wrapped my ms3 around a pole :-/

[Kain]

dibs on the side marker lights

The best kind of comedy is of the unintentional variety.

 

[corner-hard]

Its amazing that you were able to walk away with out a scratch! Glad to hear it and to hear that the car was able to absorb such a huge impact!

 

[Kurt07]

I am tired of seeing people drive on summer tires in the winter. I know I don't have snow tires, but at least I invested in a set of Continental Extreme Contacts to get me through the winter. I hope people learn their lesson from his mistake.

To the OP, I am glad to see you were able to walk away from this.

 

[340CID]

Or people who spend several thousand dollars more for the sport or performance model (ie: MS3 over a Mazda 3) and then cry that they can't afford snow tires and have to roll on the summer tires.

If you can pony up the $3k more for the turbo and 18" wheels, you can pony up another $600 for snow tires & wheels. If you can't, then why not buy something you can afford (Mazda 3 with snow tires)?

 

[creina1221]

Where is the pole, behind the car in the pic? Two Mazdaspeeds totaled this year already. Wow, what a spectacular crash, I have been injured with much less damage on my cars. I have totaled two - so far.



Just out of curiosity, where in Pa did this happen? I'm an adjuster and that tow yard looks awfully familiar, I think i've been there.

Also, I've had two claims with speed 3's, one totaled, one was very minor, both no injuries.

glad you're okay, the floor buckled, the roof buckled and you're fine. I'm really impressed at how well the unibody absorbed that impact and kept it away from you.

Best of luck to you.

 

[Mr_Boom]

Those pics are tough to look at, but glad you made it through everything okay. Glad to see the safety on the MS3 looks to be slightly better than my high school car ('94 Suzuki Sidekick).

As for the tires, don't be too hard on yourself, whether they are summer/all-season/winter tires its tough to control when the rears get worn down. It does suck that the MS3 comes with stock summer tires, as it looks like my first purchase is going to be a decent sent of BFG all-seasons to complement the summer Potenza's.

Hope all goes well with your adventure to RWD, you will find that drifting is a good bit easier.

 

[Txsandman]

So how's the pole doing? Nobody even seems worried about the TRUE victim here.

 

[zim]

The pole is fine haha, only some scratches on it actually. This happened in deleware county PA

 

[TRDMS3]

This thread should be consolidated with heres why you buy winter tires.

 

[happy and angry]

I still strongly believe that if I were in an awd/rwd car this situation would have a different outcome and anyone can say whatever they want about that.

You strongly believe incorrectly.

Let's do a quick rundown of what could (probably would) have happened with either other drivetrain, and why each drivetrain has its own set of handling issues when a spin has been induced.

First, though, let's talk about grip. Grip is a function of contact patch, which is dictated by your tires. A FWD vehicle has the same four points of contact with the road that an AWD/RWD vehicle does. If you take three cars that are exactly the same in weight, weight distribution, tire width, center of gravity, etc, the only difference being which wheels drive the vehicle forward, stopping and off-throttle/off-brake cornering characteristics are entirely unchanged across all three cars. Grip has the same limitations in whichever layout you are driving, and you only have so much of the stuff.

Vehicle dynamics are pretty complex, so I'm going to ignore most of the complexities for the sake of this discussion. But I do want you to seriously consider one thing: weight distribution. A FWD vehicle tends to be nose heavy, and RWD/AWD platforms have more weight further back because of the rear differentials and layout of the transmission.

You induced a slide. I'm not sure how you did it, if it was lift-throttle oversteer mid-corner on slick roads or front loading the vehicle in a corner by braking (these sound most likely) or what, but I do know that you exceeded grip, slid, and hit a pole. Why? The back end obtained enough rotational inertia to exceed the lateral grip it had at the rear and you got sideways.

A RWD or AWD vehicle is heavier in the rear than a FWD vehicle. If you induced a spin or a slide with lift-throttle or braking mid corner you'd have given the rear end more rotational inertia and exceeded lateral grip easier because of it. Think of the car as a rotating body with the front as a pivot. It actually doesn't matter how you get the back end out, but once you do, the added weight in the rear makes it much, much, much more difficult to regain control of a spinning RWD/AWD platform. What happens when weight distribution of a rotating body moves away from the pivot point or center of rotation? In a RWD or AWD platform you'd probably have spun more.

Remember when I said: "stopping and off-throttle/off-brake cornering characteristics are entirely unchanged across all three cars?" You might think that on-throttle cornering characteristics or on-brake cornering characteristics may have helped you. You might think that if the drivetrain was RWD of AWD you'd have been able to pull out of it or use the different under-braking cornering characteristics to alter the outcome, but I strongly doubt this, too. At the point where you are sliding sideways, you have lost all grip. It is all being spent trying to resist the sideways slide of the vehicle, and you have the same four tires on a FWD car as you would have in a RWD or AWD vehicle. You'd have tried to use throttle to pull you out of the spin, but what good would that have done when there was no grip available to you to make use of the power? Grip is finite, and you were sideways - your grip was gone.

