I ventured out this week and discovered another unexpected and exciting 'feature' of our cars. Couple of narrow lanes round here that are single track and the recent bad weather had washed lots of mud and more importantly fallen leaves onto the roads. Most of this was accumulating in the centre of the tarmac, with the edges kept clear by the 4-wheelers.
30-35mph only and all being careful on a gentle throttle, slightly downhill, in a very narrow section of single track and I lift off slightly as I approach a gentle bend. The car suddenly snaps sideways as the rear wheel effectively locks under the load of engine-braking and is all over the place. Took a bit of quick twirling to catch it and I was most surprised. Wife was giving me the stare - like I did it deliberately?! - speed was now about 25mph and then it only bl00dy does it again, as we encountered another 40m of leaf slutch and road-snot and the car's all over the place again. Really unexpected, I must say.
I saw the next pile of poo coming and this time I declutched as we went over it and of course the car was good as gold. Nothing nurfed, nothing damaged but another example of how you never stop learning in these damn cars. Coming home that evening, now slightly uphill, was a ball, unsurprisingly, as I was expecting it to do what it did - it was just coming downhill the other way that caught me out!
