What control options do you always drive at? (Manual)

[Ganthrithor]

Originally Posted by stugray

I never said that. I have always had all season tires. Never changed in summer or winter - same tire.
This is the first car I have ever had that summer specific tires on it.

All seasons are definitely a better bet than summers, but the way you worded your post it sounded like you ran summer tyres year-round. I'm glad to be mistaken!

Originally Posted by stugray

I was born in Aspen and have lived here all my life.
I have rarely seen it go from 65 and sunny to 25 and ice on the streets in less than 5 hours. Snow on the roads sure, but not ice.

Yeah I lived in Denver and Boulder and the weather was always flip-flopping... usually overnight, but sometimes much quicker on nasty days. It wasn't uncommon at all to go from sunny and nice to snowing on the same day... it was always funny at school since there weren't many windows in some of the classrooms-- you'd go in in the sun, come out after class and you'd need your down jacket.

[stugray]

I thought about my "incident" a little more, and two things occurred to me:

1-

Originally Posted by stugray

So what happened? I believe that the weather was right at the point of the roads beginning to freeze.
In the neighboorhood, the wind was kept higher because of the houses.
As soon as I got on the county road (farmland) the wind had cooled the road to the point of freezing..

It is entirely possible that I was correct and it was NOT cold enough to freeze to ICE. However, the slush on the road just might have been thick enough for me to actually hydroplane on top of...

AND 2 -

Originally Posted by stugray

I turn into the merge lane and begin accelerating, no slipping, i get up to ~35 (speed of traffic) and begin to merge. As I get carefully on the throttle, the ass begins to slide out to the left.
I know better than to over compensate by lifting too hard, but as soon as I lift at all, the car pendulums into a complete 180 slide INTO ONCOMING traffic!....

This statement made me think:

Originally Posted by FLYFISHR

I've never had TC on any of my RWD's (all I have owned for40 Years) so the first time when I was in slippery conditions and making a lefthand turn at traffic lights I was nearly caught out by the TC applying thebrakes and slowing me down in front of oncoming traffic.

Notice that I mention that my ass stepped out to my left and that "I know better than to over compensate by lifting too hard"

What is the chance that as the ass stepped out to my left and I tried to lift ever so slightly, that the TC kicked on and killed my throttle?.
That would have been the exact wrong thing to do under the circumstances and would have caused the spin out to the right exactly as I experienced.

I know others have stated that even with the TC & VSC disabled, that the TC STILL step in under certain circumstances.

I now wish I could do some more driving in the same situation with logging enabled and see if I could recreate the "slide".

[chrisl]

Originally Posted by stugray

then you know the day I was talking about thurs 65, not ANY snow on the ground, sunny, previous day above 50 & sunny then 25 deg by 8 PM..... Ok sure that happens all the time...

The Hwy was 66 on the north side of Longmont,
I think the windchill blowing east froze it when the other roads were barely even slushy.

Yep, I remember that day then. We get all kinds of weird weather here though - we had a day this year when it was sunny and 55 degrees in the morning on my way to work, sunny and 40 degrees on my way home, but it had snowed at lunchtime. We also had a day last year when it was beautiful all day (it was around 60 at lunchtime), and sometime around 3pm, it started snowing, HARD. I remember that day clearly because I was living near Louisville at the time, and a Miata was stuck halfway up the hill on US-36 just east of Boulder in the left lane. It backed traffic up for a couple of miles. It's why I always check the forecast before I leave home - nice weather in the morning is no guarantee that it won't be snowing and icy by lunchtime.

[stugray]

Originally Posted by stugray

What is the chance that as the ass stepped out to my left and I tried to lift ever so slightly, that the TC kicked on and killed my throttle?.
That would have been the exact wrong thing to do under the circumstances and would have caused the spin out to the right exactly as I experienced.

I know others have stated that even with the TC & VSC disabled, that the TC STILL step in under certain circumstances.

Interesting... I thought I would get more of a response when I am accusing the TC system of nearly killing me, even though it was "disabled"......

[FLYFISHR]

Originally Posted by stugray

Interesting... I thought I would get more of a response when I am accusing the TC system of nearly killing me, even though it was "disabled"......

Could be because most of us believe you or have experienced the same thing.

[Drive]

Everything is on.

[cjsporl1996]

Originally Posted by Mirko

For the first weeks I always drove it in VSC sport mode, it was the first rwd car for me and it was a huge fun making it slide a bit (but safely) on every corner. Now I just keep everything always on for normal driving and just switch to vsc sport if I want to drive it a bit harder. You dont need to switch everything off to feel the rwd experience... I see a lot of people crashing their cars because of that. (Im 20 and not a pro driver.)
Cheers

personally I disagree... many cars that I learned to drive on were rwd and were 100% mechanical no computers at all. In modern cars many people don't know how to react in certain situations with stability control off. but if you have experience without the nannies i believe it to be safer overall. Nothing like the throttle cutting out at the wrong time.

[kberkel]

Originally Posted by cjsporl1996

personally I disagree... many cars that I learned to drive on were rwd and were 100% mechanical no computers at all. In modern cars many people don't know how to react in certain situations with stability control off. but if you have experience without the nannies i believe it to be safer overall. Nothing like the throttle cutting out at the wrong time.

