Daily Mail - 'Shocking moment' driver overtakes some cars
- Thread starter tiggers
- Start date
Ouchy. That's going to smart.
It seems to be a common size so the manufacturers get decent run lengths and economies of scale. We all like long run lengths. The bizarre thing is that once standard sizes, the 145-12s, 165-13s and 185-14s of the world, are hard to find and more expensive.
Oh it did. Cheap tyres are a false economy IME
If you are doing this just check the owners' handbook to make sure that that the size you fit is a standard one approved for that model. The last thing that you want is some sharp-eyed insurance assessor saying "oh dear, undeclared modification" and nixing a claim.
As ever it depends. The cheapest tyres can be pretty poor, but equally it's rather silly to put a Carlos Fandango Racing model on my spare when £50 gets you an "Event" that's round black and boring, does a perfectly adequate job, far better than a runflat or a wheelbarrow job, and gets you home on the 2 occasions that you may need it.
If you are so concerned about the ultimate tyre performance, I think that the money is better spent on some used rims and winter tyres to get you through Nov-Mar. I'd put money on cheap winter tyres outperforming Michelin PSS or whatever when you have to brake on a shady, slimy bend one frosty winter's morning. After all, everything grips in the dry. Nobody sane ever approaches the limits of a tyre on a public road on a sunny afternoon.
G
Guest432
Guest
Yes, I agree re winter. Better tyres tend to last a bit longer but BMW often use odd sizes to lock you in to certain brands. It's all a racket!
I keep meaning to do this. Having talked earlier about my Caterham driving pal who wanted mechanical upgrades but "didn't think he needed" driver training, I'm as guilty as anyone else of thinking of my driving as at least adequate and generally better than average, having had precisely no driver training beyond a speed awareness course last year and driving lessons in 1984. I know that my ability to control a car that's going sideways in wet or icy conditions isn't brilliant, yet in 35 years of driving I've never attempted to do anything about it.
Andrew C!
Been around a while....
I did two days of skid pan training on my advanced police driver training (traffic) course. Amazing piece of kit. It was a Mondeo fitted into a jig, that the instructor could activate various parameters at any time.
Very useful also as i went from driving Escorts to Subaru's, Cosworth Sierras and Senators!
I've seen those skid training jigs on the TV, they look very effective. The trainee is bowling along at say 30 and the instructor just steers the rear wheel s. Instant skid. I've even seen them crabbing down the road until the instructor decides that the thing is going the other way. Later they really decided to show off and the instructor was using the steering rear wheel s to throw the car all over the airfield with a no doubt expert driver spinning the wheel all over the place to try and keep it off the grass.
sean99
pfm Member
I got to drive on a skid pad in a police car and an HGV, both of which had the ability to defeat the ABS. It was a good advertisement for why all vehicles should be fitted with ABS.
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
Most modern cars, as standard, will be pretty boring on a skid pan. The ESP or whatever your manufacturer wants to call it will prevent most acts of mischief, even when you think it’s all turned off.
Andrew C!
Been around a while....
Too many folk rely on the technology, rather than understand the vehicle better. Even with ABS some skids are not recoverable.
Tony Lockhart
Avoiding Stress, at Every Opportunity
I’m not on about abs. ESP prevents, as best it can, drivers getting into trouble in the first place.
If your car has a button to turn esp off, and you enjoy a spirited drive, the difference in the feel of the car can be quite a surprise. But in the common hatchbacks and saloons, drivers might never realise how much the car is looking after them, and how much of a driving hero they ain’t!
Swamp Thing
Remainiac Terrorist
I have this, but it is set that the first time I really hammer the brakes it turns back on. Quite a good compromise.
Working in Logistics I used to get invited to a lot of driver type activities as many of my contemporaries were ex-professional drivers (HGV for example) and it was an industry thing. I remember the skid training jigs. They really did mange good copies of ice and standing water. My favourite was "shopping trolley" where any movement in any direction had to be instantly corrected by a movement not quite but almost in the opposite direction. It was sort of like continually tacking a boat, or approximating a straight line with a series of short curves - with at any time the risk of spinning around. I rather smugly mastered it, and then was asked to do it on a very shallow slope. Brain could not cope. All over the place.
My absolute favourite one was a concrete oval covered in oil (probably illegal now) on which if you deftly moved from lock to opposite lock you could get a car to drift around perfectly - and that was the only way to do it. Unless you were the current UK's HGV driving champion. He managed to do it backwards. He was just weirdly spatially gifted. He once put a 14m trailer through a convoluted reverse in one go that took me three goes to get right in an Audi A3.
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I once worked at a dairy where they employed a "shunter" . He was the only HGV driver I've ever met who never left site. He came to work every day at the dairy and moved trailers about until it was time to go home. Needless to say, he could put a steering bogey trailer on a 15 tonne wagon into a bicycle parking space. I was once in the transport office when the manager asked him to put Trailer 5 on Bay 8, please. "Oh Christ" came the reply , "that's a bastard, the hardest trailer on the tightest bay. Why do you always give it to me?" The reply came back " because you're the only driver we've got here that can do it! "