Ah well that’s the beauty of an internet forum where everyone can offer their opinion – some folk will be right, some folk will be wrong and the truth will be blurred in the middle as us bystanders look on and shake their heads in wonder at the theories put forward.
On a fwd car it is immeasurably easier to control understeer than it is to correct oversteer – simple fact of physics, and it is a given to fit the best tyres on the rear.
I can comfortably hold or manage a fwd drive car using lift off oversteer on the track or induced oversteer if you prefer to call it so. In my MK2 golf i can induce it at 90mph with a gentle flick of the wheel or a dab using rear brake bias and for your average driver to safely correct it on the public highway would take balls the size of watermelons as it is the most unnatural correction in the world as you need to floor the throttle, this will help pull you out of the rear wheel slide whilst reducing the steering angle at the front (straighten up) but whilst you are doing this your car is travelling sideways along the public highway and the last time i looked there is only about 24ft of width on your average A class road, anyone who says they would prefer this to fwd understeer on public roads is a far better driver than myself and i would like some lessons asap please.
Below is copied from one of the better trackday coaching sessions but you will get taught exactly the same principle and theory at any track driving school in the country, In the past 10 years I’ve logged over 300hrs track time in various cars from my tuned to the bollox VW’s (250bhp+ fwd of course) to RS4’s, Lotus Exiges, Subaru tarmac spec, BDA MK2 Escorts, Alfa 75’s, Lancia Delta Integrale’s and quite a fair few various fwd hot hatches from most of the major manufacturers, i’ve driven at Knockhill, Curby, Brands Hatch, Cadwell, Mallory, Donnington, Silverstone, Nurburgring to name a few circuits off hand.
A question was asked by a forum poster about how he got into a spin, in a front wheel drive car on a roundabout at low speed and what he could have done to correct it.
A few points.
Oversteer only happens if you have less grip (for your requirement) at the rear of the car than the front.
Your requirement for grip is not the same throughout a corner, you generally need more front end grip on turn-in, equal grip on early entry and slightly more rear grip as you get fully into the corner.
The ratio of grip is not constant, when you accelerate it goes rearward, when you lift off it goes forward, when you brake it goes further forward still. This is irrepective of FWD/RWD/4WD.
If, by these actions, you move grip forward, you therefore take grip away from the rear.
Grip (traction) needs to be shared between cornering and acceleration on the driven wheels, the more you use for acceleration, the less you have available for cornering.
In the example above I am almost certain the reason for the oversteer was lifting off mid-roundabout. Moving more grip forward and taking it from the rear. It is possible to correct the oversteer with steering alone but you need to recognise the overtsteer very early and be pretty quick with the correction. In FWD or RWD you can add a little power and this will help correct the oversteer (in conjunction with the steering correction). In RWD this assumes you have not created the oversteer by excess power through the rear tyres and have created wheelspin. This works because adding a little power will move weight (grip) to the rear of the car.
If you add too much power in RWD you will create wheelspin, if you are in oversteer already this is hard to “catch” so your power application needs to be fairly mild.
In FWD, because the rear (skidding) tyres do not receive power you can add lots of power, adding weight and grip to the rear and negating oversteer. This also “pulls” the car out of oversteer. If you really get sideways you can prevent a spin by putting maximum power through the front tyres, causing them to lose traction and wheelspin thus they are skidding at the same or greater rate than the rear, so for a moment the car travels sideways, grip eventually return to the rear (as the car is gradually slowing) and the car gets pulled out of the oversteer.
If you are driving through a fairly shallow bend and hit a patch of slippy road surface the worse thing you can do is lift off the gas but this is the natural reaction of almost every driver and is the main cause of spins. If you keep your throttle foot where it is and correct with the steering you won’t spin.
So…to recap for those who can’t be arsed to read and consider themselves to be supreme driving gods and think the correct place to fit the grippiest tyres is on the front please read the following simple sentence.
FWD understeer is relatively easily controlled for just about any skill level of driver
FWD oversteer is harder to control on the public highway (nigh impossible) and will most likely involve you travelling backwards down the road into the path of an oncoming truck but that’s perfectly acceptable as long as you only kill yourself thus removing your faulty genes from the human gene pool.
I’m correct on this matter, this is not open for debate in any shape nor form whatsoever.
Good night and drive safe.
😉
