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#11
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
On 18/08/2016 20:36, NY wrote:
"JNugent" wrote: On 18/08/2016 16:29, NY wrote: My grandpa used to coast in neutral as he approached a junction, but this was a wartime remedy that he never unlearned afterwards - right up until his death in 1999. A peaceful passing, I hope! He carried on driving, with self-imposed limits like not in rush hour and not going into the city centre, until well into his 90s. The last time I rode with him as a passenger I was impressed that he got up to a reasonable speed on the open road, rather than dawdling, and I felt completely safe. Sadly he had a fall when he'd popped down the road to the shops, and that marked the start of a gradual decline. He spent his final months, after he'd left hospital for his injuries (broken wrists etc) in a very opulent nursing home where they looked after him and made a fuss of him - and he let them do it, whereas always before he'd been annoyed and embarrassed if anyone made a fuss and did things for him. It's a shame he didn't quite achieve his goal of living into the next millennium - he died on Boxing Day 1999. I'm sorry to hear the last bit but amused and cheered to read the first bit. |
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#12
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent
wrote: On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote: Terrible tragedy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden. Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or else Seat brakes are crap. -- AnthonyL |
#13
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
AnthonyL wrote:
On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent wrote: On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote: Terrible tragedy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden. Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or else Seat brakes are crap. Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits the best example of skilled driving. |
#14
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
On Saturday, 20 August 2016 16:13:13 UTC+1, Recliner wrote:
Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits the best example of skilled driving. Which is why my insurance at age 57 is £150 for a 2.2l car. |
#15
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
On 20/08/2016 16:13, Recliner wrote:
AnthonyL wrote: On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent wrote: On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote: Terrible tragedy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden. Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or else Seat brakes are crap. Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits the best example of skilled driving. He hit a kerb, whether he was in gear or not would make no difference to the car that would cause him to hit a kerb, UNLESS he had also turned the engine off. I can remember hitting a kerb through inattention/beer at about the same age, I got away with it, he didn't. |
#16
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
"MrCheerful" wrote in message
... He hit a kerb, whether he was in gear or not would make no difference to the car that would cause him to hit a kerb, UNLESS he had also turned the engine off. Oh hell. I hadn't thought of that complication. Please tell me that when he coasted, he didn't turn off the ignition, causing his power steering to lose its power and potentially (if he turned the key too far) locking the steering. Surely that wasn't the cause. If it was just down to lack of engine braking and footbrake not being able to cope, well so be it. But if it was down to locked or unassisted steering then that makes it even worse. When I first got a car with power steering I chose a deserted road and turned the ignition off (taking great care not to turn the key to the "lock" position") and then back on again, which temporarily disabled the power steering, in order that I'd find out how the car handled if the power steering were ever to fail. It was heavy, but controllable. (*) This stood me in good stead many years later when, on another car, the fanbelt broke on the motorway, knocking out the power steering pump. Armed with the knowledge of how much heavier a power-assisted car with failed power steering is than a car with no power steering (**), I was able to steer the car safely at motorway speed and get it off the motorway at the next junction (which fortunately was only about 1/2 mile ahead and where I was planning to leave anyway) and to drive safely to a nearby garage where I could wait for the RAC to arrive to tow me the last 20 miles home. Without "testing" in a safe environment, I might have panicked. (*) Turning the engine off while driving (this was on a car with a carburettor) demonstrated another thing: with no spark, but with fuel still being drawn through the carb into the engine, a lot of unburned fuel accumulated. When I turned the ignition back on, there was a very satisfying bang from the exhaust, which probably didn't do the engine a lot of good :-) I'm afraid I once used this technique to scare the living daylights out of another car that was tailgating me (and possibly stalking me in a road rage attack). He hung back after that ;-) (**) I'd always put the difference down to differences in steering geometry (eg difference caster angle) which gave better feedback to the driver at the expense of heavier steering without assistance. But from recent discussions it sounds as if the geometry is unchanged between PS and non-PS, and only the lock-to-lock ratio is different. This is odd because I once drove otherwise identical two VW Golfs, one with and one without PS , to help me decide whether to pay extra for PS on my next car, and I wasn't aware of having to be careful to make smaller movements when driving straight ahead in the car with PS, as would have been the case if it had had higher-geared steering. My impression was similar amount of movement of steering wheel in both cases, but in PS case it was easier to turn wheel and the car seemed to lean into the bend better which I (wrongly?) attributed to steering geometry which gave better driver feedback. |
#17
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
On 20/08/2016 16:13, Recliner wrote:
