The sudden change in the weather recently reminds me we have a lot of new owners who have only driven the car in the Spring and Summer months.

Time to adopt a different approach to your driving folks, PARTICULARLY IF YOU ARE ON SO2s!!!!! The stock SO2's are little more than racing slicks with a tread pattern that isn't designed to shift huge amounts of water. The easiest solution is to do everything a little slower, and more cautiously. All the things which are bad driving technique anyway, can have very sudden and catastrophic consequences, e.g. harsh braking, sudden steering inputs, jerky gearchanging, lifitng off the accelerator mid bend, and just going that bit too quick for the conditions.

You need to keep all this in mind regardless off what tyres you are on anyway! In the cold and the wet you need to drive like you're walking on eggs, try to anticipate your braking steering and gear changes, and keep everything as SMOOTH as you can. Like a lot of high performance RWD roadsters this car will swop ends on you so quick in the wet you'll never know what hit you!

This is a fantastic car we all have in common and which brings us to this great board. I just don't want to start reading any tragedy threads thank you very much.

You can't check your tyre pressures too often anyway, but in the winter months it's even more critical to the cars handling.


Happy safe driving everyone!

 

It's not all doom and gloom. By slowing down to take account of the wet weather today, I managed to get 240 miles out of 40 liters - a new personal best record.

 

Yep - be really careful of wet fast motorways. They have caught a lot of us out here !!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cedric Tomkinson
[B]
You need to keep all this in mind regardless off what tyres you are on anyway! In the cold and the wet you need to drive like you're walking on eggs, try to anticipate your braking steering and gear changes, and keep everything as SMOOTH as you can. Like a lot of high performance RWD roadsters this car will swop ends on you so quick in the wet you'll never know what hit you!

 

That looks like a great camera mount Steven! I personally wouldn't want to trust expensive photographic gear to rubber sucker mounting systems!

I think the least misunderstood concept is how the very cold road surface temperatures reduce grip even when it's dry, and the tyres take so much longer to warm up and start to get grippier. Reckon on about 5 miles of normal Winter driving before your tyres are generating any grip, and bear in mind miles of stop go driving in traffic probably aren't warming up the tyres appreciably at all!

 

Good advice, all. I have been driving overly-cautious in any event and now, with 750 miles on the clock, I've just been through the first of our winter floods (just 3", but a flood nevertheless). Being more of an experienced 4x4 driver, I have adopted this style of driving in the wet with the S2 - VERY slow around bends and careful at speed on the flat straight bits. Okay, so I've been overtaken by a Suzuki Jimny today , but I know who he is and believe me, come Spring.....

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Cedric Tomkinson
[B]That looks like a great camera mount Steven! I personally wouldn't want to trust expensive photographic gear to rubber sucker mounting systems!

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by guybutler
[B]Yep - be really careful of wet fast motorways.

 

Euan, I think you have to take some of these straight line spin accounts with a large pinch of salt... ignoring aquaplaning that is, when you've lost all control anyway regardless of whether you're in a straight line or not.

A straight line spin can only be induced by driver input IMHO, and assuming that you're not steering braking or gear changing harshly when it happens, then the most likely cause of a straight line spin can only be a harsh right foot... too much accelerator.

This is where the LSD could be a cause of a straight line spin... too much clog and one wheel doesn't grip... the system makes sure that the other driven wheel retains it's grip which with enough clog, is going to cause the back end to swing in the direction of the gripping tyre. The danger at that point is making the wrong correction or lifting off the gas..... game over!!!

This is really only a problem with too much clog under the wrong conditions so it all comes back down to taking it a bit (read a lot) easier in the wet. Remember that the boy racers in their hot hatches are pushing their luck anyway, but they're driving a far more forgiving car. Just let 'em get on with it!

Be wary of seams in the road surface where there are different surfaces giving different levels of grip to each rear tyre... the LSD is trying to interpret two different levels of grip so be very careful . I've learned to be very careful of hitting the gas when one rear wheel is on painted white lines or hatch markings for the same reason.

Sorry if this all sounds scary, but we're talking about too much clog in the wrong conditions, which I'm sure is the cause of these reported straight line spin outs.

 

Thanks for advice - (technical stuff all a bit over my head unfortunately),
but generally if I just drive smoothly and anticipate/examine road surfaces carefully sounds like I should be OK - will have to get used to Mini One having me for breakfast on wet/leafy/twisty highland road as happened last weekend
Pity it rains continously North of the border from October to April !!