Close call HDJ 100

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Joined
Jul 30, 2009
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Just wanted to share a recent experience. Almost crashed the car. It is a 98 HDJ 100, tires 9 year old BFG with enough thread left. Tank was near empty, all stock, no cargo and only myself driving.

Conditions: a lot of rain had occured in the past couple of hours. You had streams of water going through the road.

Road: road is twisiting with turns on a 15% descent. Pretty steep. Thankfully at that point the road is going from 1 lane each way to 2 lanes going up (allowing for slower vehicles going up). So plenty of space.

What happend:because of the relatively steep descent, i was lightly on the brakes throught that part of road to compensate for gravity. As I got into the last left hander, I felt the rear starting to come away from me. I tried some opposite lock but the pendulum effect was too strong. At that point I decided i should simply slam on the brakes and hope for the best. Car executed 150 degree oversteer. I ended up in the middle of the road (e.g fast lane going up) thankfully due to the very bad weather, traffic was light and I could swing myself around and get to destination without further drama.

My analysis:
Key factors to contribute to oversteer: very light rear, forward weight transfer due to braking making things worse. Probably less that optimal wet grip due to age of tires.

Had I been brave enough I should have released the brakes when applying opposite lock to get more weight on the back. The problem was the guardrail was somewhat near on my right and didn’t have that much margin. Given lack of oncoming traffic, oversteering was probably the least risky option.

Traction control would have helped. 98 don’t have it. I will get the tires changed in the winter. Still love my car and feel that we had an extra ‘adventure’ together. Have owned the car for 15 years+ now. Just wanted to share because the combination of factors do make the otherwise fantastic truck quite handful.
 
Just wanted to share a recent experience. Almost crashed the car. It is a 98 HDJ 100, tires 9 year old BFG with enough thread left. Tank was near empty, all stock, no cargo and only myself driving.

Conditions: a lot of rain had occured in the past couple of hours. You had streams of water going through the road.

Road: road is twisiting with turns on a 15% descent. Pretty steep. Thankfully at that point the road is going from 1 lane each way to 2 lanes going up (allowing for slower vehicles going up). So plenty of space.

What happend:because of the relatively steep descent, i was lightly on the brakes throught that part of road to compensate for gravity. As I got into the last left hander, I felt the rear starting to come away from me. I tried some opposite lock but the pendulum effect was too strong. At that point I decided i should simply slam on the brakes and hope for the best. Car executed 150 degree oversteer. I ended up in the middle of the road (e.g fast lane going up) thankfully due to the very bad weather, traffic was light and I could swing myself around and get to destination without further drama.

My analysis:
Key factors to contribute to oversteer: very light rear, forward weight transfer due to braking making things worse. Probably less that optimal wet grip due to age of tires.

Had I been brave enough I should have released the brakes when applying opposite lock to get more weight on the back. The problem was the guardrail was somewhat near on my right and didn’t have that much margin. Given lack of oncoming traffic, oversteering was probably the least risky option.

Traction control would have helped. 98 don’t have it. I will get the tires changed in the winter. Still love my car and feel that we had an extra ‘adventure’ together. Have owned the car for 15 years+ now. Just wanted to share because the combination of factors do make the otherwise fantastic truck quite handful.
If you can downshift and let the engine and transmission control your speed instead of brakes, that also lessons the chances of losing traction and hydroplaning.
 
Tires:
Whereas; Hard, stiff knobby tires and great off road. They're very pour handle on snow, ice or wet roads. Adjust speed accordingly.

Some, of the Rules of the road!
  1. Always use engine braking, to control downhill speed. Brakes are for stopping!
  2. Slow speed for road condition. Speed limit is for clear, dry, good visibility (perfect road condition).
  3. Always anticipate the road ahead, down shifting and slowing to safe speed before the hills and curves.
  4. Do not tailgate: Give 1 car length, plus an additional car length for every 10 MPH of speed (70 MPH, 8 car lengths). Always give extra distance from traffic ahead, in less than perfect road condition
  5. Do not brake in turns. It's safer to hold speed, or accelerated (dry road condition only) in turns
  6. Do not change momentum, on very slippery condition (ICE or hydroplaning). Which means, you can't even move your foot on the gas pedal. You must hold RPM/speed steady. Just moving foot OFF or ON the gas pedal a little, can put you in a spin, on sheet ice.

Personally, I keep two set of tires mounted on two sets of wheels, for fast swaps. One set I used daily city/HWY, that are nice an soft M&S all seasons. The other set; big badass, knobby, hard stiff for the rocks of off-roading.
 
Just wanted to share a recent experience. Almost crashed the car. It is a 98 HDJ 100, tires 9 year old BFG with enough thread left. Tank was near empty, all stock, no cargo and only myself driving.

Conditions: a lot of rain had occured in the past couple of hours. You had streams of water going through the road.

Road: road is twisiting with turns on a 15% descent. Pretty steep. Thankfully at that point the road is going from 1 lane each way to 2 lanes going up (allowing for slower vehicles going up). So plenty of space.

What happend:because of the relatively steep descent, i was lightly on the brakes throught that part of road to compensate for gravity. As I got into the last left hander, I felt the rear starting to come away from me. I tried some opposite lock but the pendulum effect was too strong. At that point I decided i should simply slam on the brakes and hope for the best. Car executed 150 degree oversteer. I ended up in the middle of the road (e.g fast lane going up) thankfully due to the very bad weather, traffic was light and I could swing myself around and get to destination without further drama.

My analysis:
Key factors to contribute to oversteer: very light rear, forward weight transfer due to braking making things worse. Probably less that optimal wet grip due to age of tires.

Had I been brave enough I should have released the brakes when applying opposite lock to get more weight on the back. The problem was the guardrail was somewhat near on my right and didn’t have that much margin. Given lack of oncoming traffic, oversteering was probably the least risky option.

Traction control would have helped. 98 don’t have it. I will get the tires changed in the winter. Still love my car and feel that we had an extra ‘adventure’ together. Have owned the car for 15 years+ now. Just wanted to share because the combination of factors do make the otherwise fantastic truck quite handful.
That's a doozie for sure, bet you needed some clean underwear after that.

Nice lessons learned for sure. Engine braking is helpful / a must on steep slippery roads, along with not braking in turns. I had a motorcycle teacher say a while back, if you are braking in a turn you did something wrong in your approach. The vehicles are big and heavy and it's hard to watch new modern SUVs zip by like sports cars as we just slug around with caution.

I agree that stability control would have definitely saved your shorts....I love my VSC and anyone who says its a dumb system is probably an old grumpy bastard lol....... It's kicked in a few milliseconds before my reactions have, many times if I was going just a bit too fast for the conditions, and helped me get back under control with confidence....... It's pretty impressive when testing it on ice roads, you can even feel it modulate the brakes and straighten the truck back out.

Glad to hear you didn't roll it, I saw an older cruiser in the ditch on it's side last winter from an over correction.
 
When I pick tires, I always select tires with wide grooves (where I can insert my little finget at least) on the shoulder belt. This is the area where tire dissipate water to the sides to get a better grip.
 

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