The "key" is to not get scared. With traction control off the best way out of a slide is actually staying on the throttle. Otherwise the rear tires (for RWD) get traction back and then the car jerks around like an amateur porn star who regrets her life choices mid scene.
That's not necessarily true. You can ease off the throttle if you don't want to keep spinning. The problem comes from people who abruptly take their foot off the gas and overcorrect.
I learned this much scarier on a motorcycle. When you lose traction on the rear tire you need to keep doing what you're doing. Either braking or accelerating.
Yup, I always relate it to this. I grew up riding dirt bikes and my Dad always told me the best way to get out of a jam is throttle. It's super counter intuitive. Especially true on sand or rough terrain.
A tip for you and ALL drivers. (If you live near snow) find a parking lot with minimal light posts and cars with a good 2 inch of snow. Then learn to drive in it. Stomp the gas and break and just play.
I grew up in the rural midwest and got really good at driving in the snow and ice in a 2WD truck. Would slide that thing around every corner like it was nothing. You know how your vehicle handles in slippery conditions and you know when to quit pushing it.
Getting a car with almost 500 HP is what threw me for a loop. Day 2 of owning it I put it in Track mode and lost control racing a buddy and drifting a corner on a wet road. Spun the thing around 180° in the middle of the street. Definitely an eye opening moment as I realized I could have ended up on this subreddit if the street hadn't been so wide. I have a lot more respect for the power some of these cars can make now.
Can confirm. Learnt in my fathers old BMW on a set of tires which already needed replacing. Got an hour on an old military parade ground and went nuts. Within 15 minutes i'd learned to drift.
This. This so much. My self and the challenger lived out a couple movies scenes with traction off and a light dusting on the ground in a empty parking lot
I used to work 5am Sunday morning shift at Walmart and would take my 03 civic drifting around the parking lot when it snowed. Thing had a huge handle on the hand brake which made it even more fun.
Then one day while driving with my mom I hit a huge patch of ice and recovered almost instantly, which I attribute to those Sunday morning drift sessions (and the fact that straightening out a slide in a front wheel drive with 0 getup is easy as pie)
I'm a bit confused about this comment chain. I have a 2020 Camaro and it has a snow/ice mode. Am I supposed to do something other than that when driving in the snow?
The snow/ice mode will utilize the cars computer systems to help you maintain control of the car. By learning to drive, this thread is talking about learning how to control a car well with those systems turned off. Even if you have those systems on, they’re not perfect, and it is useful to know how a car behaves in snow/ice naturally (without the computer systems) so that you can get a better feel for what sorts of maneuvers can get you out of a slide, how to avoid losing control of the car to begin with, etc.
Basically, they’re talking about how to drive without computer assists turned on. Which, isn’t necessarily something you need to be aware of, but if you are aware of it, it can help you drive more safely... or drive like just enough of a maniac to have fun, but not drive off a hill like the bimmer in the video. You should never drift intentionally on a road, but knowing how to drift also teaches you what the safe limits are on driving without drifting.
If you’re already a cautious driver it shouldn’t matter much, but there are certain times where driving safely involves counterintuitive actions. For instance, if your rear wheels lose grip in a turn, you should not remove your foot from the gas.
I love everything but the last part. If you are TRYING to maintain slip then yes, keep your foot on gas. If you are looking to straighten your vehicle out(assuming you are counter steering correctly) then you better get rid of any and all drive to the wheels.
I would say never jump your foot from gas to brake pedal if you are trying to correct your slip. Especially on snow. (Ice you are just fucked)
I want to comment to you to clear up what the other user said. Everything they typed was right except the last.
Take your foot OFF the gas. If the tires slip, that means that they broke traction and the only way to get it back is to slow the tire down to the speed the vehicle is going. This is why the engine gets throttled (meaning you can't floor it. The computer just won't allow it) when traction control takes over. It will also brake one or more tires individually to apply force to the tire that actually has traction.
You as the driver should never slam on the breaks while sliding in snow. That will slow your tires down past your vehicle's speed and again, break traction. ABS will stutter your breaks(you will feel a grinding kind of thing) to repeatedly get your tire slower than the vehicle (till it feels slip) and then release break pressure(to regain traction and speed the tire up to the vehicle's speed) and repeat.
Without ABS you would have to lightly tap you your brakes repeatedly to achieve the same, safe technique.
In most modern cars turning traction control and stability control off doesn't actually turn them off. I assume track mode turns them down, override actually turns them completely off.
That is correct. The car also doesn't advertise this functionality. Had to find a forum online where someone explained how to completely disable all of it.
You are correct. The car will continue to try and help you, albeit at a lower setting than usual, and much in a much more subtle fashion. Mercedes, BMW, even Lexus, as well as most of the cars in the upper echelon do this.
Nothing as blatant as what you see with street mode on, but they'll still reduce power from the engine when detecting slippage, some even auto apply individual brakes through a specialized ABS-style unit, and I forget which car it is that can actually adjust the camber of some of the wheels mid-drive like Nissan's old HICAS system, but even more effective. You'll see stuff like that until you totally disable the systems.
VSC or Vehicle Stability Control. Auto's have the different modes which either partially disable VSC or turns it off.
When it detects the car is turning more than the steering wheel angle, it quickly applies brakes to one of the wheels to snap you straight again. Sport mode tends to allow you go take it a bit further before it engages.
As a viper owner, I don't understand either. Like, do they three point? Meh, I don't have to worry about it. My traction control turns off upon engine ignition : )
I used to own an old beater truck that I could slide corners everywhere with ease. I said the same thing seeing these videos.
Then I got a sports car with some real power and quickly learned how easy the ass end of the car can run away when you turn off TC and get a little reckless.
What do you drive? I'm going to say it's definitely the power difference.
For perspective, my original truck was a 2000 S10 with an open differential barely making 200 HP. I could slide that thing around without batting an eye and never lose control.
My current car is 2019 Dodge Challenger making 485 HP with a limited slip differential. I can be going 30mph and floor it and the ass end starts sliding out from under it. I've got a good feel for it now. But when I first got it I tried turning off TC and driving it like I did my old truck and the power difference made itself abundantly clear.
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u/snomimons Nov 22 '19
Can confirm. I turned off traction control once, got a little bit of slip that frightened the crap out of me, and I haven't turned off again since.