roadholding in the wet.

[kelsham]

I had a disturbing experience when returning to Mid Wales from the North East of England.
The car had behaved perfectly until I exited a roundabout near Oswestry. as I gently applied power, it fishtailed violently from side to side. Fortunately missing a car on my right side.
It was very disturbing and made me question the cars roadholding ability.

All the tyres are less than two years old and are Pirelli 400s all correctly inflated when checked. Radius arms in good condition. The only possibility is that some diesel had been spilt on the road, there was a garage just off the roundabout.
When I had my Pre-He I had something similar happen in the rain. This was a roundabout in Southampton. I had put my foot down hard on that occasion and blamed myself. The slide was much less alarming. Any comments welcomed. ]

[supersnipe1979]

Hi Kelsham,
I replaced the tyres on my 3.6 XJS with Pirelli 400's and had exactly the same problem. The road holding of these tyres appears to be really poor, especially in the wet. The P 6000's I replaced were far superior.
Supersnipe

[ptjs1]

I suspect that that are so many contributory factors to roadholding that it's difficult to really blame the tyres.

Springs, shocks, radius arm bushes, wheel bearings , axle mount bushes, front wishbone bushes, all of these will eventually have degrees of wear which will influence the roadholding of the car. How many of us can really say that all of our suspension components and bushes are really perfect.

These days, I believe that there are no really bad tyres. If you have good tyres with reasonable tread, I think that one would look elsewhere for handling problems. I've taken my car on track on Pirelli P4000s in extreme wet and I had to be really silly before I found the limits of adhesion.

Paul

[kelsham]

Thanks for your replies.Since writing for others experiences, I have found out that the roundabout where I lost control is notorious for diesel spills from the nearby garage. I have spoken to someone who spun a Ford three times at the same spot.
Secondly I have just returned from a M.O.T. test which I passed, or rather the car did. I mentioned the incident to the tester. He suggested that the rear shockabsorbers were a little weak. I am wondering whether to shell out for the Gaz shocker which is much more expensive, any ideas here?

[brod]

hi,

i've got the gaz adjustable shocks on all 4 corners now and think they are great. i'm enjoying tweaking them over time to find my optimum setup. i'm also trying out a set of 17 inch wheels off a 97 xjr at the moment. the newer wheels gives a lot more options for tyres. i'm running on a set of toyo proxys. i've noticed quite an improvement in lateral stability and the steering feels nicely direct without feeling twitchy. i'd absolutely recommend this setup.

brod