Hooning in the wet - Why would you??
Discussion
StottyZr said:
I take it you've never seen a lowered MX5 spin out whilst driving with the flow of the traffic? 
I have on a very greasy roundabout. He didn't have enough steering lock to correct it common sense to avoid it in the first place.
EFA. I have on a very greasy roundabout. He didn't have enough I don't see why there is an immediate stonewall distinction between wet/not-wet, in terms of statements like 'never' carrying speed or flowing through corners etc just because 'it's wet'. If you have the grip, why not?
Wet weather is just another factor in how much grip you have. No different to a contaminant on a dry road (quarry dust, mud, etc...) or changing road surfaces. You just have to know where the limits are and stay below them.
It's not like the road is going to magically spit you off as soon as it rains. Although, if you are the type who pushes the limits on dry roads but has little understanding of what is actually happening and just rely on the sheer brilliance of modern tyres, then it's hardly surprising if you come a cropper when it gets drizzly.
NateWM said:
Once I see that the roads are wet, my brain only needs half a second to decide that it's too dangerous and risky to drive fast in the wet.
If you have the grip, why can't you still drive quickly? Edited by BonzoG on Friday 8th June 17:04
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There seem to be a lot of people here who are scared of losing any traction.
Maybe it's because I spent some years in an Uno with budget 135 tyres or it was the lowered lift-off oversteery Mk1 Golf but if you know the roads are wet then you adjust your driving style to suit.
Sliding the car a bit is okay in my book so long as you're not trying to induce power oversteer outside a primary school at 3pm.
Maybe it's because I spent some years in an Uno with budget 135 tyres or it was the lowered lift-off oversteery Mk1 Golf but if you know the roads are wet then you adjust your driving style to suit.
Sliding the car a bit is okay in my book so long as you're not trying to induce power oversteer outside a primary school at 3pm.
rohrl said:
There seem to be a lot of people here who are scared of losing any traction.
Maybe it's because I spent some years in an Uno with budget 135 tyres or it was the lowered lift-off oversteery Mk1 Golf but if you know the roads are wet then you adjust your driving style to suit.
Sliding the car a bit is okay in my book so long as you're not trying to induce power oversteer outside a primary school at 3pm.
Spot on. All these youngesters with the big tyres.Maybe it's because I spent some years in an Uno with budget 135 tyres or it was the lowered lift-off oversteery Mk1 Golf but if you know the roads are wet then you adjust your driving style to suit.
Sliding the car a bit is okay in my book so long as you're not trying to induce power oversteer outside a primary school at 3pm.
I learnt over-steer trade in a 1256 viva with 145s. slideways at walking pace (well nearly).
Whilst I will be sliding around a wet roundabout with a big grin, those modern 4x4 cars will be going faster (and therefore more dangerously) without half the enjoyment I'm getting.
Dismissing an M3 because it can't be hooned in the wet is a bit WTF tbh.
Hooning in the wet is never a good idea anyway.You can push on a bit if you want but you can never be sure how much grip you will get.
I can get tail happy all day long in the wet(and dry) in my family spec BMW tourer 320d all day long if I turn the leccy gubbins off.But I don't,just because I can doesn't mean I have to.
AWD or 4WD won't be much different anyway hooning in the wet,rather than under or oversteer you will get into a 4 wheel drive slide scrabbling for grip.
I can go sideways at will in the 500 bhp units(artic unit only) at work in the wet if I want,but I don't.Mostly because you will get the sack if spotted
Sounds to me like the Person the OP is discussing is putting more reliance in the cars ability than his own,dangerous ground.
Hooning in the wet is never a good idea anyway.You can push on a bit if you want but you can never be sure how much grip you will get.
I can get tail happy all day long in the wet(and dry) in my family spec BMW tourer 320d all day long if I turn the leccy gubbins off.But I don't,just because I can doesn't mean I have to.
AWD or 4WD won't be much different anyway hooning in the wet,rather than under or oversteer you will get into a 4 wheel drive slide scrabbling for grip.
I can go sideways at will in the 500 bhp units(artic unit only) at work in the wet if I want,but I don't.Mostly because you will get the sack if spotted
Sounds to me like the Person the OP is discussing is putting more reliance in the cars ability than his own,dangerous ground.
Panda76 said:
I can go sideways at will in the 500 bhp units(artic unit only) at work in the wet if I want,but I don't.Mostly because you will get the sack if spotted
You want to see some of the Stena Line shunters at Harwich, they were doing doughnuts on the vehicle deck of the Brittanica. Had quite an audience on the sun deck! 
