Different style of car than normal- advice for winter?

[Feuerstoss]

Here goes. I haven't been on this site in years, but I'm glad to see it's still kicking around. As a bit of background, I'm almost thirty, been driving since I was 18, and the vast majority of my cars have been manual(I refused to own an automatic for my first car; very glad I didn't).

I had severe problems with my left knee that caused me to sell my old 1991 Acura Legend Coupe and get into automatics for a while. I ended up with a 1999 BMW 740iL and a 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP for a while, but I decided to get back into the clutching game. The 740iL was the only RWD car I have ever owned, and the combination of Blizzaks, a mild winter where I live, and stability control made it a pretty mundane experience.

I'm not going to have that option this year. A couple of months ago I picked up a rather rare gem, a 1995 BMW 540i. 6-speed. Only about 3200 of these were made, so it's a pretty rare car. It has the same 282HP V8 as the 7-series I previously owned in a smaller, lighter package. It also lacks any type of traction or stability control. With one exception being AWD, every manual car I have owned has been FWD. I'm pretty well-versed in driving in winter, but I've never done anything like this before.

What I would like are some tips from some old hands, as there's no getting around the fact that my 5-series will be driven in the rain, snow, and slush. What do I need to do to prepare myself for the handling of a RWD V8?

[Roger]

It nevers snow down here, but as far as driving in the wet in RWD, it's pretty much all the same for any car, the only difference is how much throttle you can apply in the wet.
- Never downshift in the corner
- Try not to usphift in the corner unless you are certain you can catch the revs as they drop.
- During long turns avoid heavy throttle, if you're in the powerband then go even lighter on throttle. If you have forced induction, always avoid hitting boost in corners.
- Go easy on the throttle if the road is very bumpy with lots of potholes and puddles.
- Accelerate like a granny during turns, it is soo easy to kick out the rear.
- Rev match all your downshifts.

Just pretend you're driving the Pope.

EDIT: and get good tyres, they're the only things keeping you on the road. I've got brand new Michelin pilot sports on and I've still gotten the rear to kick loose a few times on a little NA 224HP inline 6.

[theholycow]

^Those tips apply if you don't follow this tip: Always keep some spare traction available; don't push the envelope all the time. This applies to FWD as well as RWD, but the consequences of losing traction are more exciting with RWD. You're not on a race track; it's neither safe, courteous, nor legal to drive like you are on one. Of course, when there's nobody around and nothing to crash into...

See also this thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18727
I think in that thread there is a link to yet another thread from around the same time dealing with the same sort of issue.

However, here are some other concerns for winter:

1. On straight, smooth road, just cruising along, despite your steady speed you can STILL find yourself fishtailing when your rear tires hit an identical-looking but more slippery patch of road. Be ready. The best way to be ready is to practice in safe places.

2. Also when accelerating from a stop you can get a little sideways despite smooth road and granny driving.

3. Also when ascending a hill...

4. It's not just too much throttle you have to worry about. You also have to worry about engine braking. I'm not talking about the kind of engine braking you do when you are coming down a mountain in 2nd gear at 40mph. I'm talking about the kind you get when you're cruising on flat land in a high gear and let off the gas and it feels like you're coasting...you're really not, you've got a small amount of engine braking. It's just like when you were first learning and cruising in low gears was jerky as your right foot wasn't sufficiently smooth, but at a much more sensitive scale. This is especially likely on turns if you're scared of putting in too much throttle (and in that situation the real problem is that you didn't leave yourself enough reserve traction and you probably should have gone slower).

5. You already know the advantages of winter tires. Use them. Use studded winter tires if you can.

6. With FWD, whichever direction you steered is the direction your throttle would pull you; this could sometimes be used to pull out of an understeer situation. If you have that habit, lose it. With RWD you might try using some of that power to recover from oversteer situations, but only after lots of safe practice and rarely even then as there are too many unpredictable variables, often meaning the attempt to fix it just makes it worse. Either way, with RWD there's no way to use power to recover from understeer. (Well, that's not entirely true; in some rare situations you could kick the rear out to keep the car's attitude correct even though all 4 tires are now sliding sideways, but I can't think of when that would happen on the road.)

