VolVette

My heart is still racing because as I was driving to work, about 50 minutes ago, I was cruising on a very wide, 2 lane road. (The Colonial Parkway, if you are familiar with Williamsburg, Jamestown or Yorktown.) My speed was about 40mph and the road was slightly wet but not icy. Without any warning, my Vette felt like it jumped about 15 feet to the opposite lane of traffic on a fairly straight road and was turning maybe 5 degrees. Luckily there is very little traffic on the road and I was able to recovery quickly without any harm. If there had been traffic, I would have stared them right in the face and hit them dead-on. I turned around, headed home, swapped vehicles and here I am now.

Why did this happen?

Last night, I adjusted my timing and the engine is not running as smoothly as I would like it to. I also changed my oil and greased all of the steering linkages, ball joints, tie rods, etc. After doing that, my steering felt a little looser and different. I grease my bearings every other oil change, or every 6,000 miles, and have never had any problems. Could someone help me to please diagnose what the problem may be?

Thanks,

Stephen


[Modified by VolVette, 9:04 AM 1/22/2002]

rainman69

Sounds like the posi rear end got ya. A wheel started to slip and out goes the tail...Happened to me once in a turn that was not too fast...flipped a 180* right there on a two lane road.

Williamsburg is cool, with their nifty tunnel to get to the town and whatnot.

Jim Martley2

Does the term "Black ice" ring a bell??? :) :) :) We get this in the Northeast when the weather is just barely warm enough for it to rain instead of snow.

Tom454

I would check all of your tie rod ends for slop, check the PS control valve for slop (if you have one), and check for loose steering component mountings, such as idler arm, slave cylinder. Use a large pair of "channel lock" pliers to squeeze the spherical joints... they should only go in about 1/16" to 1/8" if at all. Also look for loose tie rod sleeves. I assumed you were not accelerating when the car jumped. If you were, then all bets are off.

Assuming you have power steering...
If the ball stud and socket in the steering valve is loose, the valve will have a mind of its own and could cause this problem. It could be worn out, out of adjustment, or both. The adjustment of the stud & socket is an internal adjustment, unlike the "centering" adjustment on the outside of the valve.

Check for loose components before you suspect this problem.

Tom

Edit... good point... black-ice... it just sneaks up on you.


[Modified by Tom454, 9:36 AM 1/22/2002]

Paul 75 L82

I had the same thing happen to me but it wasn't in the vette. It was in a 88 IROC, it just lost traction and the posi took and away I went. Sure is scarry!

Tominator

Sorry to hear that, I have encountered similar issues. A few weeks ago hit some frost at 80 mph but only slide about one inch to the right. Luckly I had slowed down from over 100 mph which I was doing earlier. Glad your still with us :cheers:

Couple of questions for you;
1) What kind of tires do you have?
2) What speed rating? (S,T,H,V,Z)
3) What was the outside temp?

VolVette

I'll answer your questions first:

1) I have BFGoodrich TA's 235-70R's all around. They have less than 5,000 miles on them.

2) The answer above should suffice.

3) The temperature was around 35 degrees.

Thanks for your help and words.

Stephen :cheers:

ylose

My guess is BLACK ICE also.......at 35 degrees when you were driving....
It is the ideal situation for BLACK ICE...
I hit Black Ice at 40 degrees one night...still raining even...

Question ...it was probably lower than 35 degrees over the night...
was it before or after a bridge by any chance? that will more than double your chance for the black ICE also...

-ylose

VolVette

Black Ice may be a possibility. The temperature was ~35 and the road was slightly wet due to rain yesterday and the cobblestone road prevents adequate runoff. Also, there was frost on my windows, so, there was a freeze last night.

I suspect that an unever road surface with poor joints in the road may have also contributed to the problem.

