pulled up behind me on a four lane road and stayed right on my tail. I turned off to a two lane road and he followed. After about a mile or so I pulled my car back into 2nd gear and hammered it. It was about 50 degrees. When I went from 2nd to 3rd I did not let up and spun the back tires before I let off. That night my wife and I were going out and I looked on the other side of the road and saw about 12 feel of rubber where I had shifter. That was at about 50 degrees so you can imagine what can happen.

Best of luck in getting your car fixed.

Webfoot

Active handling can be your best friend if you have some bad traction, reacting more quickly than the driver can. But it can also be your enemy if it goes "rogue." I am very curious what turns up in the investigation. Did you mention if the airbags deployed? I'm glad you could walk away from the accident. Be grateful for that!!

DDSLT5

BINGO!

It was not the road surface or your driving. I had this happen to me. Test driving a barnd new C5 vert. Tooling along the highway at 55 mph and all of a sudden the wheel was YANKED out of my hands with a brute force - like the car just 'decided' to make a right turn! Before I knew what was happening the car had jumped onto the shoulder, and then there was an error message on the DIC, and the wheel went back to normal. Driving straight as an arrow, no throttle input. I literally looked down at my feet to confirm I hadn't hit the brakes by some strange coincidence!!!!!! The DIC said "Service Active Handling System Immediately". Damn thing just decided to take a crap, almost locked up the passenger side front wheel - I came inches from ditching the car - all within the time frame of a few milliseconds - this **** happens FAST!!!

The dealer ended up replacing the active handling 'computer' in the car. I replaced my drawers! **** happens! It wasn't your fault - I'm glad you weren't injured.

markbrown

got my car on a friday, saturday the wife and i went out for "our" first drive. thought i was smart "i touched that button" two seperate 180's latter. i swore to her and myself "i don't touch that button no more" never i tell ya - capiche?

StickShiftCorvette

This is one of the reasons I prefer pre-federal Corvettes - Pleanty of power and no electonics......

Webfoot

How many times ye be touchin the button? One or twice?

GForceSS

I think most people who replied were under the impression that you were accelerating to pass people and then tried a lane change. Be careful how much information you give, people often read into things based on what initial words you say.

Just my half a cents worth, once the car jerked to the right, can you recall if you hit the brakes immediately?

Here’s why, what I'm thinking is a possible Active Handling error causing it to slam on the right front brake, which would have created your sudden jerk. If after it did that you slammed on the brakes trying to stop, the rear already had momentum to be swung to the left and hitting the brakes hard just allowed the rear to brake loose and slide (which is the reaction Ranger said in his post above that he was glad he did NOT do); completing your 90 degree turn. If that was the case, or something similar, there really wasn’t much you could do once the car was in the hands of physics. These Vettes give you a false sense of control, in small intervals it’s controllable, but when the car loses its "balance", we often become the passenger in our own car rather than the driver.

Glad you are ok, I am sure you scared the drivers around you during the "ride".

One thing to do is see if there was an initial tire mark on the road where it happened. Of course there will be marks from the spin, but look to see if one tire mark started at the beginning.

GForceSS

imagine if you were stretching out the car's legs at 150mph

Foosh

Sorry, but it's just very unlikely that it was a "computer error." That would be the very lowest probability of the more probable causes here.

If it was, as Ranger said, it will be recorded in the system, and the cause will be clear. However, as Ranger said, you have to be really sure about your account, because it does cut both ways, one of which may not be in your favor.

GForceSS

Trust me Foosh when I say I hope it was driver’s error or road conditions. I can handle my action/reactions, but not if the electronics flake out to any degree; all predictability is lost.

The computer is only as good as the units sending it signals. Things like that don’t always register in the ECU either. My AWD GSX Eclipse is a good example, driving down the road at 65 mph and the ECU told the transmission to down shift to first gear and lock the converter (only after the disassemblywere we able to see what happended). It was like rear ending someone when the trans blew apart...and no code or log was ever given. The ECU for the engine is directly connected to the Trans Unit and uses "fuzzy logic" to make decisions. While not the same problem as in this post, The ECU is not gospel.

ICU812 let us know either way

Foosh

It's always a possibility GForceSS, just a much lower-probability one than the other possibilities, as I said.

I've posted this here before, but when I was in Day 3 of my Advanced Driving Course at Spring Mountain last October, the Z06 I was driving during the open track sessions greeted me with a "service active handling" light. The car behaved normally, but it did want to lock during hard-braking for the corners more than I had become accustomed to. Other than that, it was OK. I did back off a bit, but kept going for awhile.

When I did radio it in, they wanted me in the pits, because of their policy to not let students drive the car with the system off, or malfunctioning. But, it just felt like a high-powered "old-school" car that I am familiar with, given my advanced years . Unlike others here, I have become a fan of the "aids" because I know they have better reaction times than I do.

