at Are Elise that bad in the wet?
Discussion
My S1 has the original brakes and they can be terrible (read, just don't work)if left untouched for a while in heavy rain. Found out when on the way to Dover at 2am and caught in admittedly torrential rain, meaning I cruised at 50-60 for quite a few miles as there was no traffic.
Came up to roundabout and there were no brakes at all. Zero. Again, as no-one around I managed to mandhandle the car around the roundabout and have since kept the brakes warm in the rain with the occasional dab on the pedal.
I was actually very impressed with how the car took the 'bout at speed. Was using fairly new Kumho tyres.
Came up to roundabout and there were no brakes at all. Zero. Again, as no-one around I managed to mandhandle the car around the roundabout and have since kept the brakes warm in the rain with the occasional dab on the pedal.
I was actually very impressed with how the car took the 'bout at speed. Was using fairly new Kumho tyres.
They do not float.
Went through the floods in 07 and had a bow wave that had the whole front under water.
Water came in the cabin, through the hole in the chassis for the LHD column.
Grip in the wet is good, unless you have original fitment Pirreli Pzeors. On the Elsie Pzeros are no good at all in the wet. Kuhmo and Advan are so much better.
Went through the floods in 07 and had a bow wave that had the whole front under water.
Water came in the cabin, through the hole in the chassis for the LHD column.
Grip in the wet is good, unless you have original fitment Pirreli Pzeors. On the Elsie Pzeros are no good at all in the wet. Kuhmo and Advan are so much better.
SergSC said:
Mine tends to kick out a little in the wet as it switches to 2nd cam, when there is any sort of angle to the steering, despite TC, guess it doesn't react quick enough... I take it as a friendly warning to avoid switching cams midway through a corner in the wet. Elise SC.
I also have an SC and think the power is very smooth, maybe coming from a 400bhp/ton car to 250bhp/ton makes a difference.........Frimley111R said:
Simple, don't drive like a t
t in the wet and you'll be fine.
I tend to drive like a granny in the wet in my S2, mainly because its the first rear engined car I have owned and not had it/driven it enough in the wet enough to be that confident. t in the wet and you'll be fine.Frimley111R said:
Quick driving in the wet is fine but, as with any RWD, stamping on the accelerator in wet conditions is not wise.
I reserve my BMW E30 for looning in the wet. Full throttle upshifts (auto) will step the back out in a very controlable way. I might have mention that to my passenger before I did it though 
SergSC said:
Mine tends to kick out a little in the wet as it switches to 2nd cam, when there is any sort of angle to the steering, despite TC, guess it doesn't react quick enough... I take it as a friendly warning to avoid switching cams midway through a corner in the wet. Elise SC.
it reacts quickly but allows a some slip, so some opposite lock is required to correct the slide. it's a very good system and for most quicker on a wet track with it on than off.The Pits said:
SergSC said:
Mine tends to kick out a little in the wet as it switches to 2nd cam, when there is any sort of angle to the steering, despite TC, guess it doesn't react quick enough... I take it as a friendly warning to avoid switching cams midway through a corner in the wet. Elise SC.
it reacts quickly but allows a some slip, so some opposite lock is required to correct the slide. it's a very good system and for most quicker on a wet track with it on than off.In the s2000 tuning scene it was common to lower the vtec point and this had the side effect of smoothing the transition by filling the torque valley prior to vtecyo.... tuning options on the Elise sc are like hems teeth though....
I learned to not react with anything remotely harsh when I drove Glasgow to London during that VERY wet spell we had early in the Summer... damn that was scary, standing water everywhere... in torrential rain dont be tempted to go as quick as the hatches in their skinny tires that cut through the water. Take your time and dont feel that you have to go faster or even as fast as them just because you are in a sports car.
I dont mean to be scaring anyone off, its perfectly livable with in the wet, even lets in less water than my s2k did.
S1's on the other hand, especially of the sport 135/160 variety WILL spit you off a wet roundabout at an embarrassingly slow <20mph speed
the incident inspired me to improve my car control.... hope y'all are as lucky as I was as don't pay for your first mistake.SergSC said:
S1's on the other hand, especially of the sport 135/160 variety WILL spit you off a wet roundabout at an embarrassingly slow <20mph speed the incident inspired me to improve my car control.... hope y'all are as lucky as I was as don't pay for your first mistake.
Eh????? the incident inspired me to improve my car control.... hope y'all are as lucky as I was as don't pay for your first mistake.What's so special about 135/160s? You can set up any Elise to behave as you wish.
I never got spat off a roundabout in the dry, wet, slush and snow. Understand (and feel) the weight distribution of the car, learn to drive and then use the weight distribution to your advantage.
Absolutely nothing wrong with the Elise in the wet if you realise that rear mid-engined rwd cars don't behave in the same way as fwd cars with the engine slung ahead of the front axle (most modern cars).
TIPPER said:
SergSC said:
S1's on the other hand, especially of the sport 135/160 variety WILL spit you off a wet roundabout at an embarrassingly slow <20mph speed the incident inspired me to improve my car control.... hope y'all are as lucky as I was as don't pay for your first mistake.
Eh????? the incident inspired me to improve my car control.... hope y'all are as lucky as I was as don't pay for your first mistake.What's so special about 135/160s? You can set up any Elise to behave as you wish.
