It all depends on rear-wheel vs front wheel drive.
The only way to really know is to get a feel for it, because when you’re in a skid those little pearls of wisdom are all over the floor mats.
I would suggest going to a large empty parking lot, small airport tarmac, or any such large area when it has snowed (or even better: ice storm with snow on top) and just play around till you get the feel. The ‘feel’ comes quickly and then you ‘know’ what to do and your instincts will be sharp on the whole deal.
BTW, it’s funny here in Colorado to see all these soccer moms in their giant 4WD SUV’s sliding all over and getting stuck while Joe Blow in his little front wheel Escort passes them by, or even better, farmer Brown in his 1968 rear wheel Ford pickup puttering by the stuck SUV up a hill.
But with front wheel drive, the front wheels can pull the car out of the skid. And on a right turn on a RWD car, the wheels will skid to the left. If you steer right (the direction you want to go – you are making a right turn, so the way you want to go is right), it will only increase the skid.
The issue with RWD is that the instinct is to turn the wrong way. With FWD, your instinct is to turn the right way. I’ve driven both (once I had both RWD and FWD cars in winter, and when I skidded, I had to first remember which one I was using) and the RWD steering is counterintuitive.
With FWD, you’re right, and since most cars are FWD these days, it is better advice. The rule was made when most cars were RWD and is often repeated without consideration of the differenct.
If the rear end begins to slide to left when you are making a right turn you are still making a right turn, just a much sharper turn then you initially intended to, hence - oversteer. By turning the front wheels to the left you are turning towards your origonal, not as sharp, right turn.
I have also owned and driven FWD and RWD in snow and fooled around in snowy parking lots with both. The drive wheels do not matter, if the back end is sliding out you steer in the direction you want to go. It feels very intuitive to me with either.
Here is a picture of a rear wheel drive race car in an oversteer (back end sliding out) situation. You can clearly see the front wheels are turned into the skid and pointing down the track where the driver wants to go. The car is pointing towards the inside corner because the rear end slid out and caused the car to turn tighter than origonally intended. If no correction where made the car would drive off the inside of the turn or spin out. If this where a front wheel drive car in the same situation the same steering corrections would need to be made.
This diagram shows how the driver got in that situation and how the car is turning tighter than its intended path due to oversteer.
> Th most common mistake for inexpierienced drivers is to overcorrect
> and start fishtailing in the oppisite direction
That’s not always a bad thing, since spinning out will use up a lot of the kinetic energy of your car. A hard spin can bring a car to a quick stop.
The problem, of course, is that in a spin, you don’t really have control over your direction or what you might hit. It certainly is better to regain full control of your car.
I’m just saying that a spin isn’t, by itself, a bad thing.
RealityChuck… a “skid” is by definition having the back end step out, whether the car is F or RWD. Understeer, which is what you’ll get nine times out of ten in a front wheel drive car isn’t a skid, per se… its a loss of grip at the wrong end.
When you’re actually experiencing a slide you won’t have time to remember rules of how to turn the wheel. The reaction has to be a reflex, not conscious thought.
You can download the demo version for free which is the fully featured game, with some tracks and cars locked. The demo version includes both FWD and RWD cars. It will teach you how they differ in skids and how skid recovery is different between them.
Once you are confident in the simulator/game you can go for the empty parking lot.
For a rear-wheel skid, the advice to steer into the skid is sort of pointless. A driver’s natural reaction is to do this anyway, to keep the car going where the driver wants it to go. The hard part about rear-wheel skids is not in knowing which way to turn the wheel, but in doing it both quickly and subtly enough to keep the car under control.
For a front-wheel skid (or whatever you want to call it, dutchboy208), the driver must straighten the front wheels and wait for the wheels to start rolling normally again before re-starting the turn. This is counter-intuitive. A driver’s natural reaction when the front end starts to plow is to turn the wheel more. It takes discipline and training to regain control of a car in this situation.
It’s also important to stay off the brakes whenever you lose traction. This is another thing that requires discipline and training. Most drivers’ natural reaction is to hit the brakes whenever something goes wrong.
:dubious:
In the Colorado that I live, 2 wheel drive, especially 2 wheel drive trucks are all but worthless in the snow. When my Dad moved here I tried to get him to buy 4 wheel drive. Even offered to cover the cost. He didn’t think it was worth it. Now he really is paying for it.
