just purchAsed
Discussion
Any torquey fwd is capably of spinning the wheels in 2nd gear when the roads are slimey and the ambients too low to let summer rubber work.
My Golf (petrol turbo) currently activates traction control briefly in 3rd, especially with the help of a few bumps(and I have winter tyres fitted).
SS7
My Golf (petrol turbo) currently activates traction control briefly in 3rd, especially with the help of a few bumps(and I have winter tyres fitted).
SS7
shoestring7 said:
Any torquey fwd is capably of spinning the wheels in 2nd gear when the roads are slimey and the ambients too low to let summer rubber work.
May I be the first to suggest you fit winter tyres 
Unsure why you're surprised though, and comparing your Focus (115 Bhp I believe?) to this (170) really is like chalk and cheese. When you say spinning the wheels, do you mean for a moment before the TC kicks in or have you got it turned off (I assume it has TC)?
ETA: My old Astra GTE could spin in 2nd in the dry (130Bhp) so its not unusual, although I dont remember my 306GTi-6 doing it (167Bhp)
Edited by terzo on Wednesday 5th January 16:00
There is very little grip out there at the moment. Roads are dirty with salt, damp, and temps are so low that the summer optimised rubber cannot get up to temp.
Considering I can spin the wheels easily in 3rd on Pirelli Sotto Zero winter tyres in a RWD, its not suprising.
You have to consider two things. First, the car is heavier than your old car, this means its harder to get moving. Since you have more power + heavy = eaiser to spin wheels.
Also, you must consider that although the tyre is wider, you are still only putting 30psi ( or whatever the pressure of your tyres is ) of pressure onto the road. If you have wider tyres, the pressure AND amount of tyre in contact with the road remains constant, but the shape of the contact patch changes. Wider tyres can therefore give in improvement in the handling of the car, but do not offer any more accelerative grip.
In order to minimise wheelspin in a front wheel drive car, you can put more pressure in the rear tyres and less in the front, 5 psi difference max. This puts more rubber in contact with the road and lessens weight transfer to the back. This can have unwanted side effect like increasing the snap oversteer characteristics of the handling, and is therefore usually unwanted and therefore not reccomended.
On the more expensive end, you can also give the car some forwards rake with lower springs at the front, and also increase the rear spring rate to minimise weight transfer. Again this comes with an adverse handling penalty, and is only really usefull for a FWD Drag car.
Considering I can spin the wheels easily in 3rd on Pirelli Sotto Zero winter tyres in a RWD, its not suprising.
You have to consider two things. First, the car is heavier than your old car, this means its harder to get moving. Since you have more power + heavy = eaiser to spin wheels.
Also, you must consider that although the tyre is wider, you are still only putting 30psi ( or whatever the pressure of your tyres is ) of pressure onto the road. If you have wider tyres, the pressure AND amount of tyre in contact with the road remains constant, but the shape of the contact patch changes. Wider tyres can therefore give in improvement in the handling of the car, but do not offer any more accelerative grip.
In order to minimise wheelspin in a front wheel drive car, you can put more pressure in the rear tyres and less in the front, 5 psi difference max. This puts more rubber in contact with the road and lessens weight transfer to the back. This can have unwanted side effect like increasing the snap oversteer characteristics of the handling, and is therefore usually unwanted and therefore not reccomended.
On the more expensive end, you can also give the car some forwards rake with lower springs at the front, and also increase the rear spring rate to minimise weight transfer. Again this comes with an adverse handling penalty, and is only really usefull for a FWD Drag car.
Making a diesel fast, beyond a certain point, doesn't make it more fun.
If it was too slow to start with, then adding power can make it interesting, but it's a bloated fwd family car with 170bhp already, adding another 40bhp ins't going to make it exciting, it's just going to make it go faster with less effort.
Leave it standard, or if you want excitement, buy something like a Civic Type R, and stop being so gay about petrol costs
Dave
If it was too slow to start with, then adding power can make it interesting, but it's a bloated fwd family car with 170bhp already, adding another 40bhp ins't going to make it exciting, it's just going to make it go faster with less effort.
