On FWD such as Vectras......i carnt see how you could get the back end to loose it.....unless driving too fast when cornerning.
Perhaps someone would like to explain why my thinking is incorrect.
I can see the reason if your pushing the FWD or RWD car to the limit.....
Very easy to lose the back end on a FWD car if you've got good tyres up front and crap ones on the rear. All your "feel" comes through the front tyres, both the steering and throttle will communicate the levels of grip, so you drive within that limit. The problem comes when you need to back off for whatever reason, bend tightens up or someone pulls in front of you. As soon as the throttle is lifted, weight transfers to the front so the front tyres bite a little more, the rear tyres bite a little less, then snap the crap rear tyres have given up and you're going sideways! This is even more likely to happen if you swerve and lift off at the same time, as so many people do when the car starts to understeer.
It's a very well known phenomenon, and can actually be used to deliberately get the back end out on FWD cars as they obviously can't do power oversteer. Look up "lift-off oversteer".
It's unexpectedly happened to me a few times while driving FWD cars (good few years ago now), and it's not pleasant! I managed to catch it both times but I think at least a little of that is down to good fortune as much as fast reactions. First time was the classic worn front tyres swapped onto the rear, so the fronts had loads of tread while the rears had only 3 mm or so. Had to swerve to avoid a retard who didn't give way coming onto a fast roundabout between 2 70MPH dual carriageways, and of course I lifted off a little too.. snap! The guy's face was a picture when I got the car facing the right way again and proceeded to pull alongside him and give him some well deserved abuse. 2nd time was someone else's car (Peugeot 306) with just utter crap tyres all round, was giving it some gas going up a hill and round a bend and the front just started going straight on... no room to take any lock off so I just kept the wheel pointing the same way and lifted off the gas... snap, round it comes. Cought that one but overcorrected and it came back the other way! Man that was scary, the tyres on that thing really caught me out but thankfully I got it pointing the right way without hitting anything in the process
Hope that was some entertaining reading
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Topic: Thats My MV6 off the road (Read 8713 times)