lol. Best of luck.

 

Actually, the most important lesson to learn from all this is not to lift in corners. You might want to think about enrolling in one of the MCO winter driving schools. You'd be amazed at how much you'll learn about car control in slippery stuff.

Emre

 

Who said anything about a corner? Anyways I want to take a winter driving course but I can't afford it. The accident ocurred on a straight road, and I know it was because I had a "tail-happy" setup, which was my mistake.

My fronts were snows and my rears were all seasons. I could easily get the rear tires to break loose in snow just by turning. As I was coming over the crest of a hill, and on the downslope, when the rear tires were unweighted due to a touch of the brakes, the rear tires broke free. I then spun around 180 degrees in a matter of about one (1) second and made a figure eight pattern on the road. When I crashed I was gonig directly in reverse and my ABS was trying to slow me down, but the road was too icy.

Why don't you take a look at my pictures of the accident scene instead of recommending a driving school. Obviously I should not of touched the brakes, but clearly the problem was my tire setup. We could all use driving school but under normal conditions, which this was, this should not have happined and would not have even if ALL were all-seasons or all snows. They were uneven and that's why the car wanted to turn around so the tires that have the most grip trail as if hanging on.

 

Well, on the first page you said: "I was going about 30 Km/h under the posted limit of 80 km/h and still managed to spin around going over the crest of a hill...and the rest is history." Well, there must have been a bit of a curve at the crest otherwise it would have been physically impossible to spin out. If the car is going perfectly straight, there is literally no way to make the car swap ends (unless you've discovered some new law that Newton missed ) Just hitting the brakes in a straight line wouldn't do it. You must have had some steering lock for the rear to swing out.


I have looked at your pics. A single car accident in a straight line? The problem is with the nut behind the wheel

Emre

 

Do you think for a second that both front tires had exactly equal grip? This of course never being true in any situation, increases the possibility of pivoting around a central point of rotation, somewhere just behind the front wheels, proportional to the difference in traction between the two wheels, regrdless of traction (as long as both tires don't =0), so yes this can happen in a perfectly straight line, when 4, or in my example 2 tires are contacting the ground.

This being said, other factors include the two rear tires, braking force applied to all wheels, tread patterns AND of course the fact you pointed out so nicely, that I could not have possibly been going in a PERFECTLY straight line, on the otherwise straight road.

THANK YOU for pointing this out, but do me a favor and STFU about judging how my accident happened - the police didn't find me at fault OR charge me with anything, and out of the 100+ accidents that very day in my area I just happined to be 101.

We can all speculate on what may or may not have happened, and the above recount is just my own opinion. I would like the purpose of this thread to be to document the rebuilding of a lancer and not to turn into "How My Accident Happened" So excuse me if I sound annoyed, I just dont like to keep going over it in my head either.

 

All of which is just a very long-winded way of saying you braked in a corner in the snow and couldn't correct in time. That's why I'm saying "don't lift in corners." This is the underlying problem...and it's a technique problem (though equipment also may have contributed in this case).

Personally, as a driving instructor, I see this all the time. It's one of the most common causes of single car accidents (the other being jerking the car back onto the road after dropping a wheel on the shoulder). That's why I suggested the MCO. They really run an EXCELLENT winter driving school and it's very cheap (maybe $150 CDN). Considering all the thousands you've put into repairing this Lancer it's a pretty small investment in protecting your car.


Sorry if I hit a nerve. It's always easier to think that an equipment failure was at fault than to take the responsibility onto your own shoulders.

Emre

 

Forget protecting my car from me, I think you're gonna have to hire some protection from me pretty soon.

Thanks for the suggestion tho - I am obviously not a good winter driver nonetheless. I may take one this winter when I get the right tires - IF I drive the Lancer again in the winter.