Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General General My car and a snow bank

Originally posted by Figols:

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...if you're spinning out with a front wheel drive you point the steering wheel in the direction you want to go and give it some gas. Most of the time you can pull out of it.

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We're talking winter driving here, right? If you've already lost traction on snow/ice and are sliding, the front tires aren't going to magically gain traction when you "give it some gas" with the wheels pointing in the direction you want to go.

Look at it this way... If you're rounding a tight corner on a snowy road in your FWD car and you gas it enough to break the tires loose, will your yaw rate increase? Not hardly. Once the front tires break loose you lose your cornering force, and the nose of the car plows straight (massive understeer) until you get the front tires rolling instead of sliding again. On a dry road, the coefficient of sliding friction is high enough that you might luck out and slow down enough to regain some directional control before going off the cliff, but again, we're talking about winter driving here.

The lesson? Once you break loose in a corner, cranking the steering wheel farther into the desired turn won't do a whole lot of good on the white stuff. If anything, try straightening out the wheel to get the fronts rolling again, and then try to re-establish your turn. Of course, if you were going fast enough to get in big trouble on the snow in the first place, you're probably already burined in the snowbank by then.