Thanks folks.

The bright side is not that I walked away unharmed. Are you serious? I'm a lawyer. On the basis of these replies if I had been killed I could have been rich. Sorry, but I intend to file a class action lawsuit against Honda. My first demand will be that every S2K must be sold with two sets of tires and my business card. (Hey, my Benz is sold with 2 tops!) Plus, Honda must provide home tire changes up to 10 times per year. (Relax, I'm negotiable.) While they're at it, the Honda tech should be required to change any resident under 3 or over 70 with dirty diapers.

I knew it wasn't my fault! What really gets me is the warning sign on the visor; tell me something I don't know. How about a simple warning in the owner's manual: THIS HONDA IS EQUIPPED WITH A PERFORMANCE TIRE INTENDED TO MAXIMIZE ROAD GRIP IN DRY WEATHER. LIKE UNCLE CHARLES WITH ARTHRITIS, IN COLD WET WEATHER IT LOSES ITS GRIP.

I guess the gear doesn't make much difference.

Qtip

 

Qtip,

Now you know why so many arguably sporty cars come hobbled by mediocre tires - its safer for the average driver.

Some things you might consider in explaining your accident and ensuring that it doesn't get repeated:

1. What condition were your tires in? If they have more than 5-6k miles, their rain performance is severely degraded.

2. What did you do when the car began to hydroplane? Did you lift, did you maintain steady throttle?

3. How far did you drive before the accident occurred, and what sort of driving was it? (i.e. 2 miles on surface streets at 30 mph, 1 mile on the freeway at 65 and the boom?)

4. What kind of freeway surface was it? Grooved concrete, or asphalt? The latter can be more prone to hydroplaning.

But the most important thing you should be asking yourself is whether 65-70 mph in heavy rain was prudent, regardless of the car. I can't judge, I wasn't there, but that's a pretty good clip if there is enough water on the ground to cause hydroplaning. Combine it with potentially cold, worn, hydrophobic tires and it's a scary recipe for trouble. Even in an AWD car, with the same tires, you might have been asking for trouble.

BTW, one of the reasons you will spin, even in a relatively straight line, when hydroplaning is that its the rears that are most likely to lose grip first (higher "land/sea" ratio as they call it vs. the relatively open fronts). That means that with a loss of motive force, the car starts to slow a bit, but the slowing force is coming through the front tires. Since the back tires are sliding, even the smallest lateral force will cause the rear to try and pass the front, so to speak. Same reason you bias brakes to lock up the fronts first. Another reason why FWD cars will always have a place on the road, you're more likely to hydroplane the front tires on a FWD, which, while it removes steering control, isn't as likely to spin you when you skip over a puddle.

But, glad to hear you are o.k. and good luck with the repairs.

UL

 

are you sure a class action suit is really necessary?
don't we have enough of these?
is that going to drive all of our insurance up?
are you positively sure it wasn't your fault?
you were speeding weren't you?

i have never driven my s2k in the rain, but i've experienced that hydroplaning in my prelude and civic a lot in the rain. sometimes i think it's kind of fun to feel that temporary loss of control and then to regain it back.

did you experience something totally different?

 

Sorry to hear the bad news. Be thankful that it was the car and not you that was severely damaged.

This certainly sounds like hydroplaning. Having read all the posts about the crappy performance of the Bridgestones in the wet and cold, within two days of my S2000's arrival I pulled off the Bridgestones and sold them. I have Michelin Alpins for the winter and Dunlop SP9000s for warmer weather. Handling, no doubt, has suffered a bit, but I'd rather have the extra margin of safety provided by tires designed for the kind of unfavorable weather we all have to contend with.

 

sorry to hear that man

in terms of insurance, i'd try Wawanessa. they are VERY good and the rates are reasonable.