7. Don't get so caught up in worrying about RWD that you forget about looking far ahead, reading the road surface, reading the other traffic, predicting worst-case scenarios and preparing for them, front wheel steering and braking traction, and all the other things that you've always needed.

Is your differential open, or limited slip/locking? If limited slip/locking, these concerns will be amplified; if open, they will be a little less severe.

No matter how much we discuss it, what you really need is practice. You need to know what the car feels like when it starts getting loose and you need second nature reflexive recovery, as there's no time to stop and think about what we discussed here. Get thee to a closed, private lot without obstacles or cars and practice when snow arrives.

Some weight in your car might help. My 1980 Buick LeSabre feels rear-heavy and does well in the snow with RWD. My pickup doesn't do as well unless I put it in 4WD or put weight in the bed. I suspect that your Bimmer isn't as rear-heavy as my Buick.

[Rope-Pusher]

When it gets to be like this, with ice/snow curbing between the lanes, I tend to do all my RWD vehicle lane changes off-throttle, or even coasting with the clutch disengaged. FWD drive/steered wheels will pull themselves over or thru the snow curbs, but in RWD vehicles, sometimes the front tires just skid along the curb. I found that I had to plan to not slowly steer into the curbs, but instead give the steering wheel a jerk (no, not Tony) so I hit the curb with more force and start straightening the steering wheel as soon as the first front wheel gets into the next lane so I don't overshoot and continue on past that lane as well.

[theholycow]

Those snow "curbs" are called windrows. FWD isn't THAT much of an advantage on them...the worst crash I've ever had (mildly skewed both bumpers) resulted from finding that out the hard way.

And yes, do try to cross windrows at a nice angle...and do expect that when your tire hits them, that tire will encounter resistance like the brake was applied at that tire only, potentially spinning the car.

[IMBoring25]

While you have time, get to know your car. Learn to be smooth with throttle changes, steering, and gear shifts.

The advice to pick your times to shift is good to reduce the risk associated with a flubbed shift. The automatic in my Grand Marquis shifts quite firmly and with Limited Slip that was once enough to skew the car into oncoming lanes while traveling straight down an icy road.

No matter how much we discuss it, what you really need is practice. You need to know what the car feels like when it starts getting loose and you need second nature reflexive recovery, as there's no time to stop and think about what we discussed here. Get thee to a closed, private lot without obstacles or cars and practice when snow arrives.

The entire post was excellent but this is key. There's nothing like understanding how the vehicle reacts to inputs to give you the reaction time and correct responses to keep things under control.

If a RWD vehicle understeers on ice, 9 times out of 10 you just need to get off the brakes.

Oversteer is chiefly about reaction time and correct steering input and not doing anything stupid with the pedals. Practice in an unobstructed parking lot with initiating and recovering from oversteer skids and some tail-out circling, steering with the throttle, will go a long way towards the necessary skill development (and is a blast, to boot). It's a skill even those with FWD cars should have. I once took a left turn at an intersection that was much icier than the surrounding road. My unballasted RWD pickup experienced some oversteer, but nothing that involved leaving my intended lane of travel. A subsequent check of my rear-view mirror revealed that the (FWD) Accord making the same turn behind me had also experienced oversteer, heading tail-first for the curb.

Panic is always the wrong response. If you lock up the brakes in response to either an oversteer or understeer situation and keep them that way, it will not tend to end well.

[theholycow]

Panic is always the wrong response. If you lock up the brakes in response to either an oversteer or understeer situation and keep them that way, it will not tend to end well.

Also if you crank the steering wheel way around, overcorrecting...that's bad too. That's what happened when I hit that windrow in my FWD Pontiac. I did not have practice correcting oversteer in that car (it was almost impossible to get that beast to oversteer) and I overcorrected, then I was facing the other wrong direction and overcorrected, etc.