Driving an Elise in the wet
Discussion
How bad is it?
Will you slide/spin on a wet motorway on a slight bend at 70mph when lifting off?
Will you slide/spin about town driving normally at 30mph?
Will you slide/spin all the time?
Read a lot of comments advising not to lift off on corners. Is this just tight corners, when your pushing the car.
How bad are they?
Cheers for any comments......
Will you slide/spin on a wet motorway on a slight bend at 70mph when lifting off?
Will you slide/spin about town driving normally at 30mph?
Will you slide/spin all the time?
Read a lot of comments advising not to lift off on corners. Is this just tight corners, when your pushing the car.
How bad are they?
Cheers for any comments......
None of the things you mention. On decent tyres, with the suspension set up properly there's no need to fear it.
Just take it easy at first and don't be silly in the wet. If you want to explore the limits then a track is where you want to be.
Just take it easy at first and don't be silly in the wet. If you want to explore the limits then a track is where you want to be.
Edited by TIPPER on Tuesday 17th June 21:22
Just checking a small bend (20degrees) on a wet/damp motorway won't cause me to spin. Not walking about driving on a flooded road.
So generally it's ok. I'm generally not thrashing it about all the time, just going fast on straight roads/motorways when possible.
Never driven a rear-wheel motor before, hopefully have an Elise before the week is out.....standard s2.
So generally it's ok. I'm generally not thrashing it about all the time, just going fast on straight roads/motorways when possible.
Never driven a rear-wheel motor before, hopefully have an Elise before the week is out.....standard s2.
I've had the back end step out at about 20mph on a damp roundabout when someone decided to cut across into my lane and I had to lift off, but it was easy enough to catch and control.
In general it's just a case of being sensible and smooth with your inputs - avoid sudden changes of direction, be aware under braking you have no ABS and a rearward weight distribution, etc.
In general it's just a case of being sensible and smooth with your inputs - avoid sudden changes of direction, be aware under braking you have no ABS and a rearward weight distribution, etc.
Best advice you can have is explore on a track day... or even better get yourself a one to one experience at Thruxton in an Exige, you will experience lift off over steer but in a controlled manner with an instructor. The symptom on rear wheel drive cars is quite controllable on the track, on the roads there is less room and time to recover.
Go sprinting, much more fun than the road...
FB
Go sprinting, much more fun than the road...
FB
Edited by anonymous-user on Tuesday 17th June 21:51
once of the big things you will notice in the wet, on the motorway, is the tendancy to aquaplane, before you would be doing in a normal car weighing twice as much.
So if the other traffic can do 70mph in the rain and feel safe and in control, you will probably be doing 50mph and feel every puddle of water ....this can be where you may have read of accidents with people apparently spinning in a straight line on a wet motorway. It can be a bad recipe...doing 50mph..see a huge puddle coming, driver lifts off to slow down, just as the front goes light - car spins into the central reservation if you are lucky
so the main thing is as per everyone else - take it easy in the wet, the car is not going to spin, without YOU doing something you shouldnt ...the Elise is a fine driving tool, with no electronic aids (ok the new uns have!) and it works like a computer - CRAP IN = CRAP OUT ...so it wont flatter your driving, or save you when youve given it full throttle on a wet bend, mid corner...it will spit you off
BUT - if you learn to drive properly, you can be 80% as fast in the wet as in the dry, you would be amazed how much grip you can have on a wet racetrack, if theres no standing water and you know what you are doing
SO what you need to do is some driver training and learn how to drive in the wet properly, get a wet day on an airfield and find out where the limits are again, and learn to drive up to them. Have some fun hooning around and practice catching the slides, so if it does happen, you dont panic....its just practice.
