New Fiesta is a bit scary in slippery and wet conditions

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The initial message was deleted from this topic on 27 December 2015 at 18:18

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Thanks for the replies guys. It's only a Zetec Ecoboost so he wasn't expecting a hot hatch. Handling is sharp, but hit a significant bump or camber and it will get bounced around a lot. As this is the company that has made some of my favourite handling cars, I'm a bit surprised.

The gear ratios are way too long for driving at anything other than a cruise on a dead level road, otherwise the engine labours easily. You can tell it's a 1.0 with long gearing, and I'd probably buy a 1.2 Mk2 Swift instead.

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Max_Torque said:

Also worth noting, that soggy old hectors of cars, like the OP Mates one, tend to result in drivers who are scrappy, sudden and often poorly controlled in their inputs. With low rate steering, and a chassis set to understeer, they get used to "wanging" in loads of lock, or being clumsy with the clutch or how they lift off. Put them in a modern car, with a much higher handwheel rate, and sharper controls and until they learn they tend to drive in a very frantic manner. (lots of sharp, small inputs and a marked lack of smoothness, which upsets the chassis)

Honestly he's not a bad driver, and I've been a passenger with him many times. I think it's partly that all the driver controls and chassis are far sharper than he's used to. Obviously you need to respect slippery road conditions as well.

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Max_Torque said:

One of the bif advantages for us "driving enthusiasts" is that since Stability Control became standard fit, the chassis engineers can put back in some of that "bite" and "fun" that they used to take out (because there was no safety net for the average driver).

Back in the day, hot hatches fell into two camps:

1) French: Oversteer at all opportunities. Natural Habitat: Backwards in hedge/ditch/field (delete as appropriate)

2) Everything Else: Resolute dull understeer at all times. Natural Habitat: Shunted Up a kerb on a slippy roundabout due to gross push on



These days, we can have a fun car to drive for those that can, and still have a safe one for those (the vast majority) that don't.

The weirdest part was him telling me he got lift off oversteer un-expectedly. He isn't Ragnotti, so he would never provoke it to do that.

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Monkeylegend said:

Is this your first drive in wet/slippery conditions? If so you probably need to slow down a tad.

He's 25!

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MC Bodge said:

I think manufacturers make their cars "pointy" on initial turn-in to provide a sense of "sportiness", but are often a bit too firmly sprung/damped for bumps in bends as a result.

I would suggest that the vast majority of drivers make sharp inputs and never really learn not to, the "sharpness" of the car givIng a false sense of being close to the limit. The subsequent lifting off sharply contributing further to the sensation.

Only a small majority, the "naturally-gifted" or people who have spent a lot of time trying to be smooth, drive around keeping the car settled and using only minimal inputs -the things that give me the most satisfaction from driving these days, not only when getting a move on.

I'l admit I that In the old days it was all about stomping on the loud pedal & brakes and yanking on the wheel

This is 100% what I think the car is setup like, and what I think he's doing is over-driving a bit in dodgy conditions without realising it. Obviously the rough ride, stiff roll stiffness and short wheelbase make the effect of over-driving a bit far worse.

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Hooli said:

We had a '58 plate fiesta, the original bridgestone? tyres were st in the wet.

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the_stoat said:

If the car is new to him has he checked the tyre pressures as if to high and on Eco tyres could give the handling described. Had this on a hire car that had over 50 psi on each tyre.

He doesn't have a digital gauge, but he checked the next morning after I was a passenger with a foot pump gauge. 32/33 psi the front, 25/26 psi for the rear. Exactly right according to the manual.