I should of slept over the G/F's house!

First off, I've spun my car a good 3-4 times from taking turns too fast and forgetting how quickly these cars turn on a dime if you really push them with stock tires. So, in short im used to how this car reacts under duress. However, black ice just fucks all rules of motoring up.


Here is my story in pictures:

Picture 1


Here I am that silver blob at the bottom of the picture. I'm driving along doing 35mph on clear rodes.. well not really clear, they were very well plowed and I forgot it was cold out and I had the blue man group pouding (or as good as the stock stereo sounds on 10). As I approached this turn I kinda remembered for a moment how shitty it was out yesterday and I should slow down..............SHIT what's that gleaming shit on the roads?

Picture 2


At this point I'm pretty much like FUCK. (note illustrated word) I was already off the gas so I quickly turned the wheel all the way to the right as ahead in the road I could see it was all dry with sand so the object was to get my front on that patch of road to regain control. At my current speed of 30ish and heading strait for a wall of snow I knew I had to cut the wheel and power on it and hopefully have enough pull to at least get my car in the direction (and the inertia) away from the snow wall. I'm flooring it wondering why I can't get any power and then I realize it, VSA! Every time I went to gun the gas to help force a re-direction the VSA was stopping me FUCK TOO LATE! Brakes!

Picture 3


Let the Red Arrow indicate where I was feverishly trying to get and let arrow two indicate where I was quickly and innevitably heading. I mashed the VSA button but it was too late. More Brakes.


Picture 4


There wasn't really a snowman there. I hit the snowbank around 20 I figure. THe car ramped up on the snow and made a cool little explosion of snow chunks (cool, huh huh, ). I turned down my music and quickly dropped it in reverse, rocked a few times and with a sickening crunch the car lurched back on the road. License plate was loose but I couldn't see any damage. I went further down the road and parked in a lighted lot to see what happened.


Damage:

Need an alignment (i think) steering wheel is a little shakey, intake broke off and is now rattling. (the clip holding the intake in place, not the intake to the throttle body). The front bumper seems fine and no cracks or anything. I was lucky no cars were coming in the opposite direction. I had my seatbelt on ofcourse and it did pretension. I am convinced if VSA was off I could of powered through the turn and then brakes on a better surface (my opinion ofcourse).

 

hehehehe nice detailed layout....so there wasn't any snowman there???? at least you didn't get injured from the accident..

 

sorry about your accident, but you crack me up!

got anymore stories??

 

Like I always used to say when I did rescue and fire:

YOU HAVE TO HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR ABOUT THESE THINGS!

I'm very well alive and that's all that matters

 

I dig the illustration, sucks about the incident. There have been times when VSA was helpful, but in this situation I prolly agree with you that VSA fucked you up this time. It did what it was supposed to do, but it was not good enough at this time.

Everything could've been so much worse, and the only lesson you could learn is that sometimes the best thing to do is do nothing. It is likely because you over corrected and applied either brake or gas, it caused the negative effect.

Does not really matter now, we all have been there. It sucks dude, but easily fixeable.

 

that sucks ern. i curbed my front right yesterday trying to avoid hitting another car. i didnt hit the other car, but there is a lovely chunk missing from my rim

my first gen has no VSA, and no auto either. :P

hope you get it fixed.

 

You MUST be the freaking BEST story teller on this board. Great Narations and Illistrations!

Being optimistic pays off.

 

i feel like i am in a drivers ed class!!

that sux about your car. I HATE WINTER!

 

I do not think you would have done better by not having VSA at all... if there is black ice and you are doing 30ish... it would pretty messed up situation. First, you understeered and plowed into the turn.. by trying to turn and crank it up to right and flooring it you are making the problem worse not better... you would lose more traction...

The wise thing to do is to lift off and let VSA do its job once you gained control you slowly brake to come to stop....

Here is a similar situation I had once in my 1999 Cavalier ( ABS no VSA ):

On a rainy night, where temprature was near freezing, I was taking a right turn ramp, I was doing maybe 30MPH, steady speed no acceleration nor decleration. Once I reached the apex of the curve... I fish tailed in FWD car (oversteer)... now I lifted off, corrected to left and once the front came to be aligned with back and cranked back to right and the Cavalier wiggled like a snake.. I repeated this like 3-4 times until the my car slowed down on its own and then I braked to a full stop...