 

Two Mercedes and a Stook and your with Geico? Now that's funny. I got switched to 20th Century when I was a kid. Aren't they known for assigned risk cases? So what exactly is your previous driving record? Class action suit against Honda? They will parade 1000 drivers across the stand (such as myself) that will attest that while the car is sensitive....it is very controllable. Sorry about your misfortune but take a second look and see if maybe the second part of the car/driver equation had at least a slight effect on your outcome.

 

Not sure how, but the S2000 finished first on a Best motoring video of a rain Auto-X.??

it beat the NSX, Type R, Silva, BMW M roadster, and some other decent cars.???

It seems like it's rain abilities with stock tires would be
ok if it won out of all of those cars.

 

hey I lost it at 60 mph and found out that ABS works well in REVERSE too!! well I luckily didnt hit a thing and had about 8 cars stopped after watching me do that . . . a down shift locked the rears. I now have better wet tires and respect the car a bit more.

Good Luck

 

Excellent responses, thanks.

A fair analysis seems to me to share the blame among three parties: me, Honda and the governmental agency responsible for warning about dangerous conditions on that section of highway.

I propose the government for a third of the blame. The government's responsibility arises from the frequency of accidents at that site. The CHP officer said accidents were extremely frequent. "Happens all the time." "Just cleaned the debris from this section." "When it rains, accidents here are expected." The reason is partly that it is at the bottom of a signficant decline -- its downhill. People pick up speed deceptively fast and steer through a curve at a place where water gathers. If this is an accident-trap, a warning of WATCH YOUR SPEED. SLIPPERY IN THE RAIN. The CHP must keep the records. It should be easy to find out.

I propose to accept one-third of the blame. My responsibility arises from failure to adjust my driving to the change in the car's capacity to tolerate environmental conditions. I drove with the expectation that the car had its ordinary performance capacity, which as we all know and appreciate is much ado above the norm. I was actually in a cautious state of mind because I hadn't tested the car's rain performance. I have driven 45 years without a fault accident and only two others not my fault, both of these illegal left turners with minor damage. I have owned a Datsun 1600 and Toyota MR2 as well as a couple of Civics. I drive aggressively, there is no doubt about it, but not recklessly. I have zero speeding convictions. I was just STARTING the test. 65-70 going down a steep incline shouldn't be redlining a possible crash into the wall. Another element of my own responsibility is failure to do a thorough preventative search on rain performance before driving on these boards. I think that may be even more serious than my driving, since aggressive drivers have a higher duty than the normal driver to know his equipment.

Honda gets off easy with a third. Don't be afraid. This is good for Honda. If Honda gives a warning, it reduces its liability to the consumer and makes improves its litigation position. That's why we have the ugy warnings on the visor, which is another lawsuit. Honda gets off easy with a third, because Honda's warning could have prevented the accident and because the harm arising from a potential accident is death and serious property damage. This could have been a multi-car, multi-fatality accident. Honda owners read their manuals. I read mine. WATCH IT WHEN ITS WET should be somewhere prominent, explaining just what you folks have said: that the S2K is a performance car on dry road, not wet road; that the broad surfaces which make the tire so road-worthy tend to hold rather than shed water and thereby create a plane of water, or hydroplane.

Honda should also be praised, enormously, for its crash-worthiness. It is a wonderful car, and one of the great joys in my life. We sing and enjoy the chorus of its praises daily in this forum. But in the matter of tire selection a choice has been made which creates an unreasonable risk of harm absent a warning about rainy driving. No, Honda's got to take more than a third. Honda gets 52%; the government and I will split the balance.

I was joking about the class action suit, since I wasn't harmed and the car is insured. But I do have a $1,000 deductible. I think I will sue for $520 and a warning. Any objections?

Luckily, by now, no one is listening.

Qtip

 

One thing I found out at the track quickly is that when you brake or even take your foot off the accelerator the transfer of weight from back to front (with a rear driven car) can cause problems very fast. Add water to the equation and things can get hairy. The SO2s (when warm)
handle the wet fine until about 6 or 7k when traction decreases rapidly.