Had another little incident on a wet roundabout. going round all of a sudden the rear starts decides it time to overtake the front of the car. Luckily I was only doing 35 and caught it early.

Is this normal or could there be something wrong with the car.

The only other possibles could be that the front tyres are new (the backs have plenty of tread) / hit a patch of diesel / the rears got caught in a rut on the road.

Sounds very weird that. Ive experienced on bikes loads of time putting too much power down in the wet, but in a front wheel drive car!!!!! Weird

Should you not have the best tyres on the back? My brother has had the odd incident in the Alpi but that's RWD

New tyres should ALWAYS be on the rear. But given this weather it may just be a com bination of excessive water and crap on the road

I've had exactly the same only I was doing about 10mph, funny thing is I've got my best tyres on the rear and some Pirelli Ditchfinders on the front so it suprised me somewhat !

No idea what happened though...

My car felt exactly like this to the point where i had absolutely no confidence in its handling, sorted it by replacing the rear shocks
Hope this helps
Alex

Rear shock may be a good call, Had this on my punto GT, rear end overtook me on a wet roundabout. Later the rear shock failed MOT on seepage and had then replaced and never ha dthe same issue.

Mind you i had the same on a MG metro, but thats was down to a dodgy fuel filler

Rear shock may be a good call, Had this on my punto GT, rear end overtook me on a wet roundabout. Later the rear shock failed MOT on seepage and had then replaced and never ha dthe same issue.

Mind you i had the same on a MG metro, but thats was down to a dodgy fuel filler

That was common on Metros wasn't it Bockers? A friend of mine tried to sue when he trashed his after suffering the same thing but don't think he got anywhere.

I switched ends on a roundabout once. Just a small single lane roundabout but a fair sized diameter. (Caldo at Heresfich for St Helens peeps)

Looking at it like a clock face I joined at 6 oclock, fairly fast but braking hard intending to leave at 3 oclock I was back on the power at 10 oclock and facing the other way by 11 o clock Came to a stop. I had opposite lock on and simply selected first and drove away but i'll never forget the guys face in the car waiting to join the roundabout

Never did figure out why it happened. Deisel on the road or some such I reckon

I recently bought a new tyre pressure gauge and found that my tyres were 'low' when compared to my very old gauge(in fact about 6-7psi). So i have inflated them to the correct pressure with my new gauge, and ever since, the back end slides out very easily especially when lifting off the throttle slightly - i had 4 opposite lock corrections on the way to work in the rain yesterday - good fun but not really how i want the car to behave all the time. Im going to let some air out of them just to confirm this is the issue. If my old gauge was in fact correct i now have about 40psi in the rears

Something must be very wrong to lose it like that ie. tyres or suspension.

If you lose it with good setup, then you must be driving too fast for the conditions and/or not driving progressively (careful with the turbo).

Same thing happened to me once..not on a roundabout but on a bend. Was travelling slowly with good tyres and suspension so must have been a patch of oil.

Kelv, you always drive slowly

I swapped end going into a roundabout (in the coup)
i was driving enthusiasticaly and crossed from outside lane to inside to straighten the corner off, i went over some loose stones that had built up inbetween the lanes (nobody else is stupid enough to swap lanes that late)
and the back end came round it went so progresivley that i didn`t give it enough corrective lock,so i spun relativley slowly round and stopped before the roundabout
It was at 11 30 at night and there was no other traffic to hit/see me...
Lesson learnt

dont no if this is right our what but years ago i was told always have the same make of tyres alround,i do and nothing like this has ever happend to me,o god thats it iv said it now,not goining in coupe till the summer

Certainly I would never have anything other than identical tyres across an axle, and I much prefer to have identical tyres all round; that way non-linearities due to wet, temperature, pressure etc are the same all around and I feel the handling more likely to be neutral - or at least, consistent.

On the track you have the opportunity to play with tyres, but on the road? Too many chances to screw up fatally.

Well, I certainly do have the same tyres across axles, I can only guess that the torrent of rain at the time and the surface (or something on the surface) were responsible as I havn't had the problem occur again.

Could it also have been worn trailing arms? Since having mine repaired, the car has felt a lot less skittish and more planted.

Bit of a thread dredge, but this happened to me again tonight on a nice big roundabout. However I think this is almost certainly down to my rear tyres being knackered. Suffice to say I've ordered two new ones as soon as I got back in!

Incidentally, I have also had the rear suspension repaired today, so I think it all points to the tyres for me anyway!

Excuse me sounding stupid, but why put the new tyres on the rear? I would have assumed the fronts will wear and need changing more often, or is it that the more won tyres will be smoother and have more contact with the road surface due to wear?

i had this really badly all the time

handbrake keeping the rear brakes on. motormech changed the cables and good as gold now

you should always have your best tyres on the back, to stop oversteer, you can feel the front losing grip before the back

I also have a theory that when the petrol is empty is also makes a difference. Not sure what a difference 20 litres of fuel makes but it must help (I would have thought).

i very much doubt its the tyres really check the rear brake

I really ought to make this a sticky in the FAQ...

You put the best tyres on the back because they're the best at shifting water, and hydroplaning is the most likely scenario for a skid in any car *when you're not expecting it*. The effect of the back wheels skidding or aquaplaning is that they - during the skid/plane - have a much lower coefficient of friction than than the fronts, and an object with a lower coefficient of friction at the *back* is unconditionally unstable - it will swap ends suddenly, in most cases uncontrollably, and without warning.

A secondary benefit is that because the fronts wear two or three times as fast as the rears, by moving the rears forwards you don't end up with tyres three or four years old at one end and brand new at the other; you always have tyres with reasonable wear at the front and new at the back. Also, you never need to buy four tyres at a time!

Neil

Nobody's metioned lift off oversteer yet, I had this in my old 106 Rallye on the first day that I bought it, when you come off the power mid corner all the weight is thrown forward and the back goes light, the coupe isn't known for this particularly but any front wheel drive car can do it especially with such a front heavy weight distribution

i must admit the coop doesn't really lift off over steer and i think its more due to its weight and the setup but little light hatches are the wrose.
i still think the rear brakes are binding

my car does this and i have all new suspension and trailing arms etc the roudabout i went round was water logged

just blame british roads