Awesome traction in LS? HECKS NO

LsUnV2

LsUnV2

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On my way home from a long night at poker, after surviving the perils of ice covered roads, dodging idiot drivers, and fighting of exhaustion I finally make it to the last stretch of road to the house. Great right? Almost. the last road consists of one downhill mile, a bridge, and a slow left curve going uphill with decent size drops on both sides of the road. I navigated the downhill part with ease gently riding the brake, skillfully avoiding a large chunk of snow/ice on the bridge and gracefully took the curve with ease...................................................NOT DAM IT. as i got off the bridge and entered the uphill curve everything seemed fine until my speed started to decrease. I had the radio up pretty loud as usual ( Rage against the Machine) traction control on and wondered what was going on. i turned radio down and gave it some gas. traction controll kicked in and i kept slowing down. Unbelievably i came not to a complete stop but actually started to slide backwards!!! I wont lie i was scared as s h i t. there are dropoffs on both sides and i was concerned about rolling over if i ditched it. i was on the left side of the road almost in the ditch before my beloved Ls stopped. I put in D4, no luck, sst 1, 2, no luck. I finally put in reverse and tried to back down the hill but everytime i would back down a few feet my cars a s s would try to swing into the ditch towards the banking of the curve. Afew times my car was sliding downhill perpendicular to the road!!! Never have i experienced this before. I was completely stuck. I finally was able to turn around in middle of road by drinving dangerously close to ditch. I was so relieved... It is something i hope never happens to you guys. on the left side of the drop off is the river that the bridge crosses.. I was scared but couldnt abandon my baby... stupid probably but what the hell. for the record i have blizzaks in front and dunlop winter sports in rear, no help at all. but we are having freezing rain all day today but still....jeesh, glad im alive

After i turned around i took a different route, finally came through the door at 315 am
 
Glad to hear your ok, along with the car. Hopefully you won some money playing poker so you can get some blizzaks on the back!! :p You have any extra weight in the back end?
 
I don't think that weight was the issue. It was more than likely the freezing rain. You're not going uphill on solid ice unless you have chains or spike spiders. Especially froma standstill. That's the only part of TC I don't like. I hate how it just cuts power.

Glad to hear the LS wasn't fubar'd, and you made it through okay!
 
studded tires, and limited slip rearend will get you through most obstacles like that. yeah, once you are stopped, turn off advancetrac or traction control- its useless.
 
Its useless in snow and ice period if you ask me. Great for rain.

I put those Blizzaks on my 04 Highlander the other day before it snowed. I thought they were great, last night I was out late and got caught up in freezing rain and icy roads and they sucked which is a problem cause unless we have a real winter its mostly ice around this area! That Frogman guy was right.


Im putting a knobby set of AT's on the thing next so I can have some fun in the Mud come the following season.


In my experience once you start spinning those tires around the added weight on ice can actually dig you into a rut and make it worse. Snow and slush it works great! I got 3 50lb pound bags of play sand in my trunk. But now with this tapping noise I'm not driving the LS anyway.
 
+1 You need a way to bite into the ice. Rubber alone is useless no matter how aggressive. Studs will do it, if you're careful. Read one of the car mags that cover rallying. You'll occasionally see a picture of the various kinds of studded tires they use.
KS
 
i turned traction control off, nothing worked, it was crazy. it was about 35 degress but still icy and the hick ass township doesnt salt
 
ok here is my dilema with ats(advancetrak). Ever since it has been snowing my ats has been acting up. It has not been used until now, so over a year or so. Every so often the check advanctrak comes up on the dash. Eventually it goes away or after I shut it off and start her again. Any ideas, possible snow/ice in the tires or what.
 
Happens to me every so often too. Moreso now than before all the snow.
 
Im not sure it is even made for the snow/ice. I think its more for just wet pavement not snowy & icy roads.
 
thanks to the snow we recieved fri on longisland i was forced to step down from 20inch rims with proxes to sum 18's with pirelli snowsports:(...o-well just have to wait to summer for bigger shoes again. Spent a half hour just spinning the tires, rock salt no help, and the bump i was trying to go up was no bigger than a speed bump... good thing i was in front of mavis:)
 
I wouldnt trade my lovely Florida 80 degrees for what you northerners are going thru. My wife says she wishes we had snow this time of year but she has no idea what comes with that pretty white snow.
 
my first experience with the ls's less than amazing grip on bad roads was on my way from dayton to dallas, a month after I bought it in winter, hit some foul weather in arkansas where the roads were fine but the bridges were solid ice in a matter of about 20 minutes, hit one with the cruiz set at 85 :mad: the advancetrac was wayyy too slow to do anything lol came off the other side of the bride sideways, that was a little intense
 
