How many of you have a problem with aquaplaning?
Discussion
Curious question I know, but there's a reason I ask.
I read a lot of tyre tests, and I've even been lucky enough to get to a few product launches in my time. Unless the subject is a trackday tyre or an "extreme performance" road tyre, aquaplaning resistance inevitably comes up in a BIG way. So much so in fact, results are so bias towards aquaplaning resistance that it can make or break a tyre.
Now I understand why the tests are like this - true 4 wheel aquaplaning is quite possibly the worst situation you can be in on the road, as you have zero control over your 2 ton cage and this day and age safety must come first, but while musing things over last night I honestly can't remember when I UNEXPECTEDLY aquaplaned for more than a fraction of a second.
Yes, there are times when I aquaplane, but I can usually see it coming and adjust my speed / direction accordingly. There are also times when you hit puddles in country roads, but no amount of amazing tyre technology will help you in 3" of water.
Another thing which is important to realise is good aquaplaning resistance does not equal a good wet weather tyre. In the German Sport Auto UHP Tyre test the Vredestein Sessanta Ultrac cruised through the aquaplaning test winning by almost 1mph, but only finished 9th (out of 11) overall with the worst wet weather score in the test and the slowest laptime! Again, in this years EVO tyre test the Uniroyal Rainsport 2 won both aquaplaning tests but only placed mid table for the timed wet lap.
I realise this post has turned more into a ramble about aquaplaning than anything else, so I'll try and wrap it up on the point I started with. Do you unexpectedly aquaplane often? Do the aquaplaning properties of tyre matter to you above, say, wet grip?
I read a lot of tyre tests, and I've even been lucky enough to get to a few product launches in my time. Unless the subject is a trackday tyre or an "extreme performance" road tyre, aquaplaning resistance inevitably comes up in a BIG way. So much so in fact, results are so bias towards aquaplaning resistance that it can make or break a tyre.
Now I understand why the tests are like this - true 4 wheel aquaplaning is quite possibly the worst situation you can be in on the road, as you have zero control over your 2 ton cage and this day and age safety must come first, but while musing things over last night I honestly can't remember when I UNEXPECTEDLY aquaplaned for more than a fraction of a second.
Yes, there are times when I aquaplane, but I can usually see it coming and adjust my speed / direction accordingly. There are also times when you hit puddles in country roads, but no amount of amazing tyre technology will help you in 3" of water.
Another thing which is important to realise is good aquaplaning resistance does not equal a good wet weather tyre. In the German Sport Auto UHP Tyre test the Vredestein Sessanta Ultrac cruised through the aquaplaning test winning by almost 1mph, but only finished 9th (out of 11) overall with the worst wet weather score in the test and the slowest laptime! Again, in this years EVO tyre test the Uniroyal Rainsport 2 won both aquaplaning tests but only placed mid table for the timed wet lap.
I realise this post has turned more into a ramble about aquaplaning than anything else, so I'll try and wrap it up on the point I started with. Do you unexpectedly aquaplane often? Do the aquaplaning properties of tyre matter to you above, say, wet grip?
I have once, in May or something when there was the f**k off storm over Chelmsford about 2 in the morning. Coming back down the A12, and it all went a little bit light. Thankfully I wasn't going that fast because of the visibility anyway, and it only lasted a couple of seconds, but nearly crapped myself 
I'd only passed my test a couple of weeks before. My dad was a few miles behind me, and said he'd felt his go light a couple of times.
Tbh, did make me think. It would be of unbelievable benefit if there was skid pan training or something similar in the test, because it's one of those things that just doesn't come up, or even mentioned from a theory point of view
I'd only passed my test a couple of weeks before. My dad was a few miles behind me, and said he'd felt his go light a couple of times.Tbh, did make me think. It would be of unbelievable benefit if there was skid pan training or something similar in the test, because it's one of those things that just doesn't come up, or even mentioned from a theory point of view
I would have thought that the propensity to aqua plane also depended on the width of your tyre, the diameter of the wheel (contact patch)and the weight being carried by the wheel (or pressure on the road surface).
