Loss of Control

[stewie1953]

Had a scare yesterday, coming down an onto a motorway ramp and accelerating up to merge at 70mph with a slight left turning motion. Before I could merge the right hand side of the car lost traction and started fish tailing. It was dry, just a slight turning motion on the wheel but it gave me a scare. I recovered but that's the fastest I've been travelling when that happened. I've had similar at slower speeds when applying a turning motion at slower speeds and the back has kicked out.
Is it the stock Chinese tyres or is there something wrong with the handling I should contact the Garage about?
Thanks!

Reading your query and some of the responses, I am somewhat surprised at this event. I've had my MG4 SE for a year now with none of these issues. The car came with High spec Continental tyres and I run them at 3.0 BAR when cold. I find that they perform better than the standard pressures. I had issues with the Nissan Leaf whereby I ran those tyres 0.3 BAR above recommended as the tyres were wearing more on the outside than the middle. My 4 has done 14000 miles and the tread wear is perfect. I hope this helps in some way.

 

[Davn]

I'd agree the Continental tyres fitted to mine are not that bad even after 20k miles. My only thinking on this is that one wheel was on the white line and lost traction, I've had this even with front wheel drive cars.

 

[Tuareg]

Isn't that situation where traction control gets activated?

 

[fnegroni]

Isn't that situation where traction control gets activated?

Yes. And having done several advanced driving courses, the best course of action is to keep accelerating or gently letting go, no sudden deceleration

 

[Tuareg]

So with traction control activated, there should be no 'loss of control'.

 

[fnegroni]

So with traction control activated, there should be no 'loss of control'.

Traction control and stability control are not the same thing.

 

[Rolfe]

Yes. And having done several advanced driving courses, the best course of action is to keep accelerating or gently letting go, no sudden deceleration

With fishtailing, do you mean? My instinct was to take my foot off the accelerator, and the car sorted itself out OK, but I could do with some hints and tips in case it happens again.

 

[Kithmo]

With fishtailing, do you mean? My instinct was to take my foot off the accelerator, and the car sorted itself out OK, but I could do with some hints and tips in case it happens again.

That's exactly the right thing to do, with rwd when the back swings out or front wheel drive when it's understeering.

 

[Rolfe]

Ah well, my instincts seem sound in this instance.

 

[Stuart Ritchie]

I had a near death experience when my MG4 EV fishtailed down the motorway. I was doing 60 with cruise control on and suddenly hit by a hailstorm. I thought traction control would have automatically disconnected cruise control but it didn’t . Should it have? I had to manually switch off cruise which gave me control back. This all happened in a matter of seconds!
Also recently going round a slow bend and slowly (due to lost confidence in the cars handling) the back end skipped out again. I along with my passengers got a real fright as it was totally unexpected at the speed I was doing.
Anyone else had similar experience? Seriously thinking of getting rid of the car as I have no confidence in its road handling.

 

[fnegroni]

I had a near death experience when my MG4 EV fishtailed down the motorway. I was doing 60 with cruise control on and suddenly hit by a hailstorm. I thought traction control would have automatically disconnected cruise control but it didn’t . Should it have? I had to manually switch off cruise which gave me control back. This all happened in a matter of seconds!
Also recently going round a slow bend and slowly (due to lost confidence in the cars handling) the back end skipped out again. I along with my passengers got a real fright as it was totally unexpected at the speed I was doing.
Anyone else had similar experience? Seriously thinking of getting rid of the car as I have no confidence in its road handling.

What tyres do you have?

 

[Stuart Ritchie]

What tyres do you have?

Bought from new so just the standard tyres.

 

[fnegroni]

Bought from new so just the standard tyres.

Change them. Now. They are rubbish. Your experience isn’t that unique. Maybe you had a slight heavier foot than most but still.
There’s a whole thread dedicated to ‘deadly tyres’ if you look for it, most people have swapped those out for all season tyres, I went to European made Bridgestone Turanza 6 and I would never go back to that junk of standard tyre with the ‘made in china’ compound: Bridgestone and continental do not make tyres in china to the same specifications as their European or American factories. they are cheaper and it shows.