In the meanwhile, just drive it normal in the wet, but keep extra smooth, brake extra early and more gently, turn in more gently...basically everything more gently and smooth
So if the other traffic can do 70mph in the rain and feel safe and in control, you will probably be doing 50mph and feel every puddle of water ....this can be where you may have read of accidents with people apparently spinning in a straight line on a wet motorway. It can be a bad recipe...doing 50mph..see a huge puddle coming, driver lifts off to slow down, just as the front goes light - car spins into the central reservation if you are lucky
so the main thing is as per everyone else - take it easy in the wet, the car is not going to spin, without YOU doing something you shouldnt ...the Elise is a fine driving tool, with no electronic aids (ok the new uns have!) and it works like a computer - CRAP IN = CRAP OUT ...so it wont flatter your driving, or save you when youve given it full throttle on a wet bend, mid corner...it will spit you off
BUT - if you learn to drive properly, you can be 80% as fast in the wet as in the dry, you would be amazed how much grip you can have on a wet racetrack, if theres no standing water and you know what you are doing
SO what you need to do is some driver training and learn how to drive in the wet properly, get a wet day on an airfield and find out where the limits are again, and learn to drive up to them. Have some fun hooning around and practice catching the slides, so if it does happen, you dont panic....its just practice.
In the meanwhile, just drive it normal in the wet, but keep extra smooth, brake extra early and more gently, turn in more gently...basically everything more gently and smooth
ROSSGR said:
Back on the accelerator,drive into the slide...........
Balance the throttle, don't get it hard like you would in a front wheel drive car as the rears have already lost grip. You want the tyres spinning at roughly the speed the road is passing beneath them.Also be aware that once you get grip back you'll need to wheel off the lock fairly quickly or it can just spit you back out the other way.
M44TNH said:
"So what is the preferred method of recovery in laymans terms??
Back on the accelerator,drive into the slide..........."
- Open windows then drive home and change kegs
LOLBack on the accelerator,drive into the slide..........."
- Open windows then drive home and change kegs
...yeah, reminder to the OP - you cant learn this stuff on here, no matter what someone tells you to do here, when it happens in real life you will cack yourself and panic.
Its a skill - what you need to do, is go for training on an airfield, and practice it all day long, until you can recover the car instantly without thinking say 8 times out of 10 ...then when/if it happens in real life you will just have a twitch and carry one, whereas the un-trained driver may have paniced and spun...its as simple as that really...just practice...Ive lost count of the no of airfield days ive done and its great fun
ROSSGR said:
How bad is it?
Will you slide/spin on a wet motorway on a slight bend at 70mph when lifting off?
Will you slide/spin about town driving normally at 30mph?
Will you slide/spin all the time?
Read a lot of comments advising not to lift off on corners. Is this just tight corners, when your pushing the car.
How bad are they?
Cheers for any comments......
In answer to your questions: no, no and no.Will you slide/spin on a wet motorway on a slight bend at 70mph when lifting off?
Will you slide/spin about town driving normally at 30mph?
Will you slide/spin all the time?
Read a lot of comments advising not to lift off on corners. Is this just tight corners, when your pushing the car.
How bad are they?
Cheers for any comments......
If you lift off at high revs when right on the limits of rear end grip, the rear wheels will lock up, causing the back end to go. It is no different in this regard to any other RWD car - the only difference is that once it has happened, you're less likely to get it back if you're driving an Elise because of its low polar moment of inertia.
The only thing you have to be wary of is standing water. It's a light car with wide rear tyres, meaning it will aquaplane at speeds where another car would plow through the water.
I drive my Elise as hard (that's not the same as "as fast") in the wet as in the dry as long as I know the roads well enough to know I'm not going to encounter a flood.
As long as you realise the throttle isn't a binary device, you'll be fine.
Edited by kambites on Wednesday 18th June 08:53
NathanE said:
kambites said:
As long as you realise the throttle isn't a binary device, you'll be fine.
- checks your profile *
Ah makes sense now
Edited by kambites on Wednesday 18th June 10:09
Drive sensibly and its fine.
Only brown trouser moments I've had to date, happened twice so far, is braking too enthusiastically and wheels locking. Once skidded straight through a red light, and once just missed the back of a mates car.
Both my fault, now learned my lesson.
(No ABS on mine to help me out)
Only brown trouser moments I've had to date, happened twice so far, is braking too enthusiastically and wheels locking. Once skidded straight through a red light, and once just missed the back of a mates car.
Both my fault, now learned my lesson.
(No ABS on mine to help me out)
kambites said:
NathanE said:
kambites said:
As long as you realise the throttle isn't a binary device, you'll be fine.
- checks your profile *
Ah makes sense now
Edited by kambites on Wednesday 18th June 10:09
Gassing Station | Elise/Exige/Europa/340R | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff