Tackling understeer in the ice.

[lankybob]

Coming back from work the other week through small country lanes I came across a large patch of ice on a wide bend. I turned into the corner but had no response from the front of the car. Having never driven on the ice before I didn't know what to do as I did not learn to drive in the ice and we rarely get it here in Torbay.

Now, I know I will probably get a lot of ridicule from people saying I was going too fast for the conditions and all but I would like to know what to do in this situation. How do you get a car back on track when it is understeering into a bank?

There is a link below to help set the scene, I was travelling from point A-B

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=d&source=s_d&a...

Cheers,

Bob

[Slinky]

The main issue is speed, available grip is insufficient for speed + turning effort..

A number of techniques could be employed, but whether they'd be endorsed from an advanced driving perspective, I'm not so sure...

[Munter]

No idea what Advanced Driving would say. But what was taught on my skid pan day was.

A)Clutch down (So tyres only have to steer, no engine braking/acceleration)
B)Wind some lock off until you get steering. If you can make the car "rock" a bit by waving the wheel you know you have some grip.
C)Once you have it under control and straight then use the brakes.

But it's easy said. Harder to do. Oversteer is far more natural to control. So really if you want a bit of fun and to know what to do you'll want a go on a skidpan.

[Martin A]

Hi All

Similar advice to Munter's except that I'd suggest clutch down, wheels to straight ahead, brake gently. When you feel bite from the front that's the time to steer and maybe brake more firmly.

The best thing you can take from this is that your experience and skill was lacking, as many people's on here has been at sometime or another. Hopefully you will learn to be more aware of the dangers of driving in areas where the road might be slippery and take extra care. I know I did.

Glad to hear you're in one piece.

Best regards

Martin A

[davepoth]

But your first answer is indeed correct, you were going too fast to steer on the ice. It's just one of those things really, it's only once in a blue moon (we had one a few days ago incidentally) that we get conditions this bad so we don't have a baseline to judge on (for example, if this happened for three months every year you would probably know that corner was prone to icing and act accordingly)

[Glosphil]

Looking at the 'route' on the map in your link from A you were driving in the hedge rather than on the road although you did get back onto the road before reaching B. Looks like a good recovery!

[trackdemon]

if I was understeering towards a ditch/hedge/whatever with no little response to steering or brakes, I'd be inclined to get off the footbrake and give the handbrake a quick jab, at least the car might start to point where I want to go and you'd be building lateral force from both front & rear tyres.

[Munter]

trackdemon said:

if I was understeering towards a ditch/hedge/whatever with no little response to steering or brakes, I'd be inclined to get off the footbrake and give the handbrake a quick jab, at least the car might start to point where I want to go and you'd be building lateral force from both front & rear tyres.

Problem is if you don't avoid the tree/pole/wall you're now hitting it side on. Look at the distance from the side window to your head, compared to the distance from the front bumper to your head.

[dom180]

trackdemon said:

if I was understeering towards a ditch/hedge/whatever with no little response to steering or brakes, I'd be inclined to get off the footbrake and give the handbrake a quick jab, at least the car might start to point where I want to go and you'd be building lateral force from both front & rear tyres.

In a Fwd car on ice/snow, I agree you could use the hardbrake but you should be ready to correct with steering and a lot of power straight away (ignore the wheelspin) as you correct then remove steering as the car straightens - if you only use the handbrake you'll just crash at a different angle, you'll need steering and a lot of power on ice/snow.

(I'd suggest that this sort of thing should be practised in a controlled environment and not used to prevent a minor off if other road users are around and the technquie hasn't been practised as you could easily convert one accident into another.)

Edited by dom180 on Wednesday 6th January 11:58

[trackdemon]

Munter said:

Problem is if you don't avoid the tree/pole/wall you're now hitting it side on. Look at the distance from the side window to your head, compared to the distance from the front bumper to your head.

Clearly, but I read the OP incident as a low speed avoidance type manouvre - e.g understeering about to go off over a verge and end up beached, rather than having enough speed to impact something solid. If its a simple choice of which end of the car to 'use' in an impact, I'll go for passenger side front all day long!

dom180 said:

In a Fwd car on ice/snow, I agree you could use the hardbrake but you should be ready to correct with steering and a lot of power straight away (ignore the wheelspin) as you correct then remove steering as the car straightens - if you only use the handbrake you'll just crash at a different angle, you'll need steering and a lot of power on ice/snow.

I wouldn't go along with that fully - the whole point of jabbing the handbrake is to break rear traction and get the car turning. By getting straight onto the gas with wheelspin and applying opposite lock, your going to break what little grip the front end has and start heading for the scenery again. I'd wait for the back to rotate a little and GENTLY get on the gas trying to avoid wheelspin to pull you forwards, whilst keeping the steering pretty much straight.

[dom180]

trackdemon said:

Munter said:

Problem is if you don't avoid the tree/pole/wall you're now hitting it side on. Look at the distance from the side window to your head, compared to the distance from the front bumper to your head.

Clearly, but I read the OP incident as a low speed avoidance type manouvre - e.g understeering about to go off over a verge and end up beached, rather than having enough speed to impact something solid. If its a simple choice of which end of the car to 'use' in an impact, I'll go for passenger side front all day long!

dom180 said:

In a Fwd car on ice/snow, I agree you could use the hardbrake but you should be ready to correct with steering and a lot of power straight away (ignore the wheelspin) as you correct then remove steering as the car straightens - if you only use the handbrake you'll just crash at a different angle, you'll need steering and a lot of power on ice/snow.

