Snow and rear wheel drive car and some not travelling the right way.

[RichEO]

I wrote this post on LOC UK, I thought I'd let the blondes know of my eventful morning. An eye opener shall we say.
The lexus IS200 is particularyly poor in the snow, I have read on the LOC forum of a few people getting caught out. So far I haven't been out in any snow, I just stay in bed. But my Dad's car is due an MOT this week so I was taking him to work.

Set out at 3:30 am and was tootling along, left my house and there was a bit of hail on the ground but the road was clear. After about 1/4mile there was hail covering the road.

We saw some tracks going off the road on a bend... someone had obviously been off b4. I was doing about 45mph, so I slowed a bit more to 40mph. Shall I put the snow mode on, OK, I did. (some electronic traction control device, I think it just reduces power output and cuts the TRC in sooner)

Got around those bends no problem, then there is a dead straight piece of road. Kept it at 40mph, but the hail was a bit deeper. I said to my dad, "These are the worst conditions I've been out in this car yet" as we got a little twitch from the rear... I took my foot off the accelerator and began to let it slow down, got another twitch, this one got bigger and started to point me more than I wanted to the left. I made what was not a big correction to the right, it straightened up a bit and then when tits up. Started a slow gentle spin to the right.

At this point I'd guess we were doing 35mph. As we approached 90 degrees on to the road I realised there was no correcting this one and was already thinking how much it was going to cost to fix my baby  3/4 of the way around and heading backwards, brain goes into overdrive and I'm trying to figure out which way to turn the wheel in the hope of keeping it on the road and not off it. My car is lowered and has a bodykit, I scrape the ground in some not well kept carparks and driveways, I wan't looking forward to this.

I had the wheel to the left already, which was opposite the spin, I tried straightening up (whilst going backwards) but it kept spinning and we were going off already. The car went off at a bit of an angle after spinnng just over 180 degress. There was no danger to us, there were no cars about, we were going slow, I was just concerned about my wallet, or specifically my bank ballance. The car was straddling the verge, digging it up. It travelled about 8metres off road sideways, digging its way into the ground.

The rear wheels were still on the road (just) the car was 3/4 off. I tried backing it off before we got out but it just spun the wheels (still in snow mode, fat lot of use that was). My dad got out. I got ou... I couldn't get out. I put my window down and there was a mound of soil and turf keeping me in. My dad had a quick luck but it was dark, he gave me a push and I spun the wheels up again, no luck. We heard traffic, hazzards engaged I scrambled out through the window incase they ploughed into the car. It was a van (Tesco home delivery size but not one), they went past at about 50mph. Lots of inspection insued, but it was pitch black. I began diggin with my fingers to see if there was damage but I couldn't get through 18" of soil. The mound just didn't quite reach the top of the front wheel.

We both tried pushing it out, but all that was likely to happen was we wud push the bumper off. Time to phone mum... bring a rope and more importantly the 4x4.

When she finally arrived, took over 10 min, even though it was <1 mile away. We pulled the car out no trouble. Some nice smoothing of the verge, and a dirty car. It didn't look damaged but it was stil dark. Mum took Dad to work in the 4x4 and I trundled home at 15-20mph, After about 200m there was no snow or hail on the road at all, it had melted already. The straight where we were had about 1/4" or less of hail. It wasn't particularyly slushy, I was suprised shall we say. Another van (transit) went past while we were there. It didn't slow down when we were waving, shot past at 60mph.

I parked infront of the security lights at home and it appears I have been lucky, doesn't look damaged at all. Maybe a few little scratches, but it had plenty of those already. I was dreading having it pulled out and the wheel being tucked under the car, you know when the delorean in Back to the Future (part 3?) takes off and folds its wheel in..

Click to see full-size image.

Just need to give it a wash and a proper check in the daylight. Any tips on things to check? I'll wait for it to be dry and clear and give it a handling test in a car park somewhere.

To cut a short story long I'm not going out in this car in any snow or hail whatsoever, sod uni.

[byronkincaid]

I used to love the snow when I had my old Mk 2 Escort. sliding round corners at 10mph. I wish they would start making cheap RWD cars again.

[kinboshi]

When it snowed a month or two ago it took me an hour and a half to drive home from Brum (usually takes me 20 minutes) - and mine is RWD with big fat tyres that aren't very useful in the snow. 

There were far too many people going off the road (lots of RWD cars) who were driving too quickly, or didn't get the idea of not using first gear and trying to be gentle with the accelerator.

Also annoying when people drive their cars covered in snow with a small letter box-sized peehole cleared on their windscreen.  Had a girl in a Ford Ka try to broadside me simply because she couldn't see I was there out of her other windows.  Fortunately, she missed me (more luck than anything) and drove into the kerb and then into a transit van instead.

[lazaroonie]

your mistake (and it is a common one) is that it is natural to want to "lift off" the accelerator when you feel the car beginning to slide. This only excarcebates the problem. As soon as you lift your foot you lose all traction . better would have been to perform a small correction whilst keeping your foot on the gas pedal (but not too hard).

[mex]

Your lowering the car will mess up the traction control and snow handling, the cpu doesn't know you ve lowered it, so that will have made the handling much worse. Get TCS re done (v hard) or disabled

[RichEO]

The TRC light didn't actually come on, not even when going sideways or backwards. I don't think the snow mode is much cop!

I did think about powering out of the little fish tail that was developing, the first waddle corrected fine and I lifted off whilst going straight and true (in the hope of reaching 20-30mph instead of 40). That's when the next set of waddles (is that a real word) started and that's when I thought about putting the power back on, but thought that could result in a faster accident occuring somewhere down the road. Looks like I got away with it. Been out this eve and it handled fine, no snow this time of course or I wouldn't have left the house nevermind driveway.

I'm going to get my tracking and geometry done sometime soon. It was out of alignment before as I had balding inner tyre edges on the front, ploughing the verge up can only have put me more out of alignment. IS200s are bad for alignment too, the original lexus settings are wrong and won't sort it, I've got the revised ones hopefully the place I'm going will use those.