Scary moment - advice please

[Liz_374359797]

Coming back from West Wales in bad weather last week I came upon an unexpectedly steep hill, so couldn't 'pace myself' up it. The car (an Astra petrol auto) was quickly labouring in 2nd gear, and changing to first pushed the revs up, but made the car seem really unstable and slippery on the road. It was impossible to get to any kind of steady pull, but I got to the top somehow.

This was my sixth trip with the caravan and I have checked the tyre pressures and pack following advice from the forum, the CC etc. The caravan is a Freedom and only weighs 750 kg, so isn't anywhere near 85%, even for the not very wonderful towcar. I've driven autos for about 10 years so do know how to change gear and so on, and drive them efficiently.

I would really appreciate any advice or ideas about what went wrong and how I can avoid it happening again. It was horrible!

Lz

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Liz, it is difficult to be accurate as we do not have the car or circumstances to check against.

With any issue relating to safety, it is far better to have the suspect equiepement checked out by a suitably qualified person, rather than relying on information offered on a web site like this.

Howevre, as you report the weather was poor, I assume you mean wet. It is a well documented fact that rain on a road after a longish dry spell can make the surface very slippery. The condition is due to the amount of tyre rubber that collects on the road during the dry spell, and when the first rain water falls it lubricates the rubber residue which becomes very slippery. On most well used roads the residue is washed away over a couple of days, but on low usage routes, it can remain for several days.

There are three other connected factors that might be significant. the first is it was a steep hill, and the Astra is a front wheel drive car. all front wheel drive cars have a attendency to scrabble when negotiateing steep up hill sections. It will also be significant that it was towing, so it has the additional mass of the caravan, and the caravan nose weight will also detract from the cars ability to put the power onto the road through the front wheels.

The condition of the tyres is also very important badly or well worn treads make a substantial reduction in available traction in wet weather.

All in all I am not entirely surprised at your experience. On the face of it there is probably nothing wrong with the car, but if you are still concerned, there is no substitute for having the car checked by your garage.

is coupled to it being a steep hill

 

[Lutz]

Yes, I would go along with what John has said. Probabyl nothing wrong with the car, just the adverse overall conditions that prevailed at the time.

 

[Steve L]

One thing has crossed my mind Liz.

Are you running on whats known as budget tyres? In other words the cheapest ones.

I had this problem once with one of my cars, it had some nankang tyres on the front wheels (front wheel drive like yours), in the wet they were hopeless and lost grip very quickly. But due to the hard compound of the tyre they wore down very slowly giving thousands of miles on the ones on the back of the car. Because of the poor grip I changed to Hankook tyres and these have been superb both in the wet and dry and with or without the caravan.

Another cause of poor tyre performance could be the treaad depth. If yours are getting close to 1.6mm of tread then in the wet the water doesn't have as much chance to escape from the tyre and causes aquaplaning.

For the sake of about

 

[Liz_374359797]

Duh...problem solved. New (good quality) tyres have been added to the list of jobs for this week. You are all dead right - the tyres are getting close to the 1.6mm limit, and I did know that, and had it on the list of tasks for 'soon'. In truth, I'm not very mechanically minded and I just didn't join the dots. No excuses. Many thanks.

 

[David_from_Ashby]

In my experience with tyres (testing them professionally) there is a reason why good quality tyres are expensive, its because they are generally considerably better than cheap tyres. Perhaps not much of a consequence for a small town runabout (apart from stopping distances) but for towing where stability is everything, a better quality tyre will be considerably safer than a budget tyre.

On a preference rating, Michelin rank first (by a wide margin), followed by a cluster of continental, pirelli, goodyear, etc and then you get Hankook being not bad for the price (and improving) followed by the budget brands trailing by a long way.

You pay your money and take your choice. Personally, I pay top money and get the best.

FWIW

David

 

[Lutz]

It all depends on what you call good. Michelins are no doubt a quality tyre, but they don't always rate top in all performance categories. Others are sometimes better with respect to wear, braking performance or roadholding. There is no such thing as a tyre which is perfect in everything.

I presume that you mean Michelins rate top in lack of defects.

 

[Chaps]

Hope your new tyres solve your problem Liz. Something I'll keep an eye on with our outfit.

Claire

Fellow girl who tows

(was going to put girl-tower but didn't look or sound right!)

 

[Liz_374359797]

I have today ordered two new Pirelli tyres at great expense to the management!