I wouldn't go along with that fully - the whole point of jabbing the handbrake is to break rear traction and get the car turning. By getting straight onto the gas with wheelspin and applying opposite lock, your going to break what little grip the front end has and start heading for the scenery again. I'd wait for the back to rotate a little and GENTLY get on the gas trying to avoid wheelspin to pull you forwards, whilst keeping the steering pretty much straight.

In my experience, using the handbrake in snow/ice (off road including last night!), will effect a turn very quickly and I don't think gentle power/steering straight will be enough to stop the ensuing slide - you can safely use a lot of power in a fwd car to correct a slide (so there's little downside) and I'm assuming some rotation will occur prior to the steering/power correction.

[erdnase]

Munter said:

No idea what Advanced Driving would say. But what was taught on my skid pan day was.

A)Clutch down (So tyres only have to steer, no engine braking/acceleration)
B)Wind some lock off until you get steering. If you can make the car "rock" a bit by waving the wheel you know you have some grip.
C)Once you have it under control and straight then use the brakes.

But it's easy said. Harder to do. Oversteer is far more natural to control. So really if you want a bit of fun and to know what to do you'll want a go on a skidpan.

I have DSC on my car - I assume in my case, I'd not dip the clutch, as that would prevent the DSC from doing its thing? Basically in DSC/ESP or whatever the manufacturer specific term is - I should just keep the wheel pointed where I want to go?

[Martin A]

Hi All

If a car isn't turning, yanking on the handbrake will have no effect on its direction of travel. Should the wrong side get grip first then the car will head in the wrong direction.

If the clutch isn't dipped then any but the gentlest braking will lock up the wheels and stall the engine disabling DSC.

This is why black ice is so dangerous www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MPRmOUxRMY

Hope this helps

Best regards

Martin A

[Renny]

Not much you can do other than ease off the brakes and steering, hope you find grip, then remember to pay more attention next time!

[dom180]

Martin A said:

Hi All

If a car isn't turning, yanking on the handbrake will have no effect on its direction of travel. Should the wrong side get grip first then the car will head in the wrong direction.

If the clutch isn't dipped then any but the gentlest braking will lock up the wheels and stall the engine disabling DSC.

This is why black ice is so dangerous www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MPRmOUxRMY

Hope this helps

Best regards

Martin A

Martin, not sure I agree that using the handbrake won't have an effect if a fwd car is understeering terminally - experimentation off road on combinations of ice/snow seemed to prove otherwise although on the surface in your clip, I doubt much would work.

[trackdemon]

dom180 said:

In my experience, using the handbrake in snow/ice (off road including last night!), will effect a turn very quickly and I don't think gentle power/steering straight will be enough to stop the ensuing slide - you can safely use a lot of power in a fwd car to correct a slide (so there's little downside) and I'm assuming some rotation will occur prior to the steering/power correction.

I think the caveat here is that it is of course related to speed - if your going quickly, the car will rotate quickly with h/b - but as I hinted earlier, I'm working on the assumption (taking into account the map the OP posted) that this is all happening at relatively low speed. Therefore I'd expect the car to gently glide round, and you should be introducing throttle (and any other input) smoothly and gently to manage the cars angle of attack.

Martin A said:

Hi All

If a car isn't turning, yanking on the handbrake will have no effect on its direction of travel. Should the wrong side get grip first then the car will head in the wrong direction.

If the clutch isn't dipped then any but the gentlest braking will lock up the wheels and stall the engine disabling DSC.

This is why black ice is so dangerous www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MPRmOUxRMY

Hope this helps

Best regards

Martin A

Even if its not much, there will always be some friction at the wheels; therefore handbrake + steering input will always have some effect. If the car isn't turning AT ALL, as opposed to not turning ENOUGH, then I'd look straight at an overworked brake pedal - locked fronts do nothing for directional control!

Whilst the video you posted was an exceptional circumstance (sheet black ice + an incline) the main reason for loss of control was sitting on locked brakes followed by, er, getting out of the car..... very very different situation to that which the OP posted.

[Martin A]

Hi All

I agree that there will always be some friction but if that is sliding friction rather than static friction turning the steering wheel can have zero effect The OP said he had no response so that's what I based my reply on.

In other circumstances and particularly on snow the handbrake can be used to help steering, usual disclaimers apply.

Hope this helps

Best regards

Martin A

[hman]

Whilst out earlier I found more lock and a squeeze of power pointed me in the right direction.

There again I do have quattro and the esp light was on quite a lot.

[GravelBen]

As others have suggested, an effective technique in some situations can be to apply power in the direction you want to go - it seems counterintuitive to many but you really do need to be on the power. Basically the traction of a wheel (spinning or not) on a slippy surface can pull you the right way when the lateral grip(/slip angle) of the tyre is insufficient to do so.

I agree that its definitely best practiced in a safe environment, but it isn't too hard to get a feel for it.

[Syndrome]

No input on any pedals, let the engine braking reduce the forward speed, and turn smoothly into the skid.