For instance, a caterham on mega wide wheels and the best tyre for combatting aquaplaning will still (probably) aqua plane more readily than an HGV on bald/ minimal tread 120 width (it would look like the porsche pedal car huh!) tyres at the same speed. This is due to the area of contact vs the pressure being a big component in determining when a tyre will start aquaplaning.
So I find the tests a little misleading.
Personally I have aquaplaned a few times this year in flash downpours and the resulting pools of water collecting in the Central Reservation which then form massive long puddles in lane 3.
I found that my slightly knackered ps2's fared better than the crappy (but all weather) tyres I have on now, and there was definetely less tread depth on the ps's when the aquaplaning occured.
The all weather tyres seemed to pull the car towards the central res. much more violently than the all weather tyres.
All in all I dont really have problem with aquaplaning, I just found that my percption of which tyres should have been better for handling this situation was round the wrong way!
For instance, a caterham on mega wide wheels and the best tyre for combatting aquaplaning will still (probably) aqua plane more readily than an HGV on bald/ minimal tread 120 width (it would look like the porsche pedal car huh!) tyres at the same speed. This is due to the area of contact vs the pressure being a big component in determining when a tyre will start aquaplaning.
So I find the tests a little misleading.
Personally I have aquaplaned a few times this year in flash downpours and the resulting pools of water collecting in the Central Reservation which then form massive long puddles in lane 3.
I found that my slightly knackered ps2's fared better than the crappy (but all weather) tyres I have on now, and there was definetely less tread depth on the ps's when the aquaplaning occured.
The all weather tyres seemed to pull the car towards the central res. much more violently than the all weather tyres.
All in all I dont really have problem with aquaplaning, I just found that my percption of which tyres should have been better for handling this situation was round the wrong way!
Edited by hman on Tuesday 27th July 14:19
In UK I think my experience is similar to yours, ie momentary aquaplaning if hitting standing water and only for a short time.
However over here it can be a problem in the spring after the snows have gone and two shallow ruts have been worn by studded tyres over the winter.
What you get in and immediately after heavy rain /shower is two shallow troughs more or less continuously filled with water, and unlike the slightly similar troughs worn on L1 UK motorways the depressions are the same distance apart as the track width on most private cars. Happens mostly on motorways and DC trunk roads.
That can be a pain and you can end up aquaplaning, however only a small positioning to the side and you are out of the ruts and onto clean wet tarmac. It's a bit like in snow where two wheel tracks are packed down into polished ice and you can get more grip by driving on fresh snow.
The only problem I find with this situation is that you can drive slightly offset on the clear tarmac but when changing lanes or entering leaving the motorway there is a point where you have to have your wheels in the troughs. This can cause directional stability systems to get a bit of a sweat on and it feels worse than it is because it starts shutting power on off, braking individual wheels and all sorts of malarkey causing the car to feel as if it's dancing around on the limit. Driving smoothly, hanging on and doing nothing stupid and you can keep control. Of course some people do fall off the island nevertheless.
I suspect a similar ish effect might be seen on badly worn L1 motorways but as the width between the troughs are LCV width you only ever have the wheels on one side in.
Having said ALL that, if it is raining hard enough to get the effect then usually have already pegged it back, but it can be an issue very soon after a heavy shower when the troughs are still full, you come batting onto the motorway to encounter the water filled troughs. Wha-hay!!
However over here it can be a problem in the spring after the snows have gone and two shallow ruts have been worn by studded tyres over the winter.
What you get in and immediately after heavy rain /shower is two shallow troughs more or less continuously filled with water, and unlike the slightly similar troughs worn on L1 UK motorways the depressions are the same distance apart as the track width on most private cars. Happens mostly on motorways and DC trunk roads.
That can be a pain and you can end up aquaplaning, however only a small positioning to the side and you are out of the ruts and onto clean wet tarmac. It's a bit like in snow where two wheel tracks are packed down into polished ice and you can get more grip by driving on fresh snow.