Leave it standard, or if you want excitement, buy something like a Civic Type R, and stop being so gay about petrol costs
Dave
shoestring7 said:
terzo said:
shoestring7 said:
Any torquey fwd is capably of spinning the wheels in 2nd gear when the roads are slimey and the ambients too low to let summer rubber work.
May I be the first to suggest you fit winter tyres 
SS7
Mastodon2 said:
My Fiesta can spin it's wheels accelerating hard in second gear, particularly when the road surface poor, and that only has about a third of the bhp this Seat does. I would advise reviewing your driving technique.
If the tyres are not fresh I'd put some new rubber on, but I would generally do that anyway if I was buying a used car as you don't know what those old tyres have been through. That said, will still be able to spin the wheels in second gar if you are driving with a lead foot.
Precisely.If the tyres are not fresh I'd put some new rubber on, but I would generally do that anyway if I was buying a used car as you don't know what those old tyres have been through. That said, will still be able to spin the wheels in second gar if you are driving with a lead foot.
I had a rental fiesta (no idea of engine size, more than likely 1.2 or 1.4 petrol) and that would repeatedly spin its wheels changing from 1st to 2nd 'enthusiastically'..
I can't comment on the 2.0TDI 170 but I remember driving a customers Seat Ibiza Cupra with the 160BHP 1.9TDi lump and the power delivery was about as smooth as sandpaper to the point where it was annoying and impossible to drive smoothly. All you had to do was be on the pedal when it hit boost and it would spin up in 2nd without any hesitation.
bazking69 said:
I can't comment on the 2.0TDI 170 but I remember driving a customers Seat Ibiza Cupra with the 160BHP 1.9TDi lump and the power delivery was about as smooth as sandpaper to the point where it was annoying and impossible to drive smoothly. All you had to do was be on the pedal when it hit boost and it would spin up in 2nd without any hesitation.
i believe the common rail leon spreads its torque out so isent as harsh deliveryYou thought the car would be built to grip the road? So you can put infinite power down as long as the car is built to grip to the road? When provoked almost every car will wheel spin on a dry road. You just need to learn to drive.
And look, I typed this on my iPhone without any misplaced A's.
And look, I typed this on my iPhone without any misplaced A's.
jamie128 said:
bazking69 said:
I can't comment on the 2.0TDI 170 but I remember driving a customers Seat Ibiza Cupra with the 160BHP 1.9TDi lump and the power delivery was about as smooth as sandpaper to the point where it was annoying and impossible to drive smoothly. All you had to do was be on the pedal when it hit boost and it would spin up in 2nd without any hesitation.
i believe the common rail leon spreads its torque out so isent as harsh deliveryOne can only conclude:
A) You are lead footed.
B) It has ditchfinders on the front
C) It is in some way, broken.
D) Your expectations of the traction with a FWD 170bhp diesel are optimistic.
We can't help you with A, nor with B, nor with C and we've tried to help with D but you don't seem to want to hear it.
BeeRoad said:
jamie128 said:
bazking69 said:
I can't comment on the 2.0TDI 170 but I remember driving a customers Seat Ibiza Cupra with the 160BHP 1.9TDi lump and the power delivery was about as smooth as sandpaper to the point where it was annoying and impossible to drive smoothly. All you had to do was be on the pedal when it hit boost and it would spin up in 2nd without any hesitation.
i believe the common rail leon spreads its torque out so isent as harsh deliveryOne can only conclude:
A) You are lead footed.
B) It has ditchfinders on the front
C) It is in some way, broken.
D) Your expectations of the traction with a FWD 170bhp diesel are optimistic.
We can't help you with A, nor with B, nor with C and we've tried to help with D but you don't seem to want to hear it.
jamie128 said:
retrorider said:
Wasn't 170 bhp considered to be a good figure in about 1984.It's 2011,you must try harder...
everyone has been telling me this but i mean it puts a smile on my face and my dad said its a flying machine and he has driven a lot of cars in his timeOh, and put us all out of our misery - what tyres has it got on the front so at least we can decide whether they are the problem or not.
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