bobadams69

I was nearly killed today when my 2004 Lexus SC 430 did a tailspin at 40 mph on a straight, but wet road surface. The tires on the vehicle were fine -- plenty of tread. Odd as it may sound, I was simply driving when the backend of the car did a tail spin. Within a nanosecond the car was immediately out of control. I hit an embankment and flipped and rolled the vehicle several times. I'm very lucky to be alive.

All of this being said, something is not right here. Cars just don't randomly spin out of control under normal driving conditions. I wasn't hard-breaking or hard-accelaratinng -- just driving on a generally straight asphalt road at proper speed.

Has anyone heard of this happening before, or could you give me any guidance/thoughts? The car is totaled and I'm alive. But I don't understand why/what the heck happened.

KingReyes

Tires. There is no way this car can 'spin out of control' if it wasn't either being driven aggressively with the VSC OFF and or when the tires are bald. Suspension in this system is designed to understeer and even with coilovers - you have to set it up specifically for it to oversteer.
Sometimes you have to admit you're at fault. Good thing is that you're alive.

lexixel

Maybe something locked a wheel? Like a steel pipe?

Normally this car doesn't have the power to do that with or without vsc

ShawnOk

iTrader: (1)

Wow. glad you are alive and OK. Sorry to hear about the car. That's the worst SC430 incident I've ever heard. Unfortunately, the symptoms leading up to the accident sounds like a tire issue to me. I've had many close calls when my tires were either bald or lost traction in heavy downpour/hydroplane/snow. Fortunately, the Electronic Traction Control always saved my butt. Did you hear any traction tones from the system or feel any "ratcheting" in the accelartion pedals? Please let us know what is determined to be the fault and even more so the process of what insurance determines. So sorry for your loss. When you're ready some photos would help us to get an idea of the damage. Things may look bad right now, but stay positive. You didn't lose anything that can't be replaced.

Jabberwock

I can't think of any situation that would cause a car to suddenly swap ends on a straight road (even wet) without a serious and very sudden hard pull on the steering wheel, or maybe by locking on the brakes with VSC and ABS not functioning. Simple physics dictates that a car traveling in a straight line will continue in the straight line unless disturbed by some significant lateral acceleration force. Maybe you had a catastrophic tie rod or other front suspension part totally fail causing one or both front wheels to suddenly go full turn?

DshngDaryl

Hey Bob, glad to hear you are alive. Your question is intriguing. If everything was 100% normal, then of course your spin sounds incredible.

Was there anything out of the ordinary? Had you noticed anything quirky going on with your car beforehand? Any lights or codes that you know of?

Is there any chance you hit an oil slick floating on the rain water causing your car to start to spin out? In you attempt to regain control could you have over compensated? I did that once. I had a corvette that stuck to the ground so well. I could swerve around anything at any speed and be ok. But one day I was driving my Mercedes SLK320 which is much lighter. When I swerved to avoid a bedliner in the highway the car started to spin when I jerked it back into it's lane. next thing you know I'm spinning in a circle and ended up totaling the car after hitting the median.

So back to the original question. Notice anything out of the ordinary prior to the accident?

GmanSC

It must be an oil slick. It's happened to me once, my 07 Corolla just spin for no reason when I was making the left turn on the green light. Fortunately I was able to gain control of the vehicle and drove to safety.

hankinla

oil slick?
no matter, you're ok! what a story. Flipped? Wow. Pics of the damaged SC?

BCT

OP first post is that he totaled his car... that... sucks...

My guess would be tires, like a blowout or hitting an object on the road, or tie rod or upper/lower control arm ball joint that separated which would cause the wheel to turn. I am in the middle of replacing both outer tie rod (boots are ripped), and one upper control arm (ball joint making serious clunking noise). Our SC are getting old. Rubber and suspension parts do wear out do to age and miles.

Bgw70

an amazingly violent accident at 40mph...so glad you were not doing 80mph when this happened!

it almost sounds like you would need to go over a cliff to flip and roll several times at 40mph...

just amazing...did you experience any injuries?

mandyfig

Is the insurance company doing an investigation? Am sure the loss department has a few questions, unanswered.

Prasha

Are you killed or live? 4 days now after your 1st post about deadly accident, no show....we are worried if the 2nd accident killed you?

Bgw70

i too am very concerned the 40mph multiple rollover crash may have had serious complications and the OP is will not be able to make his second post!
it happens from time to time here on CL, but we must respect them all...

Jabberwock

40 mph is plenty of speed to go sideways and roll multiple times given the right set of circumstances but it would take some serious action to make it happen. I do hope the OP comes back to share more specific information.
Haven't seen a post like this ever on the SC430 forum. Could be something we need to pay attention to, or it could be a one-off operator error unique event.

Teal Sc400

First ? Have u ever had the Trac warning light codes, if yes possible ECU failures. Another possibility is the sliding drivers floor mat interfering, with the break pedal. Lexus/Toyota models had recalls and can cause accidents. These of course are just my assumptions and glad to hear u survived a horrific car accident.