First Seattle rain.. car handles like a death trap!
09-16-07, 10:46 PM
#1
Lexus Champion
Thread Starter
First Seattle rain.. car handles like a death trap!
Oh man, I think some of you know that I just recently moved to Seattle from CA.. its been about a week, and I just started work etc.
Today the first rain came around, and I was driving in the city and.. the car literally handled worse than I have EVER known it to.
1) When driving up a hill, I literally had zero traction. Even slight throttle would kick the tires, and the car was sliding all over the place. I was able to correct it and keep her in a straight line, but it was a scary 30 seconds.
2) When braking, the ABS kicked in almost 90% of the time. 90%! Thats ridiculous! It was barely raining! I used engine braking for EVERY stop, and I don't want to keep doing that. (Atleast I know my ABS works
)
The odd thing? While making turns, I had PRETTY good traction.. actually, when making left and right turns was when I felt the most confident in the car!
I've got some Yokohama Avid V4s and they only have about 20K on them. I bought them in the summer of last year... so. I don't believe that I need new tires this quickly.
Also, did I mention that it was BARELY raining? I mean as far as CA was considered, this is what we would call "light showers" or maybe "medium showers" at best.
I remember last winter in CA, when it was raining cats and dogs.. the LS handled like a champ. Granted the rear end would tend to kick out when making turns, but it was usually pretty predictable, and I had few straight-line problems.
So do I need to buy a set of dedicated winter tires, or what? I shouldn't need to! I'll try to take a pic of my tread tomorrow when its light outside.
Today the first rain came around, and I was driving in the city and.. the car literally handled worse than I have EVER known it to.
1) When driving up a hill, I literally had zero traction. Even slight throttle would kick the tires, and the car was sliding all over the place. I was able to correct it and keep her in a straight line, but it was a scary 30 seconds.
2) When braking, the ABS kicked in almost 90% of the time. 90%! Thats ridiculous! It was barely raining! I used engine braking for EVERY stop, and I don't want to keep doing that. (Atleast I know my ABS works
)The odd thing? While making turns, I had PRETTY good traction.. actually, when making left and right turns was when I felt the most confident in the car!
I've got some Yokohama Avid V4s and they only have about 20K on them. I bought them in the summer of last year... so. I don't believe that I need new tires this quickly.
Also, did I mention that it was BARELY raining? I mean as far as CA was considered, this is what we would call "light showers" or maybe "medium showers" at best.
I remember last winter in CA, when it was raining cats and dogs.. the LS handled like a champ. Granted the rear end would tend to kick out when making turns, but it was usually pretty predictable, and I had few straight-line problems.
So do I need to buy a set of dedicated winter tires, or what? I shouldn't need to! I'll try to take a pic of my tread tomorrow when its light outside.
09-16-07, 11:03 PM
#2
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I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Usually the first rain after some good weather makes for some slippery roads around here but as we move into our rain season as long as you have sufficient tread depth and keep your speeds down so you don't aquaplane you should be fine.
Pat
Usually the first rain after some good weather makes for some slippery roads around here but as we move into our rain season as long as you have sufficient tread depth and keep your speeds down so you don't aquaplane you should be fine.
Pat
09-17-07, 08:34 AM
#5
Hi Suneet, welcome to Seattle, I also just moved here a few months ago myself. I wouldn’t go by what you experienced today because as mentioned this is the first rain we’ve had in sometime and it will be pretty bad. Although not as bad as you noted, I did encounter several spots where I was just spinning tires with the lightest of throttle. I have new Michelin Destiny on mine just for reference.
09-17-07, 12:07 PM
#6
Lexus Test Driver
Winter tires and rain tires have 2 entirely different goals in mind, so although you might need winter tires where you are, they won't solve this issue. A proper rain tire is going to be hydrophobic whereas a good snow tire will be hydrophilic. I was able to find the Avid V4S online, but not the V4- Did you mean the V4S? The V4S received good ratings for wet traction from consumers at tirerack.com, so your tires should be fine. Could it be possible that your tires came in contact with something, such as oil? See how it drives the next time it rains, maybe on a different stretch of road too, to try to pinpoint the problem.
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09-17-07, 07:54 PM
#8
Oh man, I think some of you know that I just recently moved to Seattle from CA.. its been about a week, and I just started work etc.
Today the first rain came around, and I was driving in the city and.. the car literally handled worse than I have EVER known it to.
1) When driving up a hill, I literally had zero traction. Even slight throttle would kick the tires, and the car was sliding all over the place. I was able to correct it and keep her in a straight line, but it was a scary 30 seconds.
2) When braking, the ABS kicked in almost 90% of the time. 90%! Thats ridiculous! It was barely raining! I used engine braking for EVERY stop, and I don't want to keep doing that. (Atleast I know my ABS works )
The odd thing? While making turns, I had PRETTY good traction.. actually, when making left and right turns was when I felt the most confident in the car!
I've got some Yokohama Avid V4s and they only have about 20K on them. I bought them in the summer of last year... so. I don't believe that I need new tires this quickly.
Also, did I mention that it was BARELY raining? I mean as far as CA was considered, this is what we would call "light showers" or maybe "medium showers" at best.
I remember last winter in CA, when it was raining cats and dogs.. the LS handled like a champ. Granted the rear end would tend to kick out when making turns, but it was usually pretty predictable, and I had few straight-line problems.
So do I need to buy a set of dedicated winter tires, or what? I shouldn't need to! I'll try to take a pic of my tread tomorrow when its light outside.
Today the first rain came around, and I was driving in the city and.. the car literally handled worse than I have EVER known it to.
1) When driving up a hill, I literally had zero traction. Even slight throttle would kick the tires, and the car was sliding all over the place. I was able to correct it and keep her in a straight line, but it was a scary 30 seconds.
2) When braking, the ABS kicked in almost 90% of the time. 90%! Thats ridiculous! It was barely raining! I used engine braking for EVERY stop, and I don't want to keep doing that. (Atleast I know my ABS works
)The odd thing? While making turns, I had PRETTY good traction.. actually, when making left and right turns was when I felt the most confident in the car!
I've got some Yokohama Avid V4s and they only have about 20K on them. I bought them in the summer of last year... so. I don't believe that I need new tires this quickly.
Also, did I mention that it was BARELY raining? I mean as far as CA was considered, this is what we would call "light showers" or maybe "medium showers" at best.
I remember last winter in CA, when it was raining cats and dogs.. the LS handled like a champ. Granted the rear end would tend to kick out when making turns, but it was usually pretty predictable, and I had few straight-line problems.
So do I need to buy a set of dedicated winter tires, or what? I shouldn't need to! I'll try to take a pic of my tread tomorrow when its light outside.
I hate Seattle. If one things for sure, people drive worse when it rains. They're a little bit better than people here in CA (who slam on their brakes at the first inkling of precipitation), but overall, very bad driving skills.
Yea, the rain is probably dragging out all that surface oil.
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