overconfidence?

[scott thomas]

Well, I definately have to say that I must control myself in bad
weather with my 200q. I've had 5000 turbo fwd's with 5speeds and 2.0
bar. They're very hairy, even on dry pavement. Wet, with the light
rear end, I had to keep it very, very conservative. No biggie. Bad
weather, you're supposed to be. Too bad I have to drive on the poorly
maintained Long Island Expressway. Let's see...Trucks put the tire
dips in the lane within a few months of the new surface being laid
down (smells of kickbacks and poor materials), so water pools. Even
dry, it's bad. Next, poor drainage. The Northern State's much better,
despite sharp turns. Anyway, I bought an 87 5ktq. I did notice an
improvement, but the car was still skiddish. Even starts from a stop
on wet pavement caused wheelspin up front. Lock the center, no
problemo.

Anyway, I have a 200q now. All I can say is how much of a night and
day difference the Torsen made. I almost never spin the tires (even
at 2.0 bar!), I round corners at full throttle and the car goes where
I point it. Wet driving is great. The thing I have to do, though is
keep an eye on the speed because I'll find myself doing 75 in rain,
just by following the SUV's common speed (still can't keep up with
the Long Island soccer mom in an Excursion or HumVee). Another great
benefit is the straight line starting off from a stop, with no
wheelspin, as well as the fact that I don't have to bother with
locking the diff, then unlocking, etc.

Accident experience: I'm in the right lane of a two lane parkway
(rain). I slow down because of one car merging up ahead. An s500 with
*black* tinted windows to the right of me. At the same time, the
merging car just goes onto the highway (without using the
acceleration lane), the M-B makes a lane change in front of me, but
behind the merging car. His black tinted windows don't allow me to
see the merging car merging at too slow a speed. The M-B slams on his
brakes a few feet in front of me, the Hyundai goes on it's merry own
way. I slammed on my brakes, the rear got sqirrely, then dropped to
third and floored it to pass around on the left. Very, very close. I
must say one additional thing: the situation wouldn't have been so
dangerous if the M-B driver didn't have black tinted windows and got
off his cell phone. Next, I had just changed to Audi pads for the
front brakes the day before. I normally use Metal Masters. I just had
a set lying around and wanted to experiment. The Audi pads gave a
short delay, soft pedal, and noticeably less braking power. I can
lock the brakes (abs) using metal masters, but not with the Audi
pads. Anyhow, I changed back to the MM's and was happy again. Less
dust, too :)

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