 

[QLeo]

I had a near death experience when my MG4 EV fishtailed down the motorway. I was doing 60 with cruise control on and suddenly hit by a hailstorm. I thought traction control would have automatically disconnected cruise control but it didn’t . Should it have? I had to manually switch off cruise which gave me control back. This all happened in a matter of seconds!
Also recently going round a slow bend and slowly (due to lost confidence in the cars handling) the back end skipped out again. I along with my passengers got a real fright as it was totally unexpected at the speed I was doing.
Anyone else had similar experience? Seriously thinking of getting rid of the car as I have no confidence in its road handling.

Weird. I posted something this last winter about how well the car handled an extremely slippery road that had other cars skidded off. There's some video of it too. BUT we did change the factory tyres before last winter to all-seasons. I should add that, with the factory tyres, we were aware of the car slipping on the various metal cattle-grids we have in our area. That issue stopped with the change of tyres.

I doubt that cruise control helped, because how could it "know" it was hailing? It would perhaps have been prudent driving both to slow down and take manual control.

 

[Rolfe]

The one time my car fishtailed was before I followed your advice about the tyres.

 

[Rip Van]

Personally, I've never had any problems that could be attributed to the standard tyres. 15k in all weathers.?

 

[Stuart Ritchie]

Weird. I posted something this last winter about how well the car handled an extremely slippery road that had other cars skidded off. There's some video of it too. BUT we did change the factory tyres before last winter to all-seasons. I should add that, with the factory tyres, we were aware of the car slipping on the various metal cattle-grids we have in our area. That issue stopped with the change of tyres.

I doubt that cruise control helped, because how could it "know" it was hailing? It would perhaps have been prudent driving both to slow down and take manual control.

Thanks for the reply, the hailstorm was a freak storm and instantaneous. I didn’t have time to switch of cruise as it started fishtailing immediately. I would have thought that the traction control would have sensed the difference and cut out the cruise. It I had to do it manually. This all happened in a matter of seconds.
I think I will take the advice given and change my tyres.
Thanks!

Change them. Now. They are rubbish. Your experience isn’t that unique. Maybe you had a slight heavier foot than most but still.
There’s a whole thread dedicated to ‘deadly tyres’ if you look for it, most people have swapped those out for all season tyres, I went to European made Bridgestone Turanza 6 and I would never go back to that junk of standard tyre with the ‘made in china’ compound: Bridgestone and continental do not make tyres in china to the same specifications as their European or American factories. they are cheaper and it shows.

Thanks for the advice and I will do as you say and change the tyres.
Shame on Arnold Clark and any other dealership that sell a car with these tyres if they are as bad as they appear to be!!

 

[QLeo]

Thanks for the advice and I will do as you say and change the tyres.
Shame on Arnold Clark and any other dealership that sell a car with these tyres if they are as bad as they appear to be!!

From experience before we changed the tyres, I'd speculate that the issue wasn't traction control but regen. We were driving really slowly (<30mph) on a single track when it was chilly, and I felt the rear step out, when I knew I was nowhere near the accelerator. I then discovered it's no co-incidence that Snow mode reduces regen to 1. Effectively, it's like braking on a corner in icy conditions - you'd never do that, but the car is regenning and therefore braking. Again, there's no way the car can "know" this, and in your case, if it did disengage cruise control, it would have regenned hard, assuming you weren't on regen 1, and you might have spun.

 

[AndyL61]

Done 25k on the standard Conti's . No problem at all. They are ok not amazing but certainly not dangerous.

 

[QLeo]

Done 25k on the standard Conti's . No problem at all. They are ok not amazing but certainly not dangerous.

I'm sure that's the case, but I suspect it's a question of where you are. The further south you are, the more acceptable the factory tyres are likely to be. For example, I'd not even contemplate staying on summer tyres where we are, no matter how good they were in conditions for which they are best. I don't think anyone would blame MG for not specifically having Scottish conditions in mind when considering the global reach of their cars, although they are very popular here.