Holy god... Atleast youre ok man. Im already in a similar situation, its still a good thing we can walk away from it.

 

most of you guys had talk about the car having the vdim on or how safe the IS
is on wet roads but have you guys noticed that he didn't had the oem tires?? He was using toyo tires!!, I don't know much about this tires but maybe this tires suck on wet floors??? maybe this tires don't handle well on water, and this is what caused him to lost control?

 

Hydroplaning usually occurs at 9 times the squareroot of the tire pressure (almost like clockwork) So if tire pressure is 36 for easy math that would be 9X6 or 54mph. That being said, turns may make a car hydroplane earlier. But for you out there worried about rain if you drive at 55 or under (especially on the interstate with no real turns) youre going to be in pretty good shape.

 

OR you could take your foot off the gas pedal, and utilize awd to regain control sooner than you would without. nah, on second thought, just keep counter-steering and gassin' it

so, is that the whole equation? 9 X tp² + any amt. (i.e. one drop) of water?

let's not forget most residential streets are crested whereas most freeways are not

 

In what depth of water with what tread pattern? I've driven far faster than this in the rain with full control even in my Supra (with wider tires and a lighter car). This statement does not coincide with my empirical experience on many different cars with many different tires.

The formula you used is for small plane pilots and gives results in knots, not mph. 54 knots is 62 mph. This formula also does not take into account size and shape of the contact patch. It may be a good RoT for light aircraft pilots, but it doesn't directly transfer to automobiles.

 

I said stay under 55 and you should be ok, so i was being a little conservative with 55, maybe its more like 63. The actual number is like 10.27 times the square root of tire pressure or something like that. Anyway yes it does matter how deep the water is, and yes it does matter how wide your tires are, but for all pratical purposes under 55 and you should be ok in most rain situations. Obviously its a rule of thumb and there are exceptions, but any tire youre putting on an is from 225 to 275 isnt going to change the speed that much. If you start putting 345s, drag slicks or motorcycle tires on then maybe you should recalculate your speeds. Just simply trying to help those out that dont realize that the speed at which you hydroplane is a function of tire pressure, the concept is not just for small aircraft it DOES in fact transfer to automobiles , you just have to use the correct formula .