The only problem I find with this situation is that you can drive slightly offset on the clear tarmac but when changing lanes or entering leaving the motorway there is a point where you have to have your wheels in the troughs. This can cause directional stability systems to get a bit of a sweat on and it feels worse than it is because it starts shutting power on off, braking individual wheels and all sorts of malarkey causing the car to feel as if it's dancing around on the limit. Driving smoothly, hanging on and doing nothing stupid and you can keep control. Of course some people do fall off the island nevertheless.
I suspect a similar ish effect might be seen on badly worn L1 motorways but as the width between the troughs are LCV width you only ever have the wheels on one side in.
Having said ALL that, if it is raining hard enough to get the effect then usually have already pegged it back, but it can be an issue very soon after a heavy shower when the troughs are still full, you come batting onto the motorway to encounter the water filled troughs. Wha-hay!!
I've only had it once where it was bad enough to consider worrying about.
A couple of years ago I had pulled onto the M3 from the M25 during steady rain, doing about 60-70mph in Mum's '06 FF Range Rover on relatively fresh tyres.
I was paying attention to the road particularly closely because of the conditions, and the road surface looked like wet concrete, but (even a racing driver and being used to spotting changing track conditions and mitigating the chances of aquaplaning) literally nothing gave away the fact that there was a fine layer of standing water
As I was simply driving in a straight line, the first I knew something was amiss was when I heard solenoids going 'padoing' from behind the dash and I looked down and saw the ESP light flashing. No feeling of deceleration when we hit the water, it was just like the car had transitioned onto sheet ice.
Then the car started to drift to the left towards a Vectra in the middle lane and rotated very slightly into a small yaw angle. Literally there was absolutely nothing I could do, I wiggled the wheel very slightly to feel for any grip, played with the throttle a bit, but to no avail.
Thankfully I'd only drifted to the edge of the lane before it sat down, but it suitably shat me up. My passenger (not a driver) didn't have a clue what was going on, as far as she was concerned I'd just started shouting expletives while we were driving in a straight line. This all took place over what felt like the space of 4 or 5 seconds.
Later on in the journey we heard a traffic report and it transpired an accident had happened on the junction a few minutes after we went through.
Very very disconcerting in that I doubt many drivers would have even noticed something was amiss until they were in the next lane, they had yanked a load of lock on, and the car had sat back down with the wheels pointing in the wrong direction.
Shows how easy it is for motorway pileups to start, and how easy it is to end up doing 70mph on your roof.
A couple of years ago I had pulled onto the M3 from the M25 during steady rain, doing about 60-70mph in Mum's '06 FF Range Rover on relatively fresh tyres.
I was paying attention to the road particularly closely because of the conditions, and the road surface looked like wet concrete, but (even a racing driver and being used to spotting changing track conditions and mitigating the chances of aquaplaning) literally nothing gave away the fact that there was a fine layer of standing water
As I was simply driving in a straight line, the first I knew something was amiss was when I heard solenoids going 'padoing' from behind the dash and I looked down and saw the ESP light flashing. No feeling of deceleration when we hit the water, it was just like the car had transitioned onto sheet ice.
Then the car started to drift to the left towards a Vectra in the middle lane and rotated very slightly into a small yaw angle. Literally there was absolutely nothing I could do, I wiggled the wheel very slightly to feel for any grip, played with the throttle a bit, but to no avail.
Thankfully I'd only drifted to the edge of the lane before it sat down, but it suitably shat me up. My passenger (not a driver) didn't have a clue what was going on, as far as she was concerned I'd just started shouting expletives while we were driving in a straight line. This all took place over what felt like the space of 4 or 5 seconds.
Later on in the journey we heard a traffic report and it transpired an accident had happened on the junction a few minutes after we went through.
Very very disconcerting in that I doubt many drivers would have even noticed something was amiss until they were in the next lane, they had yanked a load of lock on, and the car had sat back down with the wheels pointing in the wrong direction.
Shows how easy it is for motorway pileups to start, and how easy it is to end up doing 70mph on your roof.
Edited by The Wookie on Tuesday 27th July 14:49
My first aquaplaning experience was in a ford Ka heading along the M27 from Portsmouth to Southampton. There's a hill on the way called Portsdown Hill, where all the lorries coming out of the port head off in single file as they crawl up. Because of this, there are two very very distinct grooves in the road, where their tyres are.