If you'd have plowed off the road in a classic FWD understeer I'd be saying that you might just have had enough available grip to regain control, but that's not what happened. You went off sideways. Grip was gone, gone, gone, and it doesn't matter what wheels put the power down at that point.

I'm saying this because I want you to understand that what happened to you could almost certainly not have been prevented by being in a different car with a different drivetrain layout. This is important for you to understand, for a number of reasons. Each drivetrain layout has handling characteristics but not one of them has more grip available to them than the tires can provide. If you'd done the same things on summer tires in a WRX or in a BMW 330i, you'd have still hit the pole, or something else, and at a different angle. If you'd have done the same things on winter tires in a WRX or a BMW 330i or your Mazdaspeed 3 you'd have probably been able to handle the corner in the first place, or at least had a more predictable and less precipitous dropoff in tire grip that you'd have been able to come out of it okay with counter-steer and gentle braking. Drivetrain doesn't really matter in the situation you described. Too many people think that it does, but, and I can't say this enough, you'd have had the same four tires in all three layouts with the same limited grip to avoid a sideways slide. I'm hoping that if you get a new car that is RWD or AWD you don't put yourself in similar situations thinking that you'd be able to pull out of it somehow, even if you've compromised your grip so bad that you are sideways. It won't play out that way.

I think you've learned a good lesson about tires, winter driving, and safety the hard way, and that really sucks man. I feel for you, you just had your car totaled. But please, please don't kid yourself into thinking that the drivetrain of your car contributed to the problem. It didn't.

 

[zim]

I'm not going to read that because I don't need you to tell me how FWD isn't the problem

 

[derspi]

Sorry for your loss and I`m glad you walked away unhurt.

But seriously - denial FTL.

 

[happy and angry]

I'm not going to read that because I don't need you to tell me how FWD isn't the problem

Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, right?

It's too bad you're going to play the denial card, though. It probably helps you sleep at night to tell yourself that at least in some way it wasn't your fault, but I can't really think that's a very productive or educating approach to ******* up behind the wheel of a car. Maybe you hit your head harder than you thought?

 

[zoomdoom]

(ohsnap!)

 

[rapter]

Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, right?

It's too bad you're going to play the denial card, though. It probably helps you sleep at night to tell yourself that at least in some way it wasn't your fault, but I can't really think that's a very productive or educating approach to ******* up behind the wheel of a car. Maybe you hit your head harder than you thought?

wow dude, you really typed out a story there. lol only read the first paragraph and last.

Winter TIRES, YES!, i learned my lesson.
But AWD does help as well.
so he still might of hit the pole in a AWD car, prolly not as hard.
But AWD makes a differance wether you like it or not.

Not defending him tho, he should man up.
But once a FWD car has teh back slide out, its over, you cant do s***. PRAY! maybe.....

 

[ecniemann]

Ultimately whether the car contributed to the crash or not is a moot point. The end result is the same. The car was totaled. Whether the OP wants to take any blame or not is up to him. I think the point has been driven home (deadhorse

Driving on summer rubber with the DSC off in winter was asking for trouble IMO. FWD I do not think made a huge difference vs AWD, and I think RWD would have just caused a spin-out. My $.02 FWIW.

 

[mazdaspeedster3]

Ultimately whether the car contributed to the crash or not is a moot point. The end result is the same. The car was totaled. Whether the OP wants to take any blame or not is up to him. I think the point has been driven home (deadhorse

Driving on summer rubber with the DSC off in winter was asking for trouble IMO. FWD I do not think made a huge difference vs AWD, and I think RWD would have just caused a spin-out. My $.02 FWIW.

+1

 

[happy and angry]

wow dude, you really typed out a story there. lol only read the first paragraph and last.

Winter TIRES, YES!, i learned my lesson.
But AWD does help as well.
so he still might of hit the pole in a AWD car, prolly not as hard.
But AWD makes a differance wether you like it or not.

Not defending him tho, he should man up.
But once a FWD car has teh back slide out, its over, you cant do s***. PRAY! maybe.....

No. He lost grip and slid into a pole. FWD, AWD, RWD, it doesn't matter, he'd have had no more grip available to slow down any faster or adjust the orientation of the vehicle. AWD doesn't give you more grip. It isn't magical. It's just how you put the power down. He was sliding, and wouldn't have been able to put the power down.

AWD provides all kinds of differences in handling in certain circumstances, but when you are stuck in a slide and your tires aren't gripping at all, it doesn't matter what wheels power will go to, you're boned. The point, the central point here, is summer tires ****** him, and the drivetrain didn't matter one bit.

 

[VAspeed3]

Looking at the car and knowing you fared so well, I don't see much room for improvement with some other car the same size.

Hate to be redundant, but you have to know that under lift throttle, FWD is less likely to go tail-out than RWD or even AWD. Therefore either of those should not have saved you, but in fact would have made an accident of this type more likely.

To quote Mr. Boom above, "Hope all goes well with your adventure to RWD, you will find that drifting is a good bit easier." .......whether you mean to or not.

 

[robin2660]

I'm not going to read that because I don't need you to tell me how FWD isn't the problem

Ha-ha! Denial FTL!!!! It ain't real if I deny it! The truth doesn't exist if I cover my ears and hum!!! (screwy)