LE stock tire, no grip on wet

[thejuice]

About twice a month I need to power brake to dead stop from 50mph because someone pulls out of a side road 3/4 into my lane and freezes like a deer. Today it happened on a slight decline and in misting rain. Nothing in 4R to weigh it down, ABS started cranking (as expected), but truck wouldn't stop.

The part that freaked me out is I turned the wheel to swerve into the oncoming [empty] lane, but the truck kept plowing straight forward, as if the front wheels were totally locked. It didn't turn a bit. Dam near totaled the stupid a-- hole but managed to miss by a couple inches.

So... wtf? I'm fairly new to the 4Runner, the truck has 10k miles, is this normal performance for stock LE tires? Is the ABS that crappy that it keeps the tires too locked to allow for steering? Should I have just kept my foot off the brake and turned into the other lane, then slammed the brakes?

 

[Jtraskell]

Juice, it does not matter what tires you have, if the road is "slick", then the road is slick. Anti-lock braking keeps the tires/wheels from "locking" up, on a DRY pavment. One can have some reasonable chance of control there. But if you are braking hard on a slick surface be it rain, snow, or ice, there is NOTHING that is going to guarantee traction. Good for you that you were able to avoid the accident and thank the one above nobody was hurt. But I would not go as far as to blame "tires in good reapair" under the circumstaces you described. Be safe bud.

 

[scanny]

Stock tires usually are at the bottom of reviews, but I agree with Jtraskell - no tire will guarantee traction. Better tires could probably saved you another inch or two, but maybe not - depends on how slippery it was.

 

[Moving Chicane]

You can't beat physics!

 

[NJshadow93]

Reading this pisses me off. I hate when people drive like that! I would have held the horn down if I were you! lol

 

[thejuice]

thanks for the replies guys. it just seemed like i had a little more steering under hard brake in other vehicles, mostly sedans, but what you all said makes sense.

Reading this pisses me off. I hate when people drive like that! I would have held the horn down if I were you! lol

I was laying on the horn pretty hard. Then when the fella passed me at the light he laid in on his horn and flipped me the bird... it took all my self control and the my passenger yelling at me to chill out to keep me from doing something stupid.

Post mortem I realized a few things...

1) I wrecked my LR3 when a van full of illegal immigrants (unlicensed, uninsured, undocumented) blew through a red light and I t-boned them. I swerved and hit with most of the damage landing on the front right of the bumper, putting a lot of pain on the passenger next to me. I can't help but feel going full front on, the full bumper and front structure would have split the hurt between me and the passenger. BTW - the illegals, of the dozen that were in the dodge caravan, the ones that couldn't run away were in the ICU for a long ass time with head injuries according to the police chief. Then the DA let them off with a $50 fine. I'm glad our hard earned tax dollars go to pay for illegal's medical fees and that dip**** DA's salary. Oh, and I had to take a vacation day to show up to court because the DA subpoenaed me.

2) In retrospect, I think going hard on the horn in the 4R is a bad idea prior to a wreck given the horn to airbag proximity. Next time I'll just keep my hands on the wheel.

 

[NJshadow93]

Good point, but for me it's always brake first, if the collision is avoided, let him have it with the horn. I've held the horn down for a good 10-15 seconds straight one time after being cut off. It doesn't solve a thing, but damn does it feel good.

 

[bofa]

This is one of those situations where having a train horn seems justified.