FanTaZ

CA also seems to be the heartland of folks with
room temperature IQs, based on this guy's writing,
driving, and decision making.

Don't they teach English out there? Of course, I'm
glad you are there. I'd hate to think that some
moron is about to slam me just because he's trying
to test his driving expertise on rain slick public roads.
Practice on the track or at the mall parking lot when
no one is there. Just my two cents worth

Forrest80

Hope you are not refering to me, and if you are even remotely trying to insinuate i have a low iq, you would be sadly mistaken. My typeing skills may not be up to your standard, but i can almost guarentee im not room tempature IQ. Infact if you want to insult most likely my IQ is higher than yours, how do i guess this? Simple you read something and quickly judged me, well ok DR phil, every one makes mistakes on the road. To many jerk offs on this forum some times. I did take english also.

angelzhope720

iTrader: (15)

rain and the Z don't mix

LugZ

I did that in an underground parking lot. It was cold, my tires were cold...the gauge said icy *but no ice* and I was making a left. I guess I gave it a bit too much gas but was barely doing over 20 km/h..so that's like 12mph and spun the car around. I was sooo damn lucky because there was the center island you have dividing the oncoming lane. I hit it but not very hard. It kinda scrapped underneath but no damage. 2 guys saw this. I felt like a jackass but at the same time...I wasn't trying to spin it around. It was just a bad combination of concrete floor, cold tires, cold road and a little bit of condensation. Learned that this car is definitely not going to be driven in winter.

cessna

Sounds like my trying to do a U-turn spinning her rear-end around.....too much and facing the curb Ah the joy of a rear-wheel drive car!!!

WaitilUseeMyZ

Had a similar experience trying to push it on an off ramp with some S turns, made the big mistake of turning TCS off and got careless and overcorrected and tried to brake and ended up hopping the curb and cracking a wheel....Thank GOD that was the only thing, I consider it a miralce that I didn't blow at least two tires and bend at least one wheel or crack an axle or something like I have heard of other people on this forum doing.

All I can say is it was a LESSON LEARNED and in a way was glad it happened cuz I the Z is still new to me and I have been acting careless in it, but now I am not going to push it like that until I take it on the track and get really comftorable with its limits.

Oh and no one saw me that I know of unless someone from inside a building did because there were no cars around, which I had checked befor before I went for it, little did I realize we were two blocks from the police station so I really feel like I got off easy by learning such a valuable lesson...

skeleton jack

Dont mess around when the road is wet. Any car can lose traction. especially a tourqie Z. Once 3500 LBS is in motion on a slick road, its hard to stop it.

siua

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT..LOOKED LIKE A DUMB A$$ OH WELL...LOL...

itburns

I will never speed in the rain again (with the Z)! It was a Sunday morning, and I was driving 60 in the rain on I-280N (a hilly freeway) when another Z passed me going 80. After watching it fade in the distance, I thought, hey, I have a Z, too. I'm speeding up. It was all fun and games until I hit a deep patch of water at 80 MPH. It was deep enough to force my front wheels to turn to the right suddenly, thus hydroplaning my car. I braked and countersteered, keeping the car straight, but could not stop from sliding from the #1 lane to the #4 lane and barely nudging a minivan's rear bumper.

From that experience, I think I should have quickly downshifted and stepped on the gas instead of braking; I should have tried to force traction on the rear tires. This seems like it would have stopped my sliding from left to right. At least I didn't spin around.

I believe fatter than stock tires makes a car more susceptible to hydroplaning. But what really concerns me was not the hydroplaning, but what induced the loss of control: diving into a puddle and having the front tires turn to the right. At least I know how to reduce the chances of this happening again: slowing down in the rain!

MulhollandDrive

The best thing to do is just steer into the slide and do nothing drastic. Downshifting will add drag to the rear tires and decrease traction on the rear wheels as you let out the clutch. Same with stepping on the gas. So the idea is to just let the car grab traction again while trying to maintain a semblance of directional control. If you grew up in the snow with RWD then you know this feeling and you just need to go with it an hope you don't hit anything. Same thing coming down an icy mountain road on a curve after skiing, hitting water as you did or just hitting black ice.

If you are going to hit something dead ahead then you don't have much choice except to rely on ABS or pump the brakes as you steer.

Personally I would buy the best wet weather tires with the best behavior at break away in the dry. To heck with maximum dry grip. If your car leaves the road like a slingshot you will _not_ be able to consistently drive at even 7/10ths.

VO...

iTrader: (25)

Not a good excuse to accelerate hard, "I love my z and i love the acceleration when i stop then start i cant help it." The Z is a finely tuned machine, not a toy. Use good sense when driving conditions are not so favorable, and also when others could be harmed.

jaxrm

There are definitely some good lessons to learn here and I have to give props to Forest80 for sharing this not-so-good scenerio.

1) Even with better then average driving skills or not, when you throw another factor into the equation (especially a factor that is not under your control like rain in this instance), your capibilities are then somewhat lessened or reduced by that factor...(damn that almost made sense, knowing my @$$ is frquently running a steady 90-100 mph when traffic permits). But playing in the rain with my Z...not for me!

2)...more importantly, I could not tell based on your desciption whether or not your back end was going right or if the whole car was going/sliding right, etc. I bring this up because this is a rear wheel drive car and the same steps used to bring the tail of a front drive car around (point the steering towards the direction you are sliding into) is not the same as with a rear wheel drive car because the force/momentum is not the same....I would be curious as to whether other drivers would agree?....and if his turning the steering wheel into the same direction lead to the end result?

As always, thanks to all @ 350z for their input, peace!

-jaxrm.

Forrest80

it happen to fast i either did 1 slide and fish tailing or 2 slides, i think one slide to the right then minor slideing/major fish tailing as i tryed to regain control.

I just remember how bad the car was shakeing me down lol

Rain is dangerous, dont mess around in it if you value your life and car.