[carlgrz]

I had a very scary moment this week in the Beast. I've been experimenting more recently with DSC off, Sport on driving and it bit me hard.
I was doing my regular journey to work and the last couple of miles consists of a long slip road from the motorway and then a roundabout which curves into a nice 3 lane straight. I have been playing with gentle drifting from the roundabout onto the straight with some success.
I was being pursued by one of my work colleagues on Tuesday and I got a little over enthusiastic on my exit from the roundabout. This resulted in a much harsher angle of drift as I exited the roundabout and as I got to a particularly damp stretch of road I felt the back properly let go. My instinctive reaction was to lift off but I wasn't so quick to wind off the lock. I knew what was coming next and I wasn't disappointed.
She snapped violently back in the other direction and I was then a total passenger in a 720 degree spin.
The road was empty and despite using all 3 lanes thankfully nobody was hurt and the only damage was done to my pride and underwear.
As my colleague put later "I ran out of talent"!
I couldn't agree more and it was a salutary lesson to me to treat the old girl with a little more respect in future. I was very lucky indeed to escape unscathed and I don't intend to repeat the experience any time soon.
When I got to work I had to have a half hour sit down in a quiet room before I was up to directing planes round the sky!

 

[Diny]

It sounds as if you not only let go off the gas completely but let go off the steering wheel as well. Is this correct? Letting the steering wheel go is a huge reason for "snapping."

 

[Vector57]

Sharing - A frank discussion

Well said and thank you for the public viewing of what may well have resulted in serious injury to you
and others that may have been sharing the road with you. Glad to hear that none of that occurred.

Valuable lesson learned here. Fortunately it did not come about by means of "the hard way".

Regards,
Alan

 

[///mfizzle]

Sounds like you just spun out? No big deal man it happens to all of us when learning to slide :grinyes:


I always just punch it and spin around the other way after. It helps you redeem yourself in front of the other people looking haha. But I wouldn't have ever done that on a high traffic road. That's for sure.

 

[carlgrz]

It sounds as if you not only let go off

​

the gas completely but let go off the steering wheel as well. Is this correct? Letting the steering wheel go is a huge reason for "snapping."

Oh no. Far from letting go. I just didn't coordinate the lift off with getting the lock off fast enough and once she snapped back on the damp surface my further inputs had little effect.
Hence feeling like a passenger.

 

[bono]

May be of use for future reference, this guy makes it look so easy though.

 

[Diny]

May be of use for future reference, this guy makes it look so easy though.

It helps that it's a cold, wet track.

 

[plenty]

OP, on this week's slippery roads it could have happened to anyone.

Have you considered some track time to explore limit handling.

Personally I've found loosening grip on the wheel (allowing self-correct) can be desirable in an oversteer situation - whereas the instinctive response is to tighten grip, which can lead to overcorrection and fishtailing.

 

[Shuasha]

Not practicing maneuvers where you CAN lose control on roads with other people is probably a good policy to adopt in the future.. imagine if you had slid into a minivan full of kids....

 

[Hasan Shaikh]

Nice video guide.

Thanks!

 

[Kevin The Clean 1]

This is the very same reason I have not turned DSC off yet. I'm still getting use to how the heavy beast reacts & know she is a powerful one. Glad you & your M5 are okay...

 

[jamesrothwell]

Glad it's all okay.
Excellent video by the way, thanks for the link.

 

[jgfabs]

I had a very scary moment this week in the Beast. I've been experimenting more recently with DSC off, Sport on driving and it bit me hard.
I was doing my regular journey to work and the last couple of miles consists of a long slip road from the motorway and then a roundabout which curves into a nice 3 lane straight. I have been playing with gentle drifting from the roundabout onto the straight with some success.
I was being pursued by one of my work colleagues on Tuesday and I got a little over enthusiastic on my exit from the roundabout. This resulted in a much harsher angle of drift as I exited the roundabout and as I got to a particularly damp stretch of road I felt the back properly let go. My instinctive reaction was to lift off but I wasn't so quick to wind off the lock. I knew what was coming next and I wasn't disappointed.
She snapped violently back in the other direction and I was then a total passenger in a 720 degree spin.
The road was empty and despite using all 3 lanes thankfully nobody was hurt and the only damage was done to my pride and underwear.
As my colleague put later "I ran out of talent"!
I couldn't agree more and it was a salutary lesson to me to treat the old girl with a little more respect in future. I was very lucky indeed to escape unscathed and I don't intend to repeat the experience any time soon.
When I got to work I had to have a half hour sit down in a quiet room before I was up to directing planes round the sky!

Glad to hear no one was hurt.....my mate had an M5 and when I got mine he said dont switch DSC off in the wet as you'll spin better than those on Strictly Come dancing!!!!

 

[OlieL]

What a sweet video. That guy owns those drifts...

 

[Gustav]

Yes, respect it and have DSC on over 60-100 mph. I have had 45 angle skid at 120 mph and DSC saved me. Not fun.

 

[MINIz guy]

I would invest in a car control school when trying to experiment with DSC off.

As a young driver, I've gone to a few teen driving schools, albeit not enough! I did a BMW Teen Driving School at their factory in SC and learned that correcting a slide isn't easy. I had spun many times and had crude corrections on the others. The final day's instructor taught me a key fact that after correcting, the steering should be pointed as if you were going around that turn normally. Everything became much more fluid you didn't feel like a "passenger" under these adverse conditions.

 

[jamesrothwell]

I just went out with my first RWD car into a massive car park and put down lots of traffic cones to simulate corners, roundabouts, junctions and purposefully got the car into a skid to learn to correct it. That said I still managed to spin off twice on the roads, once when I totally wasn't expecting it and another time when I coaxed it along....

 

[mattmartindrift]

Find a local drift day and/or skid pad. this allows you to safely explore the limits of the car while in a slide and how to reign it back in. I say drift day because this allows you to get sideways vs. a simple lapping day where the speeds are much higher and drifting is generally frowned upon.

Your first mistake was backing off the throttle so quickly. The E39 doesn't react quickly, so the fact that it snapped back as you described leads me to belive your reactions were extremely delayed.

 

[mattmartindrift]

It helps that it's a cold, wet track.

search my username on youtube - no cold or wet tracks involved and a much lighter, twitchier car....

 

[KingJaffeJoffer]

This is the very same reason I have not turned DSC off yet. I'm still getting use to how the heavy beast reacts & know she is a powerful one.

+1. That is just way too much power to unleash unless you really know what you are doing and are in safe conditions. I readily admit that, at this point, I do not know what I'm doing and will be relying on that electronic nanny for awhile.