rain +bad tires=very bad things
 

Hi everyone,

I think I am being punished. Three months ago my boyfriend and I got into a car accident that caused nearly $5,000 damage to his 01 Tacoma. We were fine but the truck was in bad shape and it took a month of negotiations with the insurance company to get everything straightened out. My BF got it back a month ago after getting fixed and yesterday we got into another accident. This time it was very similar to the first wreck. It was raining really hard and we were driving on a two lane divided interstate when his back tires hydroplaned and caused him to lose control. I screamed and the next thing you know we were in the middle of the interstate spinning around. We spun around 4 times before the guard rail stopped us. We decided that the rain and the fact that his tires were so slick that we hydroplaned and lost control.
Thankfully, we were okay and didn't hit anybody else but the truck is scratched all to hell and the back tail light area looks like a piece of crumpled up paper.
Why does this keep happening to us! We weren't driving very fast when it happened. We were traveling about 65 in a 65 mph zone. This accident happened on the exact same road that the first one did.
Talk about luck, if it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have none at all.

Even with the adjustable shocks and springs and strut bars on my Protege... when it rains, I am driving like an old man , why? because I know my 13's are not up to par, and the thread is not all that great. so I don't push it. 65 tends to be to fast by my rain standards..
I wish you the best of luck , I am pretty sure his insurance will go up and they will bitch and moan about fixing the cars.
Bruce

Glad you're OK. Pickup trucks are especially bad in the rain, because they're SO light in the back. I once spun out my 83 Datsun p/u in the middle of downtown Duluth because the back end hydroplaned. Scared the hell out of me.
Best thing you can do is find a wet parking lot with nothing in it, find where the limits are, and then stay below them.

Light pickups are very easy to spin, heavier pickups are not so bad. I've never spun the F-150 but I did spin my Ranger once. I was coming around a U-Turn, hit an unexpected bump with my rear passenger tire, and whoosh the backend came around and I was looking at a Suburban coming straight at me. Got it back under control before it spun again but scared the hell out of me. Most important thing I learned from owning a compact truck:

Buy a couple of bags of sand or cement and throw them in the back so that when it is raining or snowing those back tires don't come loose (an extra 100 pounds works wonders). Just tie them down right up against the tailgate. That and replace the tires, it is extremely dangerous to drive a compact on slick rear tires. I switched mine to a more passenger car type tread and never had grip problems afterwards.

Man, that sucks!

I have been in a hydroplaning accident too. My friend's 1999 Suzuki Grand Vitara had some slick tires and when the rain came down....

We hit a big puddle of water at about 65 mph, the car spun around 4 times, hit the center divider and slid all the way across 3 lanes and into the side wall of the freeway. I didn't have my seatbelt on for some reason and I was thrown out of the car and flew about 80-100 feet. My girlfriend found me unconcious and bloody.

That wasn't fun :(

You should MOST definitely get new tires. Mine have about 1-2 percent life left and it's pretty scary when it rains. I can spin the tires in 5th gear from 65 to 80 mph, that's how bad traction is. And DO slow down A LOT.

hehe i love practicing my hand brake drifting in de rain :D ... and thas only when no other cars are around.... like non in sight... otherwise i drive normally.... and my tires are pretty bald now.... but ye around traffic in the rain... i'm pretty cautious..... i don't one anyone else getting hurt too

Thanks I will definitely put some sand bags in the back of his truck when I get the chance. That is a good idea.

KpaBap-what an awful experience you had. you made my accident seem like a vacation. I am glad you are able to tell about your experience. I think we have learned our lessons about speeding and all of that. You should have worn your seatbelt though! I am really surprised you didn't get more injured than you were.

Here at home there have been three deaths from hydroplaning this week. I also found out there were 23 hydroplaning accidents in my hometown the same time that we wrecked.

I have one lingering question from all of this. I wonder why his airbags didnt go off. Both were on but for some reason they didn't deploy. Hmmm....:dunno:

Airbags only go off if the car's hit in the front. Side airbags only go off if it's hit in the side. The sensor's directional.

After the first accident I would have bought new tires. That's crazy to have bald back tires on a light RWD pickup truck. Im sorry to hear this and I hope your ok :D . And for the airbag comment 2 days ago I saw a 98 Toyota Avalon smash head on into a telephone poll at 45 and not one air back came out wtf is up with that?

Sorry to hear about that. Hope you guys (and girls) recover ok. What really pisses me off is when the weather is bad outside and you still have these morons wanting to race and speed on wet or even icy roads.

My Mechanic told me that once you notice the tread is thinning on the rear tires, it's time to rotate the fronts to the back. Even in the owners manual, it states that the tires with the best tread should be on the back of the vehicle. I guess to prevent slides and fishtailing.

Believe it or not, SIDE AIRBAGS will deploy also from a FRONTAL impact. That really sucks because it's like 1300-1500 per airbag.

The way cars are now days, I should have bought an airplane But I'm scared of being blown out the sky by some terrorist asshole.:eek:

Side airbags will not deploy unless their crash sensor (seperate from the front one) is set off. They won't go off in a frontal unless you have a lot of movement to the side accompanying it. Seperate crash sensors are there for explicitly that reason.

Well, the airbags should have went off. The front of the truck was hit but was done so that the front was hit at an angle then slid and damaged it down the passenger side. I think it should've went off. But oh well, it wouldn't have helped things anyway.

By the way, new tires are going to be put on today;)

Did your or your boyfriend's head hit the dashboard or steering? If not, the (front) airbags didn't need to go off...

I think the final equasion here should be:
rain + bad tires + speed + no seatbelt = very bad things!


Tech

Well we were both wearing our seatbelts, which is why I am able to write this post today.

I don't know if my head hit anything because it happened so quick but the next day my forehead was extremely sore but no bruises so it is a possibility that my head did hit the dash.