Bensons86

I've never had an accident in my life, so I'm pretty frustrated. I was coming off of an offramp into a round-a-bout. I slowly dropped it in 2nd gear and wasn't going that fast, leading it into a small right turn into the round-a-bout and out to the right....the first exit. It's not all that sharp of a curve, which is what's crazy. I gave it a little juice in 2nd gear, but nothing I haven't done before...and certainly nothing too crazy, and the tires failed to hook up causing the back to come around, shooting me right at the curb. I can't believe those tires didn't stick! I've been trying to rack my brain wondering what exactly happened there. I had only been driving about 10 minutes, but I expected that to be enough to warm up the tires. The temperatures were cooler, but we had a good sunny day, so I never thought in the world that the tires wouldn't grip. I really don't feel like I gave it enough juice to loose traction like that (especially since it's stuck in previously similar conditions). Do these tires just suck or do I suck? I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out. Or the other thought is just cold tires on cooling pavement creating a recipe for disaster that I wasn't expecting. The tires are the goodyear runflats. I don't know how old they are, but they are definitely on the lighter side of tread (even though they passed state inspection without issue). The rear passenger tire punctured, passenger front has a knot in it, and the front splitter/airdam ripped off the bumper causing damage there. The good news is that insurance will buy me new tires,etc. as I was fully covered. Frustrated! Makes me feel a bit timid to have any sort of a spirited drive in the future......thought that's what it's supposed to be made for.

FAUEE

The Goodyear tires do typically suck, they suck extra at Temps under 70F. Obviously, they get worse the colder you get. If they're the original tires they'd be pretty hard by now, so that plays a factor too. Just how cold was it?

End result, the tires suck, but you sucked for not compensating for the tires. Sorry to hear about your wreck, that sucks too.

Klawp

All it took was me putting my old Z car in a ditch about 10 years ago to know RWD cars can be unpredictable at times no matter how well you think you know your car, and to keep the spirited driving to actual courses dedicated for it. Hopefully it taught you something!

TorchRedFred

Tires, outside temperature, and road surface. All 3 could have contributed. Sorry to hear about your car.

Bensons86

sunny and 55 to 60 degrees.

cadyshac

Did you have the nannies turned off? Sounds like the combo of tires/temps/torque/turning got you. Sorry to hear but sounds like it can be fixed.

jbc1995fb

That sucks. How bad is the damage?

Dano523

In my youth, less than one year old summer performance tires on a TR8 in the cold (say 40's), went to make a left hand turn at what I though was a reasonable speed even for the colder temps, tires never bit/grabbed at all, and car went straight into a light pole.

So the moral of the story, summer performance tires can be Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , with the vast differences they will bite if warm enough of not. Hell, all it take is a little rain to cool the tires off even during the summer time, and vast difference of what they will grip. Hence more accidents in the high performance sport cars are caused by this alone from novice drivers, then say someone driving reckless isntead.

As for the oem Goodyear tires, time was against you as well, since the rubber on summer performance tires gets hard in about 5 years, will bank that the tires are older than that, and when the harder rubber tires where not up to temps (higher temps than normal before the harder rubber does start to bite), they pretty much act like you are driving on a ice skating rink. Also, vet has sway bars and tighter suspension, so when the back end does kick out, the outer tire is not going to plow to help it get a bite like a standard car/truck, and the back end will just want to continue to whip around unstopped further instead.

So best advice I can give you, take some HPDE lessons. Here you learn that during your warm up lap until the tires do get up to temps, they will not grab to save their lives, and depending on the tires you running (and what class of car), even during your final cool down lap, can drop the temp on R series tires to the point that they start to loose the massive grip they had when hot instead.

jrose7004

Sorry for your pain!

Bensons86

It acted like the nannies were off, but they shouldn't have been. Only had them off once and they are supposed to cycle back on upon a restart.

I'll see what the shop says, but the damage wasn't too bad. I limped it home on a back road on the punctured run flat. The skid bars under the radiator are scratched, 2 tires are shot, and there's damage to the front bumper underneath where the front spoiler ripped off from the front end. You can't tell it's damaged until you look under it.

Bensons86

ruxvette

Be curious the age of the tires. My guess is old and hard (slick).

4SUMERZ

Sorry to hear about your ordeal. I was lucky and found out in my first few months that the Goodyear Runflats at 1/2 tread were totally unsafe in cooler temps and in wet road conditions. I changed them out after a white knuckle incident that scared the crap out of me on a wet road and hydroplanning without any control...I decided that since we were using our car for road trips, it had to have safe tires, so I decided on non runflats that had great reviews in all conditions.
I have 110+k miles on non runflat tires, and hopefully many more.
Good Luck with the repairs.
Moral of the story, go with any tire but Goodyear. Even new ones suck!!!!!!

4SUMERZ

lilcuda

Get rid of those horrific tires. I just replaced my original GY run flats last week even though they only had 8400 miles on them. The new Bridgestones are great, although I haven’t pushed them yet.

FatsWaller

My condolences. On the other hand, no personal injuries, so that's good news. One of the things I've learned in all those years of driving is that familiarity with a piece of road is not a guarantee if you are at the limit. It doesn't take much of a spill to significant change the amount of traction available. Maybe someone left their gas cap off with a full tank of gas and dumped some when they went around that same corner not much before you did. Even worse if it was diesel. I've seen it happen a few times. Any liquid spilled there could have made things come undone for you.

hawkgfr

The OEM tires are pretty slick in colder temps and if they are old they are even slicker in cool weather .....Get some good tires and your vette fixed and keep the fun train going....



good luck...

Patsgarage

Cold temps and crappy tires, also these cars do not respond well to abrupt throttle inputs midcorner. One rule of thumb I try and live by it to treat the accelerator like a rheostat and not an on/off switch.
On the plus side the damage does not look that bad at all, as long as the suspension if fine you got off pretty easy.

torquetube

You can exceed the grip of any tire. It's always up to the driver to feel out conditions and drive accordingly. Once you do that, there aren't so much safe tires and unsafe tires as there are fast tires and slow tires.

449er

See 4SUMERZ's post to find out how old your tires are, anything more than 5-6 years old, replace them regardless of tread depth