Possible to force car to fishtail/oversteer?

I was driving on an off ramp last week with wet roads and no cars were behind me or ahead of me. I took the turn faster than I should (deliberate of course) as I wanted to see if the stability control would kick in. It kicked in and actually stayed on for a few seconds (it makes a sound that sounds like a low pitched beep...beep...beep). The car held steady around the curve and the stability control did its job. Keep in mind that there is a point where this safety feature will NOT save you if you go over a certain threshold. I certainly do not want to test its limits but it works great for times where I like to take a turn a little faster in the white stuff.

 

Oversteer is hard in a fwd car even without TC unless your rear tires are in terrible shape.

 

Well the system will not stop the car from over/under steering. But it will make a best effort at self preservation and try and keep itself on the road by applying opposite braking (maybe steer assist - not sure) and beep like mad to let you know it's upset.

 

Both my Gen 2 Prius's oversteer. Due to battery weight in back. Once those battries/back end start to rotate, tough to control. Add some ski gear or other heavy luggage and the issue gets worse. Always run 2-4lbs more in fronts to increase understeer. 99% of all cars sold to public understeer. this is because a twitchy oversteering car is a bitxh to control.

 

Hokay! I can actually answer this one.

This last December, right after I bought my 2010 Model III, it snowed about 5 inches. I looked at my learner's-permit daughter, said, "You are coming with Me!" and dragged her and the car out to a large (several acres), snow-covered, slippery parking lot that early Saturday morning for skidding practice.

After a couple of whacks myself, switched places and had her skid the car all over the place. Had her steer funny, hit brakes, gas it, and then do as many at those at once as possible, then recover the car each time. After she was done, got back in there and tried some more fun myself. (The time to learn how to countersteer is not just before an accident.)

Results:

1. VSC kicks on early when the wheels start skidding.
2. I tried to make the car do a donut. Fat chance.
3. Making the rear end swing like a pendulum was very, very difficult. I don't think I managed to make it happen.
4. Basically, at 40 mph, you could make the car go sideways some by keeping on the gas and steering hard to the right or left. But the moment you got off the gas, relaxed the steering, or hit the brakes the car would simply straighten out and fly right.
5. Hitting the brakes, no matter what you were doing, stopped the car. Fast.
6. Countersteering would stop a skid. So would practically everything else.

I think you can do a 4-wheel drift in the snow around a corner with this car, but it wouldn't be as easy doing it as was my old 2002 Civic or even older 1971 Beetle. I haven't had the car on glare ice where it can be really difficult going in a straight line, but I suspect it would do a better job than the old 1982 Datsun which put me into the weeds that way one cold day. (Actually, I did get the car straightened out. It was the guy in the lane to my right that then got the wobblies, hit my right rear, which then put me into the weeds. Or snow bank, whatever.)

I suppose a pro driver could make this car do some fancy donuts, or maybe a truly ice-covered lake would do the same, but that VSC has some bite.

KBeck

 

Looks like the only way to purposely create oversteer is to sufficiently strengthen the chassis and suspension to overpower the effects of VSC. As many have pointed out most mass production cars intentionally understeer. A sufficiently rigid chassis/suspension would create neutral steering, and an overly rigid chassis/suspension could more easily produce oversteer.

 

Good point! Remember not to get too over exuberent in testing out the Traction Control, neither a driver or Traction can overcome the Laws of Physics!

David (aka Blind Guy)

 

Random comment -

Not sure why you'd want to know this...

 

All I get is 4 wheel slide and alot of beeping. It's very hard to get Prius over steer without fat rear sway bar, without hand brake, without adjustable shocks, without being able to press accelerator while braking, without race tire in the front etc. and vsc working against this.

 

To break the back end loose in snowy parking lots, the P-brake
is useful, but probably wants to be in the state where the ratchet
doesn't keep the pedal down so you can modulate it. Press a little
way until the ratchet starts clicking, let up, and then it's
free to push up and down as long as you don't return to the
full-up position. Whether one could utilize this for fast dynamics
on dry or wet pavement is anyone's guess, though; I've only
utilized it in situations where I had plenty of leeway to experiment.
.
_H*

 

if one asks a question about oversteer and possibly fish-tailing intentionally, there are a variety of valid reasons why one might ask and plenty of prius owners who could attempt to inform the OP.