I got a little too sideways coming out of a parking lot over corrected hit a curb and just barely nicked a tree now the steering wheel is about 3degrees off. Hopfully the toe is just out of alignment. I havent really had a chance to get under the car and inspect the damage yet cause it was too dark by the time i got back to my house. *prepares to berated*

 

God I remeber my teenage years. Started working on my '70 mustang when I was 12. Got my learners permit at 14. A week after I turned 15 I had my license and was driving it. The next 6 years involved many ditches, a jumped approach and general carnage. Learned a lot about wrenching along the way. And that '70 Mustang is still with me today. Lot's of first's with it for me. First car i rewired from scatch. First carb rebuild, first interior redo, first engine rebuild(351 cleveland), first exhaust i've ever welded up. Many many firsts. I still own the car, havne't driven it in almost 20 years. Bought a '07 GT couple weeks ago, and driving it sure reminds me of my '70. Now thinking i may have to pull the '70 shell out of the cobwebs and drop a certain fresh 460 in that i have sitting in the corner of the shop and go play on the strip;.

 

Hope its nothing major dude.

Just be a little bit more carefull. I know its half the fun of owning the car, just be safe man.

 

Was your traction control on at the time?

 

Well.... the alignment doesn't just change.... something is gonna be bent.. which totally sucks.
But I don't say that all up my high horse... I did something very similar in my '88 GT with much worse results. I lived on a dirt road, and was in a hurry one night... at the transition from dirt to pavement, I turned a corner, and there was a bunch of dirt/sand at the junction, and I was a little heavy on the gas.... so, you guessed it. My *** went fish tailin' all over the place. Here's where I made my mistake.. instead of feathering the gas (letting up slightly and back on it slightly) to control the slide, I got off the gas completely. As soon as the torque was no longer applied to the rear wheels, they bit in hard. Because I was facing perpandicular to my direction of travel, the car whipped back in the other direction. I didn't have much experience, and my reaction was to hit the brakes. That whipped me back the other direction and I sailed through a chain link fence and right into a tree. It totalled my car.
However.. the alignment was still good.

 

Lived in a small country town and a lot of dirt roads. Ditches were my best friend
Of course the parents didn't think so.

 

From a fellow teen Im really sorry to hear that. 4 months after i got my car (on my 16 birthday) I tried to pull into a tight parking spot next to one of those HUGE F350 pickups and scratched and slightly dented my rear quarter panel. $950 in damage later, I now refuse to park next to any car or anything for that matter, no matter how far I end up having to park away.

 

I have about the same memories of my 70 fastback, learned a lot about fixing and driving from that car. Like a jacked up wide tired rear drive doesn't handle very well on ice. Got pretty good at fixing fences. lol

 

When I first got my car, I decided I wanted to play a little bit in the rain. Went to make a right turn and gave it a bunch of gas so I could hang the tail out a little. I left the traction control on thinking it would kick in as it had in the past when the back end got away from me in the wet. Well the "intelligent" traction control recognized that I was playing and didn't kick in. So instead of the 90 deg right turn I intended I did a U turn and came to a stop sideways on the road. Fortunately I didn't hit anything.

I learned a valuable lesson. Two actually. I now know where the limit is. And, traction control is a tool. As with any tool if you don't know how to use it, it won't work right.

 

I hope it is not too bad. At least the incident was not further aggrivated by being witnessed and cited by "the Man".

 

What probably happened was that both wheels spun at the same speed, causing the ABS/Trac Ctrl system to ignore this situation, causing you to go from to to

 

wet leaves will do it too even if traction control is on.. luckily i just counter steered a slight bit and was fine. didn't bite the curb or anything.

 

Remember that Trac Ctrl relies on the ABS wheel speed sensors for the rear wheels only (ABS relies on all 4 wheel speed sensors). So if both rear wheels spin faster (at the same speed) than the front wheels, ABS will do its part if the brakes are applied but Traction Control won't do anything because it still thinks your rear wheels are fine. Now if one wheel spins faster than the other, it will use ABS and/or torque reduction (depending on vehicle speed) to slow down the wheel spin.

 

Sign up here before you hurt yourself (or others).

Close to the Bay Area. Who knows, you may actually learn something.

 

I had an incident in my '86 where it HAD been raining and the most traveled area on the highway was dry. The intersections however were still wet. I took a u-turn and as I was getting back on the highway, I hit it a little hard. For those who have driven with Goodyear Gatorbacks, you know how well they deal with moisture. Anyway, the car began to fishtail real bad...so then I corrected which was cool...but then the tires dryed and I went back the other direction immediately. This led to contact with the cement barrier and a repaint/repair of the front bumper cover.

Gotta hate that.

 

I had just turned 20 when I pulled out of my apartment complex in a light rain driving my 92LX 5.0. I made sure to get it straight and then stomped it. I promptly got a good look at the cars coming up behind meas I spun across the left lane into the thankfully very wide median. Dug about 2"'s worth of mud out of the left rear tailpipe. I was lucky that was the only issue.

Live and learn. No berating here because you didn't hurt anything besides your pride and your car. Good luck with the repairs.

 

I suppose that's possible but with no limited slip, the chances that both tires had the exact same traction and spun at the exact same rate is unlikely.

If you have played with the traction control at all you know that if you are gentle with the go pedal it kickes in fairly quickly, if you stomp on it it has a higher threshold before it activates. And if you rev it up and drop the clutch it has a really high threshold, almost to the point of not needing to turn it off when you want to peel out.

I stomped on it, maybe even did a little rev and drop clutch action. So it did what it was designed to do. Live and learn. Haven't lost it since.

 

Part of what I did not like with my 05 GT was the Pirellis on it ! they are great dry weather but as soon as it splits on the ground it's wicked with alkl that torque, I was lucky that my son & I were not hurt, we were on a highwyay exit and it was curving up while accerating it spun out very easy. So if you are on a wet road slow down keep distance and Maintain Your Cool !
If my 07 comes with same they are OFF and Toyo or Eagle's will be on.

 

I lost track of the times my '69 bit me in the nether regions back when I was a teen. God is the only reason me (and some of my friends) are still here today.

Those '60's Mustangs were VERY twitchy-handling cars. But I provided more than my fair share of bad instructions with the wheel and pedals!

I am going to remember your incident next time I think of getting too frisky with the '06.

 

Hey man Things happen. When I had my corolla I was in a really tight space and had to get out so i gave it a shot and barly scraped the bumper of a truck and dented my rear door and scraped it alil. also took out my side mirror lol but I learned from it and now im 20 about to be 21 in 8 days with a 1 year old Mustang GT its still scrap free. So you live and learn and get her fixed. What part of the bay are you from?