I never got spat off a roundabout in the dry, wet, slush and snow. Understand (and feel) the weight distribution of the car, learn to drive and then use the weight distribution to your advantage.
Absolutely nothing wrong with the Elise in the wet if you realise that rear mid-engined rwd cars don't behave in the same way as fwd cars with the engine slung ahead of the front axle (most modern cars).
I think the point of the thread is what happens when you put a noob in an elise, depends on the elise IMO.
In a racy S1 the same noob is likely to spin coming off a roundabout in the of blink of an eye and have no clue how or why it happened. I did that when I was totally ignorant of rwd, nevermind rear engined rwd. The S2 would likely just safely understeer.
Nowadays I reckon I'm highly unlikely to spin an elise of any variety in the wet, for a noob what I think we are both saying is that they require some education in lightweight rear engined cars.
SergSC said:
Loving the smart arse fanboy replies. Obviously never heard of Elises getting spat off wet roundabouts or experienced it from a noob pov...
You can blame it on "noob" all day long, but if you can't work out that booting it as hard as you can in 1st gear, while on opposite lock on a roundabout, is a bad idea, then that's very much your fault - not the car.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist.
Yes, lots of people crash them - lots of people drive like dicks. Lots of people also crash modern FWD hatchbacks.
If your car was that dangerous to drive, and you weren't driving like a complete and utter bell end, something was amiss.
S2 is set up to understeer more, but that doesn't turn the S1 into some sort of madly twitching Stratos replica, happy to spit you off if you look at it in the wrong way.
There's not actually that much between the two in the wet - so the idea of the S2 safely understeering whatever you do while the S1 sticks you in a tree at 20mph is laughable - boot it on a roundabout in a low gear in pretty much anything and you'll unstick the wheels.
Edit: I bought the Elise off the back of a Fiat Coupe turbo - the world's most understeery car. Try hard enough and that will also go sideways, spin or understeer off on roundabouts.
Edited by pthelazyjourno on Friday 2nd November 07:52
Picture me a noob driving an Elise (of the sport 135 variety) on the public road for the first time on a very wet day.
Very carefully took a roundabout at a slow 20mph, as I am coming off the round about I press the throttle a little too early (because I am used to the throttle response of a civic), combined with the scandinavian flick like weight transfer of exiting the roundabout causes the back to come round suddenly, I do everything wrong, insufficient opposite lock, lift off.... resulting in ending up on the grassy triangle.... luckily no damage, and a couple weeks later the wip roundabout was completed with a barrier added to the grassy triangle I landed on.
That was due entirely to ignorance, was not driving aggressively at all, not even close.
Its not rocket science that you are more likely to do so in S1 and even more so if an S1 of the sport variety.
Very carefully took a roundabout at a slow 20mph, as I am coming off the round about I press the throttle a little too early (because I am used to the throttle response of a civic), combined with the scandinavian flick like weight transfer of exiting the roundabout causes the back to come round suddenly, I do everything wrong, insufficient opposite lock, lift off.... resulting in ending up on the grassy triangle.... luckily no damage, and a couple weeks later the wip roundabout was completed with a barrier added to the grassy triangle I landed on.
That was due entirely to ignorance, was not driving aggressively at all, not even close.
Its not rocket science that you are more likely to do so in S1 and even more so if an S1 of the sport variety.
SergSC said:
Picture me a noob driving an Elise (of the sport 135 variety) on the public road for the first time on a very wet day.
Very carefully took a roundabout at a slow 20mph, as I am coming off the round about I press the throttle a little too early (because I am used to the throttle response of a civic), combined with the scandinavian flick like weight transfer of exiting the roundabout causes the back to come round suddenly, I do everything wrong, insufficient opposite lock, lift off.... resulting in ending up on the grassy triangle.... luckily no damage, and a couple weeks later the wip roundabout was completed with a barrier added to the grassy triangle I landed on.
That was due entirely to ignorance, was not driving aggressively at all, not even close.
Its not rocket science that you are more likely to do so in S1 and even more so if an S1 of the sport variety.
At that speed it's still sounding more like a geo / tyres / diesel incident to me - majority of the time the S1 is still more likely to understeer (at least initially), and at 20mph lifting off will usually just bring it back in line. Very carefully took a roundabout at a slow 20mph, as I am coming off the round about I press the throttle a little too early (because I am used to the throttle response of a civic), combined with the scandinavian flick like weight transfer of exiting the roundabout causes the back to come round suddenly, I do everything wrong, insufficient opposite lock, lift off.... resulting in ending up on the grassy triangle.... luckily no damage, and a couple weeks later the wip roundabout was completed with a barrier added to the grassy triangle I landed on.
That was due entirely to ignorance, was not driving aggressively at all, not even close.
Its not rocket science that you are more likely to do so in S1 and even more so if an S1 of the sport variety.
Yes, you have to be more cautious than you do in a FWD hatchback, and I get that, but I think it's slightly off topic in terms of "is the Elise that bad in the wet". To which the answer, I genuinely believe, is no. It's no worse than any other RWD car.
/150bhp S1.
OK, there are some people with absolutely no idea about car dynamics, but the majority of people who buy RWD sporty cars do so because they've seen people drifting them, they're car fans, and they have a vague idea of what will happen when they stomp on the loud pedal.
I personally find them a lot more snappy in the dry, as you're going 50mph quicker when something lets go, so you really do need quick reactions / or be traveling on a track with lots of run off.
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