VolVette

Hmm... Black ice could be the culprit. I did cross a bridge about 200 yards before this happened. I hope to take a closer look at the spot on the road where it happened either this evening or tomorrow morning. Unfortunately the temperature is rising quickly here and if it is black ice, it will not be possible to see it.

427V8

Frost can form on weird spots on the road, it looks like every other spot, but it's not...

Black ice here in Minnesota is when the weather is so cold, like -20, -30 that the car exhaust freezes to the road even though there is salt all over the place ( salt is only good to about 0 or so). It's called black since it is a very thin layer and cannot really be seen and is often on asphalt roads

1979toy

Wet leaves on cobblestones and you wonder why you slipped? I used to run those roads in an MGA roadster years ago, great fun.

79MakoL82

Had a similar thing happen, but not in my Vette and I don't think what happend to me could have happened to you. Way back when, before I was married, I was driving my wife's Vega. All of the sudden, the car started going crazy. Pulled over to the side and looked under the car, and the weld for the Lower Control Arm on ther rear had broken away from the sub-frame. Car was undriveable after that. I'm sure that if your trailing arm had broken free, you could not have driven home.

Chuck Harmon

VolVette,

Did the rpm's change when it did this? Were you accelerating at the time? Did the car spin out into the other lane, or did the front and back slide equally together?

I have found Vettes to pretty good on ice as long as you are very careful with the throttle. The weight distribution is virtually equal. Would a driver want anything different on ice? The posi only kicks in after one wheel starts spinning. The change in rpm caused by the spinning tire gives good warning. The car is not usually so quiet that this is not heard even if its not felt.

I am very glad that nobody got hurt and that no body panels were spoiled! Unsuspecting ice really gets adrenalin pumping. But I don’t think another car would have done any better, perhaps worse!

Chuck

73Ken73

Have you had a 4 wheel alignment ? Rear camber can make the car switch lanes on uneven road surfaces. Slippery roads may make it worse.

VolVette

Chuck,

No, the RPM's didn't change when this happened. I was cruising along smoothly. It almost felt as though the tires were caught in a rut and I was pushed to the other side of the road. I did not spin out onto the road, but the whole car very quickly slid to the other side. Maybe I need to get another 4-wheel alignment as is suggested above.

Stephen

vert2go89

years ago I had a triumph tr250 with independent suspension and wow it was something else to drive on snow.One second to next you would swap lanes with the snap of a finger.

TedH

Sounds like loose ball joint(s). If the camber/caster changed dramatically, you would be turning/swapping lanes without intending to. If you can, jack front wheels up off ground and see if you have looseness side-to-side or top-to-bottom. May want to try with rear of car also.

I also 'pulled an 180' in my posi-rear '71 Nova when passing a buddy on a snowy road way back when I was in High School (about 20 years ago!). Nothing like loosing control, sliding around (my rear swung out to the left and around) next to another car and then slipping (to the left) into the ditch and having the car's nose pointing back to where I had just come. Lucky that I also didn't have on-coming traffic or I would have had more than a snowdrift to be pushed out of or extracted from. I gained a real respect for those road conditions. :eek:


[Modified by TedH, 1:37 PM 1/22/2002]

R. Bruno

Black Ice. No warning, road just looks wet and suddenly total loss of control. I went head on with another car around a very soft turn at about 40 miles an hour under similar conditions.

Chuck Harmon

VolVette,

The feeling you describe sound like ice. One of the most helpless feelings in the world! Very similar to hydro-planing with wide tires on wet pavement which was my first (not the last) experience of utter helplessness in a car.

Now living in San Jose for the past 10 years I'm sure I've lost a great deal of my finely honed nasty weather driving skills I acquired while living in Colorado. We would chuckle more than a little at the site of Texans in Dallas on the national news when they would get ice on their roads. They just didn't know what to do. We got ice like that several time a week! Northerner's marvel at how little snow and ice can bring a whole southern city to a halt. Now I am probably in the same boat as the poor Texan's that we used to joke about!

Chuck