Of course, my heart was racing adra fuild rush, and I wished this never happened... You learn a lesson and life goes on...

 

If you hit black ice with any wheel movement and aren't running killer ice/snow tires, forget about it.

You just reported the exact condition ripe for black ice (I'm speaking from first hand experience).

If it is ever freezing, and you get some dew or rain -- welcome to the ice rink. You can even be going at low speeds with 3-season tires and spin by just twitching the wheel...

I managed to hit patches of the stuff up in Nevada during some ice cold mornings (ages ago), and managed to spin my RWD car a couple of times before doing a "soft landing" on a right hand snow bank (no damage, tight loops from 50-50 weight balance).

The VSA will only do so much, and if you've ever stepped off a curb, or taked a "dancing lesson" on foot, you would just be happy you wern't headed for a semi.

There are certain types of pavement in dessert areas (or areas with high summer temps) that get a deep-black area from the summer heat (tar patch, etc) and it can look just like a small and deadly patch of black ice.

Count your blessings...


BTW, good practice drawing for court. I can imagine you bringing great blow-ups of your sketches to contest a ticket

 

for court visits... you should brush up your phtoshop skills...

Take some digi pictures touch them up with some arrows, circles, talking baloons... and the judge would give you a break just for the effort...

 

That too... I had a friend show how a cop could not have possibly see him roll through a stop sign... Just good photos with a few "pre-digital" circles and arrows

Open and shut case (nothing like good visual aids)

 

Glad you're ok...


Drawings made me laugh.... HARD. Good way to wake up in the morning.

 

The illustrations are halarious

 

Your car looks like a Volvo.

 

Well the most important thing is that your okay & it looks like you might need to invest in a set of 4 winter tires. The vehicle stabilty systems that sense when your car deviates from your intended (determined by your steering & braking input) selectively brakes any of the 4 wheels and/or reduces engine power to help correct oversteer or understeer. NO system, regaurdless of how sophisticated, can repel the laws of physics or over come careless drivng actions when you exceed the capabilities of your tires.

 

love the visual aid, no photoshop necessary

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by EricL
[B]If you hit black ice with any wheel movement and aren't running killer ice/snow tires, forget about it.

Eric, that's not true. Last year I got on the thruway, merged left, punched it, promptly the car's ass end went left, right, left, right, straight ahead w/ stocks w/ me just sawing the wheel back and forth on black ice. I caught it, it scared the livin' shit outta me and from then on, I took it easy in the early morning. I oughta know better on bright, cold sunny days in the winter that roads would be like this, but I just can't help myself sometimes!

 

Crap, I forgot to mention the visual aid. I thought I was watchin' Southpark there for a second! Great visual aids man. Sorry about your wheels, doesn't sound too bad tho.

 

Great story. Glad to hear your OK and the car is pretty much good to go.

 

so should we drive w/ vsa off in the snow???

 

damn man , good thing you okay but I don't think VSA off would of helped because when you mashed the gas on black ice all you would of done is spun out. VSA controls the throttle and helps you gain traction but having the wheel turned all the way didn't help either. hehe

I would recommend to everyone w/ a typeS to find a empty parking lot with some ice/snow and test out VSA. Do some donuts w/ VSA and w/out.

 

Heheh, I did this on the weekend at night in my school's parking lot and I was greeted by a Montgomery County cop! He was watching my spinning antics. When I left, he followed me for like 6 blocks...scary shit!

 

Yeah i did it in west springfield and also at potomac mills parking lot infront of where ikea use to be

 

You guys ever see that VW commercial with a Passat or Jetta, not sure what it was...it was a blue VW driving over ice...and it was in control. Is that because it was 4WD or it had some other system like VSA but it works better?

 

I believe that it's their AWD tech. called 4Motion

 

Leave VSA ON. It works, it helps. Stay off the gas and brake while trying to correct. Once you regain some control, make what ever move you need to stay out of danger. Don't over correct and don't panic... Unless of course it's the local manure truck pointing straight at your grill. You can add to his delivery.