LsUnV2 said:
On my way home from a long night at poker, after surviving the perils of ice covered roads, dodging idiot drivers, and fighting of exhaustion I finally make it to the last stretch of road to the house. Great right? Almost. the last road consists of one downhill mile, a bridge, and a slow left curve going uphill with decent size drops on both sides of the road. I navigated the downhill part with ease gently riding the brake, skillfully avoiding a large chunk of snow/ice on the bridge and gracefully took the curve with ease...................................................NOT DAM IT. as i got off the bridge and entered the uphill curve everything seemed fine until my speed started to decrease. I had the radio up pretty loud as usual ( Rage against the Machine) traction control on and wondered what was going on. i turned radio down and gave it some gas. traction controll kicked in and i kept slowing down. Unbelievably i came not to a complete stop but actually started to slide backwards!!! I wont lie i was scared as s h i t. there are dropoffs on both sides and i was concerned about rolling over if i ditched it. i was on the left side of the road almost in the ditch before my beloved Ls stopped. I put in D4, no luck, sst 1, 2, no luck. I finally put in reverse and tried to back down the hill but everytime i would back down a few feet my cars a s s would try to swing into the ditch towards the banking of the curve. Afew times my car was sliding downhill perpendicular to the road!!! Never have i experienced this before. I was completely stuck. I finally was able to turn around in middle of road by drinving dangerously close to ditch. I was so relieved... It is something i hope never happens to you guys. on the left side of the drop off is the river that the bridge crosses.. I was scared but couldnt abandon my baby... stupid probably but what the hell. for the record i have blizzaks in front and dunlop winter sports in rear, no help at all. but we are having freezing rain all day today but still....jeesh, glad im alive

After i turned around i took a different route, finally came through the door at 315 am
Click to expand...


same thing happened to me a couple winters ago, drove up a snowy hill, couldnt make it any further, started rolling backwards, almost into a ditch, finally was far enough back down the hill to turn around, as a paper boy, it wasnt worth it anyways,
 
Ha! Try driving a 450hp Trans Am with M/T's in the snow! Scary stuff man! Glad you and the car are alright, mainly the car tho..
 
Missing Linc' said:
Ha! Try driving a 450hp Trans Am with M/T's in the snow! Scary stuff man! Glad you and the car are alright, mainly the car tho..
Click to expand...


its fun if you want to do donuts, i had a paper route and drove my v8 ls, during the winter snow too, haha, i was putting on like 350 miles a week, i had to quit that job for that reason! but it wasnt to much wear and tear on the car for that period
 
Missing Linc' said:
Ha! Try driving a 450hp Trans Am with M/T's in the snow! Scary stuff man! Glad you and the car are alright, mainly the car tho..
Click to expand...

What in gods name would possess you to drive a 450hp Trans Am with M/T in the snow?
 
Haven't driven the LS in snow. My Stability Control(Advance Trac) is great in rain.

I had driven between 91 and 2004 in the Portland Oregon area. I drove a SHO FWD studs /chains, Impala SS RWD Blizaak or stock tires, F250 4WD stock tires, Front drive Villager Van Blizzaks and Maxima Wagon RWD stock tires.

My experience is Chains when all else fails, but no fun for long drives.

Studded tires for daily driving especially on Ice.

Blizzaks are OK if it is just bad enough to keep most people off the road, but No Where as good as studs, Blizzaks will slide off wet ice just peachy.

4WD is Ok but ice beats it unless you have chains or studs.

Hard dry ice is actually easy to drive on, it's the wet ice that will kill you.

Blizzaks are Ok for daily driving and smoother than Studs. They work better on wet roads or snow, but like I said studs or chains for ice.

Glad you didn't crunch it. That old backward slo motion slide is fun ain't it?

If I had to do it again with the LS I would probably go studded snow tires and carry some chains in the trunk and probably turn off the stability control if it gets too loose.

Jim Henderson
 
JWerner2 said:
Its useless in snow and ice period if you ask me.
Click to expand...

I had TC off as I turned down a medium-snowed road, and when I got in my lane the rear end kept moving to the left. Got it under control and turned on TC and no more sliding. This was on almost new tires. I think this TC definitely does something, just not in all situations.
 
Good to hear you made out ok.

BTW, very bad idea to have two different sets of tires on your car front/back in bad weather.
 
Glad you and your car are OK OP. Would be sad to see such a nice LS get dinged.

Made it through last winter by switching over to my spare 98 Cavalier (01LS w/stock HXMX = going nowhere).
Can't wait to try out the Michellin Xi2s on the 06 this winter.
 
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