AnthonyL wrote: On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent wrote: On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote: Terrible tragedy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden. Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or else Seat brakes are crap. Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits the best example of skilled driving. Exactly. |
#18
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
On Sat, 20 Aug 2016 20:06:06 +0100, JNugent
wrote: On 20/08/2016 16:13, Recliner wrote: AnthonyL wrote: On Thu, 18 Aug 2016 16:09:06 +0100, JNugent wrote: On 18/08/2016 15:47, Alycidon wrote: Terrible tragedy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden. Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or else Seat brakes are crap. Let's not forget that the driver was a 21 year old bloke in a car full of his (younger) mates. That's not the demographic which typically exhibits the best example of skilled driving. Exactly. I agree and that is my point, but all the blame and subsequent discussion here seems to be directed to the 'coasting' issue downhill in a fully laden car. The coasting is a red-herring in my view. -- AnthonyL |
#19
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
Terrible tragedy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...cDonald-s.html Whether or not coasting saves fuel I am very sceptical that any modern car cannot negotiate a downhill run with its brakes. I certainly remember it being essential to put my Dad's old Austin 12 into the right gear and I'm fairly sure my early Morris Minor suffered brake fade on steep slopes - but a Seat Ibiza? Even fully laden. Now if the guy was trying to see how the car would go out of gear and without touching the brakes on a nice hill - I might believe that - or else Seat brakes are crap. Put an automatic in drive on ice on even a slight incline and it's obvious why it's safer to be in neutral. Heavy vehicles deliberately enhance engine braking because the brakes were never designed to dissipate enough heat going down long grades. The drums expand and the pads fail to engage. Compression braking is offered as solution but it's better to brake all wheels, not just the drives. Light vehicles have long had properly sized brakes. As long as the brakes work properly as they generally do on most cars there is no physical reason that being out of gear idling down hill is unsafe. It might be slightly more dangerous in rear wheel drive cars to be _in_ gear. What the court may be trying to say is that there is danger inherent playing around with motor vehicles. Public streets are not test tracks. Human passengers aren't lab animals. You don't need a big machine to determine coefficients of friction, experience accelerations, save fuel, etc. You can do all that safely with a bicycle, even w/o a rear brake! Bret Cahill |
#20
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The dangers of coasting downhill not in gear
On 20/08/2016 20:03, NY wrote:
"MrCheerful" wrote in message ... He hit a kerb, whether he was in gear or not would make no difference to the car that would cause him to hit a kerb, UNLESS he had also turned the engine off. Oh hell. I hadn't thought of that complication. Please tell me that when he coasted, he didn't turn off the ignition, causing his power steering to lose its power and potentially (if he turned the key too far) locking the steering. Surely that wasn't the cause. If it was just down to lack of engine braking and footbrake not being able to cope, well so be it. But if it was down to locked or unassisted steering then that makes it even worse. When I first got a car with power steering I chose a deserted road and turned the ignition off (taking great care not to turn the key to the "lock" position") and then back on again, which temporarily disabled the power steering, in order that I'd find out how the car handled if the power steering were ever to fail. It was heavy, but controllable. (*) This stood me in good stead many years later when, on another car, the fanbelt broke on the motorway, knocking out the power steering pump. Armed with the knowledge of how much heavier a power-assisted car with failed power steering is than a car with no power steering (**), I was able to steer the car safely at motorway speed and get it off the motorway at the next junction (which fortunately was only about 1/2 mile ahead and where I was planning to leave anyway) and to drive safely to a nearby garage where I could wait for the RAC to arrive to tow me the last 20 miles home. Without "testing" in a safe environment, I might have panicked. (*) Turning the engine off while driving (this was on a car with a carburettor) demonstrated another thing: with no spark, but with fuel still being drawn through the carb into the engine, a lot of unburned fuel accumulated. When I turned the ignition back on, there was a very satisfying bang from the exhaust, which probably didn't do the engine a lot of good :-) I'm afraid I once used this technique to scare the living daylights out of another car that was tailgating me (and possibly stalking me in a road rage attack). He hung back after that ;-) (**) I'd always put the difference down to differences in steering geometry (eg difference caster angle) which gave better feedback to the driver at the expense of heavier steering without assistance. But from recent discussions it sounds as if the geometry is unchanged between PS and non-PS, and only the lock-to-lock ratio is different. This is odd because I once drove otherwise identical two VW Golfs, one with and one without PS , to help me decide whether to pay extra for PS on my next car, and I wasn't aware of having to be careful to make smaller movements when driving straight ahead in the car with PS, as would have been the case if it had had higher-geared steering. My impression was similar amount of movement of steering wheel in both cases, but in PS case it was easier to turn wheel and the car seemed to lean into the bend better which I (wrongly?) attributed to steering geometry which gave better driver feedback. the steering will not lock unless the key is actually removed. PS or non PS will often have the same lock to lock. If a PS system has no power input it will always be very heavy, draining all the fluid will make it much lighter. |
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