I've heard some horror stories when I was cross shopping the 1st gen Genesis Coupe.. like pulling out into traffic and having traction cut your throttle for a good 2 seconds.

The BRZ doesn't seem too intrusive in my opinion, I like it. Sometimes I'll be too spirited and think.. "Mannnn, guess the car didn't want me to do that" .. but I've never had the throttle cut be scary.

Occasionally I enjoy turning everything off though. I don't recommend it as a RWD newbie, since I am too.. but first day of ownership I turned everything off and got the tail out on a big sweeping left turn. I thought it was incredibly controllable, granted you understand snap oversteer, or oversteer in general. Lots of times in the dry, I'll look down and click the VSC Sport button just for a little more fun. It's my 1st RWD car and even with VSC sport it doesn't get crazy at all in my opinion.

[Akari]

Originally Posted by cjsporl1996

personally I disagree... many cars that I learned to drive on were rwd and were 100% mechanical no computers at all. In modern cars many people don't know how to react in certain situations with stability control off. but if you have experience without the nannies i believe it to be safer overall. Nothing like the throttle cutting out at the wrong time.

I completely agree. When trying to drive with them on I've had situations where there's a little bit of gravel at a stop sign and when trying to pull out into 55MPH traffic the traction control absolutely won't allow me the wheel spin necessary to push that gravel out of the way. Without it on, I'll have 1/4 second of wheelspin and full acceleration, with it I have to wait 5-6 seconds before I can go anywhere. With proper understanding of how RWD cars react and a lot of experience driving it can be safer to keep them off and have full control.

These systems lack a lot of the input we have as humans. They don't know if you happen to stop on 10 pieces of gravel, if there's snow 50 feet up ahead, if there's a car about to T-Bone you and you want the rear end to slide out of the way, etc etc.

[HunterGreene]

Originally Posted by Akari

I completely agree. When trying to drive with them on I've had situations where there's a little bit of gravel at a stop sign and when trying to pull out into 55MPH traffic the traction control absolutely won't allow me the wheel spin necessary to push that gravel out of the way. Without it on, I'll have 1/4 second of wheelspin and full acceleration, with it I have to wait 5-6 seconds before I can go anywhere. With proper understanding of how RWD cars react and a lot of experience driving it can be safer to keep them off and have full control.

These systems lack a lot of the input we have as humans. They don't know if you happen to stop on 10 pieces of gravel, if there's snow 50 feet up ahead, if there's a car about to T-Bone you and you want the rear end to slide out of the way, etc etc.

Thats great for people who can actually drive their car, or have the skill set of a professional druver. But for the rest of us, maybe wait for a larger gap of traffic at the intersection so you don't have to spin your tires, or keep your head about you and don't drive like an idiot.

And seriously, if I am about to get t-boned, as an average driver I'm not thinking about "swinging the rear end out." Be realistic.

[Akari]

Originally Posted by HunterGreene

Thats great for people who can actually drive their car, or have the skill set of a professional druver. But for the rest of us, maybe wait for a larger gap of traffic at the intersection so you don't have to spin your tires, or keep your head about you and don't drive like an idiot.

And seriously, if I am about to get t-boned, as an average driver I'm not thinking about "swinging the rear end out." Be realistic.

I am being quite realistic. Not every intersection allows you 300' of visibility and not every other driver on the road is rational. Like I stated with proper understanding of how to control a RWD car and experience you can do better with it off. If you're not at that point then keep it on and get some controlled course experience when you have the opportunity to.

We represent varying degrees of driving experience from people who just started driving to seasoned track professionals. For the average driver it may be best to keep it on, but realize it does impose limitations and you can learn how to truly control your car without these systems.

[JS + BRZ]

Oh Jesus. My head hurts.

[stugray]

Originally Posted by JS + BRZ

Oh Jesus. My head hurts.

And to make things even more complicated: I am fairly sure that my TC/VSC nearly got me killed with IT DISABLED.

In my experience (outlined above) I had Both the TC & VSC disabled.
However numerous people have said that even with it disabled on the track, they notice it STILL doing things to control the car.

In my case (ass end stepping out slightly in snow), the LAST thing an experienced driver would do is lift aggressively which would induce snap-in oversteer to the opposite side.

But as I lifted the throttle very gradually, the car snapped in and spun anyway.
The only thnig I can figure out is that the TC did not intervene until the ass was out greater than some angle (I was probably at ~10 degrees).
And when it did, it reduced throttle and applied the appropriate brakes to stop the slide.
The result was a 180 degree spin to the opposite side I was sliding out to.

With the system enabled it would have responded earlier.

[Ganthrithor]

FWIW I'm one of those people who complains about computer intervention while the systems are allegedly off, but its always been annoying in the sense that it stopped me getting wildly sideways, not in the sense that it caused a spin. I've never had the computers do anything but fight a slide. If you started sliding one way and ended up spinning the other way it probably just means you weren't quick enough with your hands. It can be difficult to be fast enough, especially when you have no grip to work with since it becomes harder to feel weight transfers and what the suspension is doing.