Best way to recover when a heavy car slides.

What kind of tires and what air pressure? Also is this a standard 90 degree intersection, and what speed were you at?

I would say to try and use the throttle to give the car forward momentum again, but it is tough to call without a few more details!
 
It takes practice and quick reflexes. I can do decent power slides in my 240SX at about 30-40 Km/h (not very fast), but it took practice and I've spun around a few times (thankfully, never resulting in any damage :rolleyes: )

It's best to start in the snow where you can do very slow and controlled slides, graduate to wet pavement, and then go for it on dry tarmac.

What works for me when at a 90 degree corner is:

1. Turn aggressively before the corner, even before the opposite lane
2. Give it some throttle
3. Feed it some counter-steer as the back begins to slide and hold it until you run into opposite lock

Now, how aggressively, how much throttle, how much counter-steer and when to initiate it all depends on how much you want to slide, your engine's throttle response, your engines torque and power output, and many other variables.

Your car was a crapload more power and torque than mine, so it will be very different. More power will mean that you'll need to be more careful with the throttle.

In the end, it's basically a matter of practicing and getting the feel of it -- and having a blast when you do :)

Do you have an automatic or a manual gearbox? A manual is better.
 
andrebsd said:
So... I learned something today. My, new to me, car ('95 740iL) apparently doesn't have traction control at all. I was turning left trying to make the light and the whole car slid to the right (which was wierd as it was the entire car, not just the rear which I would expect to come out and it was far more sliding than I'd expect from any understeer.) at which point I tried to recover that by turning the wheel all the way right. That almost worked but I ended up with the back fishtailing and then since the street was entirely empty I pretty must said to myself "well shit, I've lost it", and hung on while the car spun completely around and stoped. I made a quick U-Turn and went on my way home glad that no one/things were damaged.
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Check your tires and front suspension - your car isn't skidding, it's understeering. Some understeer is normal. As much as you describe, something is seriously wrong with your front end and you really need to deal with it.

Traction control cannot do anything about understeer. Yaw control can, but you don't have that.

Set up properly, you should have had some initial understeer, but you should have either been able to apply throttle to either kick the tail out with throttle induced oversteer or balance it out to the point where it invokes the TC.
 
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andrebsd said:
So the question would be, how do you properly recover a heavy, rwd, car that's sliding?
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The real answer is really experience so that you'll know how much to counter steer. So long as you don't panic, regaining control of a heavy rwd car isn't difficult. Spectre is right in that you're car is understeering unless you made a typo and meant your car slid left.

Snowy conditions is really where you get this experience from. If you don't have snow, muddy roads is the next best. Good snow tires are essential if you want to retain control, all seasons do not match the grip provided by snow tires.
 
Rain/water-slicked pavement with a thin film of oil is good to learn/practice such skills. I recommend empty parking lots after/during a rain - NOT the street.

And yes, I do four-wheel-drift the Series III.
 
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Lets see if I can answer everyone :)

Scott: I have some cheaper tires (Raptor) on 18 inch rims, inflated to 50psi. The tires say 57max. It was a 90 degree corner and I was going about 40mph.

epp_b: It's an automatic, though in sport mode it holds the gears quite long so it won't shift suddenly.

Spectre: I'm thinking the tires would be fine, got the car a couple weeks ago with new ones and I checked the pressure a couple days ago. I'll have the suspension looked at as it bounces to much for that to be good.

GM_IV: The car was sliding right, what I did expect was some oversteer but the whole thing went sideways rather than only the back.

I'll have to put on the old set of tires back on, I kept the old 16inch rims and tires, and find an empty lot to practice a bit on, it's not that I want to go burning rubber on public roads as that's pretty dumb, but it would be good to know how to recover if something does go wrong.
 
Never heard of Raptors. Probably a crappy tire to start with.

The real problem is that you overinflated your tires. Overinflation reduces the size of the contact patch and thus traction. Lack of front wheel traction will cause dramatic understeer.

Inflate it to what the door sticker says - 35psi front, 42 psi rear. This should solve your problem for the most part.

[Former 750iL owner]
 
I have some cheaper tires (Raptor) on 18 inch rims, inflated to 50psi. The tires say 57max. It was a 90 degree corner and I was going about 40mph.
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Too much pressure and too fast. Start slower.
 
Too much pressure for certain.

Too fast? Eh, depends on the size of the intersection. I can make that type of turn easily (and safely) with either of my two Jaguars in most major intersections.
 
Did your car get in a collision? I have 11 days left on my carfax if you need to find out. But you should replace those tires. That pressure is almost as high as temp tires are.
 
You deffinetily over-cooked the turn :p

with a front engine/rear drive car i would suspect you would wan't very mild throttle. Too little throttle and you'll have engine braking, too much and you'll have power-oversteer


Similarly with a mid-engine car you do similar but with a little more throttle, AWD and FWD usually respond best to hammering the gas once you enter the slide (to invoke understeer)

you may wan't to play around in a vacant parking lot (in the middle of no-where) and figure out your car better, so if it happens again you'll be prepared, especially while you have the old crap tires on it! no need in buying new tires and then wearing them out in a parkinglot when you could just use up what you have (especially as low-traction tires are a little easier to handle usually). Also start out slow, going full on right away will usually teach you very little


I'm also going to quess you were probably braking lightly while turning? because i know thats the easiest natural way to get a car into a 4-wheel drift (actually they ideal way IMO!)
 
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