My only point was that a malfunctioning system causing a car to go out of control is an extremely low probability event. The other causes are far more plausible.

outnumbered

I ran mine at Watkins Glenn for 2 days with the message. I drove it hard the whole time. Of course if I had heard it was possible for the system to crash the car, I would have parked it.

I hadn't heard about the possibility until afterwards.

I would expect if there was no message or codes, than it most likely wasn't the cause.

Foosh

Yep Dan, given the logic that goes into these systems, it only makes sense that it would fail "benignly." as opposed to going completely "whacko" and braking the car in an asymmetrical fashion.

And you are right that there has been no mention of a failure warning on the DIC in this incident. It's hard to miss that "ding, ding ding", which gets your attention immediately.

Z Fast

When I read the thread starter's post, the first thing that came to mind is this could very well be an AH failure. As I continued to read the other post, I have to say that I agree with all those who believe this could be an AH issue. From my experience with AH at the limits, I don't like it. I said it before, it's like having 2 drivers controlling the car, me and the computer, and the computer doesn't have eyes and therefor it can't see where I am going.

If the original posters information about the events are accurate, I am almost certain it was some sort of failure. 70 degrees and in third gear at 60 MPH, you would have to floor it to break it loose(still not likely), and he said he was not doing that. Even if there was sand, etc on the road, under moderate throttle you should be able to control the car.

I eliminate having potential computer handling issues by turning off all AH/TC most of the times. I will only use it if it is less than 50 degrees or wet conditions.

Foosh

All I can say is that you're putting a lot of trust in the original account. With adrenalin running through one's veins, actual facts get pretty muddy, especially when reconstructing an event 3-days later. It's not that he's lying or being purposefully deceptive. It's just a limitation of the human mind when reconstructing very stressful events, that occurred very quickly, and trying to make sense of them.

As one who has investigated many major aircraft accidents, I have always been struck by eyewitness accounts, which are completely wrong nearly 95% of the time.

cbgpe

I do accident reconstruction for a living. Photos of the damage and the tire marks on the road will tel a lot about what really happened. you really have to work at it to get the car to produce a 90 deg slip angle lots of wheel rear slip and a big steer input will do it. So will a mistake on a down shift along with a steer input ...unless the road has a very large crown. I have found that people involved in MVA have a poor capability to accurately recount what happened . Too much going on , too much to remember and with your car going out of control you are under a lot of stress as well . The phyiscal evidence is MUCH MORE reliable. get some photos of the tire marks they will likely tell the story IMHO

Z Fast

That is why I said "If". But without being there or having witness the event, I can't make any assumption about his story. But if the events were as he stated, then I truly feel the was some sort of failure with the car.

805Z06

This does not sound right. The car should not act like it did. Even if there was some driver error, you should of had some feel to it.

I remember once on 2nd gear the car did a fish tail from being to aggresive around the corner but I was still able to have some correction with it.

Now in your scenario, and gear, and situation, it does not seem that extreme for possible driver error...

One possibility, while you were changing langes, surface was bad, Traction control took over in the wrong way, and that's probally why you had no control at all.

I would really look into it though.

So sorry for what happend and wish you the best of luck...

ICU812

The airbags did not deploy as it hit flat against the curb on the left (driver's) side of the car after clipping a Jeep Cherokee during the "spin". After the police tried to reconstruct the accident and asked several people, including the Jeep occupants, I was citied for an improper lane change (?-wasn't changing lanes, as I guess he needed to cite me as the cause of the accident. No citing for speed, loss of control of the vehicle, reckelss driving, etc.) Improper lane change is for when you don't signal which I guess I am guilty?) I faired well except for a stiff back which seems better now. No one was hurt. The car held togther rather well for the impact. Mostly suspension damage and a few quarterpanels. Hit so hard it broke the battery box and dislodged the battery into the rear compartment. Exhaust is toast also. At least 3 of the wheels are broken.

Wasn't trying to examine my driving abilities as we are all human. It's just nothing like this has ever happened on the street or when I have been racing before. Incredibly weird sensation with zero control and I mean zero. Thanks to all for comments and support and now to decide if I turn it in on 2008, try to get the SS Vette when it hits, or keep this one. Everyone stay safe.

Foosh

ICU, I hope you're not taking any of this personally, and you performed a great service to us all by sharing your accident experience. Had I been in the same situation, I wouldn't trust myself to accurately recount what happened either. As I said above, it's a limitation of the human mind, which we all share in stressful circumstances. It is very good for you to remind people how unforgiving these cars can be, and you should be commended for that.

We are all imperfect, and no matter how good we are, we all screw up in a given moment, for no apparent reason. It could be fatigue, just a single second of let-down, etc. It happens to the great race drivers in the world too.

Honestly, I hope it was a car failure, but all I've been saying above is that it would be a very, very unusual one. You seem like a very honest and very good guy, and I'm very sorry it happened to you.