A lot is made of SUV rollovers. Is it **possible[/]b to rollover a standard 4-door sedan driven on a flat surface, like a parking lot, with no additional help from ramps or the like? Or will they just stay glued to the surface no matter what?
You mean by driving it, or by a bunch of burly practical jokers?
Sounds like you mean by driving it. It probably depends on the make. It seems possible if you have a large enough flat surface and could get up to about 100+ mph. Cut the wheel very hard, and I’d guess you just might get two wheels in the air. From that to flipping … I dunno.
Depending on the car, it can apparently rollover at speeds considerably less than 100 mph.
http://www.consumersunion.org/products/2001mitres2.htm
How the CU’s avoidance maneuver testing works.
Also found this, some stuff on the dynamics of rollovers. Tech engineering stuff, “inertia”, etc.
http://www.waltersforensic.com/Accident%20Reconstruction/Vol1-No12.htm
So yeah, you could flip a car in a parking lot, if you knew how to do it, and you were going fast enough, and depending on high off the ground the car’s center of gravity was.
But DDG, a Montero is a SUV-style vehicle. I think the OP was asking if a regular car could be flipped as well under similar conditions.
I would guess your average driver could not do it, based on the fact that I saw (God help me for admitting this) on Road Rules a bunch of folks try it unsuccessfully, and that was with the assistance of a ramp and professional instruction.
Smack-Fu, you’re thinking like a Crown-Victoria or a Camry, right?
I was actually thinking of a Mazda Protege, since that’s what I drive. I was driving down a long, wide four-lane road with no other traffic and for some reason wondered whether I could roll it by turning the wheel full to one side. The saner side of my mind prevailed so I posted it here.
I’ve seen it done, albeit unintentionally, by a driver ahead of me on an interstate driving a small two-door coupe (like a Neon or so) at slightly above the posted speed limit of 70 mph. She was in the left lane, veered slightly left and hit the textured “wake up” strip just outside the white line (still on flat pavement). She over-corrected and cut right very hard, slid sideways, and rolled several times. The roll was straight down the direction of travel on the highway and the car never left the pavement. Her car was flattened and her stuff was strewn all over the road for 50 yards or so, but she got unbuckled and walked away.
So yes, it is possible to roll a non-SUV on flat pavement at reasonable speed.
Yep its possible, i saw a bug flip over on one of those “Extreme And on Video Tape” shows.
He was doing doughnuts in a parking lot and his buddy was sticking most of his body out of the window. Well the car flipped and rolled over onto the passenger. They stopped the tape just before the car rolled on him, but what i did saw looked pretty ugly.
It’s certainly doable if you put your mind to it.
Here’s a picture of a Saturn that came frighteningly close but landed right side up:
http://waiautox.org/2000/saturn.jpg
As you can judge from the cones and chalk lines, the Saturn got up on two wheels while going into a tight sweeper turn. I would be very surprised if it were going above 50 mph.
And a discussion on someone who managed to flip a Focus in a parking lot:
http://pub52.ezboard.com/fgrassrootsmotorsportsfrm0.showMessage?topicID=4713.topic
Last Saturday, Anderson (Indiana) Speedway held their 2nd annual rollover contest. It was part of a “Night of Thrills.” Also included were a mattress race (driver holds a mattress on top of his car, steering with his other hand) and a mother-in-law race (driver is blindfolded, passenger yells out instuctions.)
A co-worker of mine got fourth place in the rollovers. He drove a Chevette. It went like this: He drove halfway around the quarter mile track, turned into the infield, where an abrupt ramp was set up for the left wheels. Just as the car got up on the ramp, he cut the steering sharply to the left. On the first pass, he flipped twice, ending on one side. He pushed the poor thing back on its wheels and did it again. (!) On the second pass, the experience beat him up rather badly. His neck was strained, he had a broad purple stripe across his chest from the shoulder belt. X-rays showed no broken bones, but every part of him hurt badly. He came to work briefly on Monday to turn in some paperwork. When he got up to go home, it took about 45 seconds to get upright. We watched him walk away in slow motion. When he was asked if he’d do it again, he said, “Oh, yeah! In a heartbeat!”
I would imagine that it would depend on the size of the parking lot. Given enough distance, I could get my old Pontiac up to 130 mph. If I then cranked the wheel a bit harder than it could corner at that speed, it would definitely slide and spin; as to whether or not it would roll…seems likely if it spun just enough to be sliding sideways.
I remember seeing rollover contests years and years ago. People would drive fast and hit the cut the wheel at just the right time as to roll over, right at the crest of a hill. The person who rolled over the most times on the way down the hill won. As a side note, I also remember that one of the stratagies was to fasten peices of rubber (ie tire) to the car at the corners just above the doors. This would add to the friction when that part of the car hit the ground and help it to flip again.
I’ve seen the remains of a single-car crash - it had rolled so many times, it was difficult to determine make/model (it was green - the color was still discernable).
This was on an interstate (flat, straight) - it was probably diong 70 or so.
Don’t try it at home.
To try and answer the OP question:
It depends… Basically in order to roll a vehicle on a flat surface, the edge of the rim (not tire) has to contact the ground. Several things have to work together to accomplish this:
1… A tall tire (big sidewall) flexes more.
2… High center of gravity coupled with a soft suspension allows the car to lean more in the turn, in turn leaning the outside wheel.
3… Inferior suspension designs lean the outside wheel outward (positive camber) in a turn. Swing axle designs are particularly bad in this case (original VW bug).
SUV’s are of course VERY prone to rollovers due to the tall aspect ratio tires, soft suspensions and high center of gravity.
As far as cars, the VW Bug rolls easily due to the horrible rear suspension design.
Some compact cars are very narrow and thus can be made to flip. Compact cars also usually come with cheap tires, which are soft and tall aspect ratio.
Notable mention would be the Mercedes A-klasse (not sold in the US) which rolled over during a magazine test in Sweden.
Another one is the older style BMW 3-series (late 70’s) which had a rear suspension that promoted roll-overs.
Now if you take a sports car that is wide and low with a low center of gravity and low profile tires it is very, very hard to roll it. I don’t want to say it is IMPOSSIBLE, but I have a hard time seeing you succeed on a flat surface. If you manage to find something to hit, all bets are off.
/Markus