One of the key driving skills that has been lost to a large degree (generally due to massive Grip of modern cars and lifeless steering feel) is the art of "reading the road". If you watch a top flight rally driver who drive in all conditions (Seb Loeb being the best exponent of the art) then what is astonishing is how they know "when to go slow" rather than "how fast to go"! Most modern drivers on the road pay no attention to the road surface in front of them, there could be a large dead elephant lying in the road and they would probably drive straight over it (or attempt to!). So regardless of the number of driven wheels your car has, matching speed to vision and grip is key, wet or dry. Whilst something like a 4wd scoob etc will have a traction advantage at low speeds (and before weight transfer acts to push the rear wheels in to the road) they will generally have a poorer lateral G and braking ability (due to more mass and higher CofG). Modern cars allow driver to get away with very poor control inputs (jerky, sudden, non linear etc) and so yes, for some drivers they will feel that the M3 will have less traction than say our comparitive scoob in the wet. (in reality, with proper throttle inputs and measured handwheel/throttle blending, generally they are suprisingly close, in fact at high speed the M3 has a significant advantage due to it's more optimum mass distribution).
Modern cars are now massively laterally stiff, if you get a tyre with say 5deg of slip to the road due to excessive torque demand at that axle, drop the torque and suddenly the car will snap into line with a huge moment. Generally most people "fishtail" off the road in powerful stuff because they snap out of the throttle when they feel the back end start to slide. And this is in fact worse in the dry, when the higher Mu means an even faster response to tyre slip angles. So if you don't possess the skills to accurately assess the grip levels, and to apply control inputs in the cars non-linear region, then you could say you shouldn't be "Hooning" even in the dry.
Modern tyre compounds now give such a good wet grip (not including aquaplaning, although that is also very good these days) that typically Mu is something like 75 to 85% of that on a dry road. The augument that "grip is much more likely to suddenly change" is also false, as you have more grip to loose on a dry road, so you will probably be going faster when it is lost.
Simply saying "M3's don't work in the wet" is just an indictment of the driver rather than the car!
Yes, you need more skill to drive an M3 as fast as a scooby in the wet, but you'll be a much, much better driver when you learn those skills!
Modern cars are now massively laterally stiff, if you get a tyre with say 5deg of slip to the road due to excessive torque demand at that axle, drop the torque and suddenly the car will snap into line with a huge moment. Generally most people "fishtail" off the road in powerful stuff because they snap out of the throttle when they feel the back end start to slide. And this is in fact worse in the dry, when the higher Mu means an even faster response to tyre slip angles. So if you don't possess the skills to accurately assess the grip levels, and to apply control inputs in the cars non-linear region, then you could say you shouldn't be "Hooning" even in the dry.
Modern tyre compounds now give such a good wet grip (not including aquaplaning, although that is also very good these days) that typically Mu is something like 75 to 85% of that on a dry road. The augument that "grip is much more likely to suddenly change" is also false, as you have more grip to loose on a dry road, so you will probably be going faster when it is lost.
Simply saying "M3's don't work in the wet" is just an indictment of the driver rather than the car!
Yes, you need more skill to drive an M3 as fast as a scooby in the wet, but you'll be a much, much better driver when you learn those skills!
I can do lift off oversteer in the wet very easily in the Pug and that's tons of fun; I really wouldn't want to try doing it in the dry as the speed would be so much higher.
Driving fast in the dry is fun too, but a different kind of fun, full throttle out of corners, attacking the apex...
TBH if you don't drive fast in the wet then you never really drive fast in this country.
Driving fast in the dry is fun too, but a different kind of fun, full throttle out of corners, attacking the apex...
TBH if you don't drive fast in the wet then you never really drive fast in this country.
Well said. If a modern performance car like an M3 is so difficult to drive that it feels dangerous in wet weather then either cars have become a lot harder to drive over the last 15 years or British Tarmac / rubber is a lot less forgiving than the South African stuff. None of the RWD cars I have ever driven in wet weather have been scary. Granted none had M3 levels of power but unless tyre and suspension technology has gone backwards i don't understand how run of the mill modern RWD cars nowadays are spoken about as though they're all Cobra replicas.
Baryonyx said:
Max_Torque said:
Yes, you need more skill to drive an M3 as fast as a scooby in the wet, but you'll be a much, much better driver when you learn those skills!
And then you'll get into a comparable Subaru and drive it faster than the M3! (M3 >400bhp, wider tyres, wider track, lower CofG)
C7 JFW said:
My next car will certainly be 4wd, purely on that basis. I think the way of understanding it is simply, why choose a rwd vehicle when you can choose a 4wd vehicle that will deliver access to enjoyable driving with potentially greater regularity, than something where the risk of losing control is higher.
Why do you make that assumption?My 115bhp RWD MX5 was always much more enjoyable to drive than my totally sorted Impreza with >3X the power, except in monsoon conditions with streaming water.
No more risk of losing control either unless you have no feeling in your hands/feet.
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