I was heading up North at maybe 2am one evening - driving through the night to go and see my folks in Scotland.
As I drove up the hill on the inside lane in my little Ka at about 60mph, the revcounter suddenly shot off up to 5000rpm - the front wheels were spinning under the mightly 60bhp.
The grooves in the road had filled with water and were effectively two little contained puddles.
I decided that the safest thing to do was drive along in the middle lane.
Remember kids: the middle lane hog might just be a good driver in bad conditions!
C
I was heading up North at maybe 2am one evening - driving through the night to go and see my folks in Scotland.
As I drove up the hill on the inside lane in my little Ka at about 60mph, the revcounter suddenly shot off up to 5000rpm - the front wheels were spinning under the mightly 60bhp.
The grooves in the road had filled with water and were effectively two little contained puddles.
I decided that the safest thing to do was drive along in the middle lane.
Remember kids: the middle lane hog might just be a good driver in bad conditions!
C
Edited by CraigyMc on Tuesday 27th July 14:57
jon- said:
but while musing things over last night I honestly can't remember when I UNEXPECTEDLY aquaplaned for more than a fraction of a second.
But isn't this the point? Road tyres are designed as a rule to make it less of an issue. If it wasn't, then your fraction of a second might have turned into seconds, and at speed even fraction of a second can be all it takes.Deva Link said:
The Wookie said:
doing about 60-70mph in Mum's '06 FF Range Rover on relatively fresh tyres.
Blimey - that's the last car you'd think of which would suffer from aquaplaning.300bhp/ton said:
jon- said:
but while musing things over last night I honestly can't remember when I UNEXPECTEDLY aquaplaned for more than a fraction of a second.
But isn't this the point? Road tyres are designed as a rule to make it less of an issue. If it wasn't, then your fraction of a second might have turned into seconds, and at speed even fraction of a second can be all it takes.Another thing, ignoring the Goodyear Optigrip thread depth massively effects aquaplaning, far more than the 8% between the best and the worst of the tyres at the same tread depth. You're talking something like 20-30% difference once you get below 3mm.
F i F said:
In UK I think my experience is similar to yours, ie momentary aquaplaning if hitting standing water and only for a short time.
However over here it can be a problem in the spring after the snows have gone and two shallow ruts have been worn by studded tyres over the winter.
What you get in and immediately after heavy rain /shower is two shallow troughs more or less continuously filled with water
I suspected this might be the in the Northern countries, but I can't imagine somewhere like Germany (where the majority of the tests come from) is much different from here?! Good information though, thanks FIF.However over here it can be a problem in the spring after the snows have gone and two shallow ruts have been worn by studded tyres over the winter.
What you get in and immediately after heavy rain /shower is two shallow troughs more or less continuously filled with water
I've been driving on the road 16 years doing 10k-25k a year, and I've raced for 7 years (started in '01, had two years off due to lack of money) doing on average about 4 races and 5 tests a year. In that time I've aquaplaned twice:
1) 1993 Toyota Celica Carlos Sainz running on fairly worn Bridgestone SO2s if I remember rightly. I hit a previously unseen puddle whilst overtaking a big tanker on a straight Roman Road near where I live. I was doing about 50mph. I aquaplaned for about a second, no more. The car rotated slightly to the left, and I kept the steering pointing forwards and then just continued driving once grip came back with no drama.
2) 1993 BMW 325i running Bridgestone Eagle F1s; I can't remember the wear levels. I was accelerating off a roundabout on the road up to Snetterton onto a dual carriageway and hit an area of standing water at about 60mph. I aquaplaned for about 2-3 seconds, during which time the car again started gently rotating to the left - I did the same as before and kept the steering pointing where I wanted to go, and when grip returned this straightened the car up with no drama and we continued.
1) 1993 Toyota Celica Carlos Sainz running on fairly worn Bridgestone SO2s if I remember rightly. I hit a previously unseen puddle whilst overtaking a big tanker on a straight Roman Road near where I live. I was doing about 50mph. I aquaplaned for about a second, no more. The car rotated slightly to the left, and I kept the steering pointing forwards and then just continued driving once grip came back with no drama.
