Traction control failures ? Any one

[Jacques Blom]

Notice two events in the last day`s of "traction control failure" (not proven) that lead into serious accidents.

Many factors are in play eg Tyre size , road conditions , speed ect.. but are there any of you there that had a similar experience..? and what happened ?

[stugray]

Reposted from another thread:

"I had a fun experience just yesterday.

Flash snow barely sticking to the streets but right about 30 degrees outside. I have stock tires.
Based on everyone's suggestions on these forums, since it was slightly snowy, I'd try with nannies off.
When driving through the neighboorhood, the car was fine, no spinning tires, no slipping, no problem. I even do a couple of "brake checks" to asses the road conditions.

So I get out of the neighborhood, and turning to merge onto a 50 MPH highway Ouside of the neighborhood is wide open farmland. This highway borders houses on one side farmland on the other.
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 (ASS TO THE RIGHT) INTO ONCOMING traffic!
So I lay on the brakes depending on the ABS and the car stops facing exactly backwards in the oncoming lane of traffic.

the one car coming at me missed me by about 1 inch by passing on the shoulder.

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."

And now to the point of your question:

I believe that the traction control kicked in applying the brakes and cutting the throttle which caused the abrupt snap-in oversteer.

I am confident that IF THE DAMN THING WAS COMPLETELY DISABLED I WOULD NOT HAVE SPUN!!!

It would have REALLY sucked since I recently discoverd that my car is likely the very first production BRZ in the US.

[sav]

How exactly is traction control or VSC supposed to overcome the law of physics? If you're aquaplaning then the rubber is not touching the tar, you're driving in water. No electronic aids can help you. Sorry.

Best solution would be to learn to be a better driver by driving according to the conditions and not expecting the car to sort out your mess.

[sav]

Obviously not aimed at you Jacques, talking about people who complain when they've run out of talent and then try blaming it on everything but themselves.

[Vic_RSA]

Was there no oil on the road aswell perhaps? Stock yoko's grip well in the wet but dependent on wear and road drainage.

Sent from my SP355AWG using Tapatalk 2

[kevman_101]

It could be 2 factors. First factor could be that both rear tires lost grip and you counter steered, only to have the rear tires hit clear pavement or something grippy again while the rear was still sliding further out. This would of slingshot the rear the other direction whit very minimal chance to save it. Other is that one tire lost so much traction that the system though one of you`re rear wheel was in the air and would of gave it some brake to activate the torsen LSD.

If the braking for the LSD caused it, but I doubt it, only way to stop it from happening would be the pedal dance. I think in this situation, the full on nanies might of been good enough to save it. Only way to know would be to try it again hehehe. I think nanies off for deep snow or to get unstuck.

[Jacques Blom]

Originally Posted by sav

Obviously not aimed at you Jacques, talking about people who complain when they've run out of talent and then try blaming it on everything but themselves.

No offence, just trying to get some info sharing and like said so many factors to explore....agree. .spent time on track days, advance driving ect. .all to make us better drivers and keeping us save. I have a fleed of cars and each one has is own style and temperament...

Thanks to all for sharing ideas and input.. that is why we have a forum :-)..

[stugray]

Originally Posted by sav

How exactly is traction control or VSC supposed to overcome the law of physics?

If you understood my post, you would have got that: I believe that the VSC/TC stepped in when I did not want it to. AND did the exact opposite of what a good driver would do in the same situation. What has THAT got to do with "Physics"?

Originally Posted by sav

If you're aquaplaning then the rubber is not touching the tar, you're driving in water. No electronic aids can help you. Sorry.

You are still not comprehending what I was saying.
I WAS NOT trying to depend on the electronic aids, because I agree with you.
In THIS case the "electronic aids" stepped in and caused harm, not help.

Originally Posted by sav

Best solution would be to learn to be a better driver by driving according to the conditions and not expecting the car to sort out your mess.

I have 30 years of driving in the snow in far worse conditions in cars with no nannies, and have never had an incident like that one, but I'll keep "lernin" some more...

[stugray]

Originally Posted by kevman_101

It could be 2 factors. First factor could be that both rear tires lost grip and you counter steered, only to have the rear tires hit clear pavement or something grippy again while the rear was still sliding further out. This would of slingshot the rear the other direction whit very minimal chance to save it. Other is that one tire lost so much traction that the system though one of you`re rear wheel was in the air and would of gave it some brake to activate the torsen LSD.

If the braking for the LSD caused it, but I doubt it, only way to stop it from happening would be the pedal dance. I think in this situation, the full on nanies might of been good enough to save it. Only way to know would be to try it again hehehe. I think nanies off for deep snow or to get unstuck.

I think you understand exactly what happened.
But I dont think it had to do with catching clear pavement.

I think the system detected the ~5 degrees of the rear stepping out to the left.
As I was already lifting and recovering (yes I had counter steered) the system lifted the throttle abruptly and applied the brake to engage the LSD.
Once it lifted, the car snapped back in and spun the opposite direction.

I have read about others where the car acted exactly the same in other inappropriate situations.

[Rayme]

I have experience the VSC often in snow condition and not once did it NOT steer back the car back in the lane. Bad tires for condition, If the car did a 180 that fast there was obviously almost zero traction.

[sav]

Originally Posted by stugray

If you understood my post, you would have got that: I believe that the VSC/TC stepped in when I did not want it to. AND did the exact opposite of what a good driver would do in the same situation. What has THAT got to do with "Physics"?



You are still not comprehending what I was saying.
I WAS NOT trying to depend on the electronic aids, because I agree with you.
In THIS case the "electronic aids" stepped in and caused harm, not help.



I have 30 years of driving in the snow in far worse conditions in cars with no nannies, and have never had an incident like that one, but I'll keep "lernin" some more...

Why so offensive? The fact that you've been driving for 30 years doesn't make you a good driver by default.

[stugray]

Originally Posted by sav

Why so offensive? The fact that you've been driving for 30 years doesn't make you a good driver by default.

I was just pointing out that I was not a new driver like most of the traffic on this site. So you can rule out "rookie mistake".
I dont see anything offensive about my statements.
Since you did not know that I had 30 yrs exp, then the "default" would be "inexperienced driver" until there was information to believe otherwise.

And just to be clear: You commented three times about how I should not have been depending on the electronic aids.
My entire post was about how I did not want any electronic aids and had even turned them off as best I could.

[sav]

No prob.

Had my car on the skid pan last Saturday, everything switched off(TC button 3 secs) and it did not intervene at all. Swapped ends a quite a few times. I wonder if the FRS is programmed differently?

[stugray]

I experimented in a wet parking lot and I could only spin the car after the pedal dance.
Disabling the VSC/TC with the 5 second press would still not let it spin.