I think my PSM works !!!

[Guest]

I had a bit of a scary moment on my way home last night... Driving within the speed limit along a bit of a cut-through type road in Bristol which currently has a large amount of construction work going on along most of it.

I came to a corner that I'd normally take at around 50mph (pre-construction work), knowing that the road was a bit damp and rather muddy, and experienced dramatic understeer despite travelling at less than 30mph. I corrected the understeer which rapidly turned into oversteer, at which point I thought to myself "this is going to be expensive!!!"

I applied a bit of opposite lock and the car straightened itself up without even going onto the grass verge, let alone into the ditch beyond it...

Of course, I wasn't looking at the dashboard at the time, so I couldn't see if the PSM warning light flickered, but I'm fairly sure it was more the car than my driving skill that recovered the situation

Anybody else had the misfortune of inadvertently testing their PSM ???

 

[snarf]

Reassuring to know it works on real roads and not just at Millbrook. I had a great demonstration there of just how hard it is to get these cars seriously out of line, even in sports mode and breaking at the apex of bends.

 

[Rodney Naghar]

I tested my C4's PSM on a track going round a bend too fast. I didn't have to put any corrective lock on, it just took control and stopped the slide on it's own, while I steered into the next bend...awesome!

 

[ScottishSpyder]

A while back my rear nearside wheel clipped the kerb, popping the backend out sideways. The PSM sorted it all out before I even had a chance to react. Very reassuring.

 

[okellyt]

Nice to know it works - bit worrying though for the car to initally loose it at that speed. I assume that by "wet and a bit muddy" you meant either effectively gravel track or mirroring ice/snow levels of surface grip.

I also went on Milbrook and they got me to turn off all the gismos and try and unsetttle the car on the handling circuit. in the dry the car wouldn't do it, mid corner lift off, going in to fast to corner just didn't loose it.

Since then I have run mine at pretty much dry pace threough damp/wet and leafy corners at pretty much dry speeds with no PSM interference, so 30mph was it a very bad surface or is it the tyres.......

 

[Guest]

It's a normal Tarmac Road, and in the dry in the summer, the corner could be taken at 70mph+ with ease

50+ trucks a day moving earth etc. and spreading it all over the road (you cannot see the lines sometimes), although the road is swept 3 or 4 times a day

Had the rear tyres replaced a few hundred miles back, and was told the fronts are well within the legal limit when it was MOT'd 4 weeks ago, so it was definitely down to the conditions

A friend of mine who is a biker, takes a different route to work since the construction work started

I shall be taking the same route home tonight, and if I make it home, I'll report back again tomorrow!

 

[sidicks]

I had a scary moment in my C4S a few weeks ago - I was travelling on the A21 North just past Sevenoaks on a 3-lane uphill section - the weather was very rainy and the road very wet with the ocassional gust of wind.

As I pulled out into the third lane to pass another car, I felt the whole car move sideways - probably not a significant amount, but from inside it felt as if the rear jumped about a foot or more! I'd love to explain how I insticntively applied opposite lock and a bit of throttle to bring the car under control, but I'm not sure exactly what happened. Maybe I did instinctively steer into the slide to help the car recover, but primarily I think it was PSM that saved the day on that ocassion.

Asisde from for track use, I'm not sure when I'd see the need to turn off PSM!

Sidicks

 

[Alex L]

I wrote this on Rennteam forum a couple weeks back...

Unsure if I am interpreting this correctly but here goes:

I came off a local dual-carriageway roundabout the other day in my Turbo, and as you turn off, there is a slow left bend followed by about a mile straight (before the next roundabout).

Anyway, the roads were a bit cold and damp but at the same time, nice and quiet. So as I exited the 1st roundabout and went round the left bend at say 50mph, and as the corner started to straighten out I squeezed the throttle (perhaps ¾) in the attempt to "˜power out' of the bend "" slow in, fast out!

It was here that my rear started to SNAKE under the acceleration as it struggled to put all that power down to the tarmac. I didn't see any PSM lights come on. Instead I am guessing power was instantly transferred to the front wheels, the snaking rear was dragged into line, and then 1 sec later the car just shot forward (at "˜ludicrous' speed for those of you familiar with the film Spaceballs). All very controlled, seemingly very safe.

What my old C2S would have done on this (very familiar corner) would have been for the PSM to totally cut the power and take a couple of seconds to sort itself out. Completely killing all and any fun. Perhaps in Sport mode or with PSM off, it would be different but I tend to leave both of those alone in the wet on public roads.

So in short "" I LOVE having 4wd. The Turbo has so many levels of controlling all that power. First there is crazy amount of grip, then there is the 4wd and lastly there is PSM as a safety net. This is one of the reasons why owning a GT2 doesn't interest me at all, even if it were the same price as the Turbo.

The PSM lights may have come on, I am not 100% sure. When such things happen you typically aren't looking at your dashboard!!

 

[Guest]

Managed to get home safely last night!

I'm convinced it was freak conditions that caused the incident and not bad tyres / driving

I have it on good authority from some of my colleagues that the road-sweepers do clock-off early some days, so the road can be left very dirty at times. This is far from clever on a piece of road which is unlit, very damp and prone to freezing as it is quite exposed)