2) 1993 BMW 325i running Bridgestone Eagle F1s; I can't remember the wear levels. I was accelerating off a roundabout on the road up to Snetterton onto a dual carriageway and hit an area of standing water at about 60mph. I aquaplaned for about 2-3 seconds, during which time the car again started gently rotating to the left - I did the same as before and kept the steering pointing where I wanted to go, and when grip returned this straightened the car up with no drama and we continued.
It's a big deal in a lot of countries, notably Germany, as they use a road surface a lot less porous than ours and standing water can be a problem. Often problem roads there have a lower wet speed limit. I've been driving nearly 30 years and only had a couple of big aquaplaning moments in the UK in all that time. I would disregard the aquaplaning aspect of the test for UK driving.
unpc said:
It's a big deal in a lot of countries, notably Germany, as they use a road surface a lot less porous than ours and standing water can be a problem. Often problem roads there have a lower wet speed limit. I've been driving nearly 30 years and only had a couple of big aquaplaning moments in the UK in all that time. I would disregard the aquaplaning aspect of the test for UK driving.
! Now it all makes sense, thank you 
On the road in various front wheel drive cars I've aquaplaned once or twice every year. Nothing that scary, just a bit of torque steer before I recovered direction.
However on a thoroughly wet trip to Cadwell Park in the 7 I had a big one. It had been raining all afternoon, I had the aeroscreen on and it was getting dark so I couldn’t see much. I had slowed to about 40mph on a downhill stretch with the road sloping left to right, then I saw the water flowing across it. I was off the throttle when the fronts lost grip, I went 45deg to the direction of travel, the back joined me in the slide and I landed up in the oncoming lane before managing to steer back. I had a set of good Yoko A021’s on so it was simply down to the amount of water, the angle of the road and weight of my vehicle. I was rather relieved to make my B&B and then headed straight to the pub.
However on a thoroughly wet trip to Cadwell Park in the 7 I had a big one. It had been raining all afternoon, I had the aeroscreen on and it was getting dark so I couldn’t see much. I had slowed to about 40mph on a downhill stretch with the road sloping left to right, then I saw the water flowing across it. I was off the throttle when the fronts lost grip, I went 45deg to the direction of travel, the back joined me in the slide and I landed up in the oncoming lane before managing to steer back. I had a set of good Yoko A021’s on so it was simply down to the amount of water, the angle of the road and weight of my vehicle. I was rather relieved to make my B&B and then headed straight to the pub.
I think car type can affect it too thinking on it.
There are several stretches of by-pass and dual carriage way near to me that have very bad run off, as in it collects the water on one side of the road, then sends it across to the other side. Some one bends and some just over a crest of a hill.
I was surprised at how light my smart Roadster felt compared to other vehicles I've driven on the same roads with the heavy water.
There are several stretches of by-pass and dual carriage way near to me that have very bad run off, as in it collects the water on one side of the road, then sends it across to the other side. Some one bends and some just over a crest of a hill.
I was surprised at how light my smart Roadster felt compared to other vehicles I've driven on the same roads with the heavy water.
I had the good/mis fortune to do an absolutely piss wet trackday at Silverstone. Most people went home. Me? I went out there and worked on my wet weather technique someplace with run-off.
Aquaplaning when there is room is quite entertaining. The limits of what you can ask of the car is soo much lower. And the effect when it lets go is soo much greater - and when the grip comes back, wow does it come back!
Since then I have been very, VERY careful in the wet. f
k me you can slide a long way. Doesn't bear thinking about on the public road.
Having said this I have been delighted with my change from Michelin PS2s to Toyo T1-Rs. Just as good in the wet.
Aquaplaning when there is room is quite entertaining. The limits of what you can ask of the car is soo much lower. And the effect when it lets go is soo much greater - and when the grip comes back, wow does it come back!
Since then I have been very, VERY careful in the wet. f
k me you can slide a long way. Doesn't bear thinking about on the public road.Having said this I have been delighted with my change from Michelin PS2s to Toyo T1-Rs. Just as good in the wet.
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