Everyone always talks about understeer in FWD cars, which I have experienced, but my two most dangerous 'near misses' have been caused by not understeer, but oversteer.

It's odd, I know, considering the Prelude has most of it's weight up front, but here's my story;

I have 4 HR+ZR rated performance tires with good amounts of tread.

Today I was hurrying to go to work, and I make a right turn from a four lane divided road onto a highway where the cars were stopped -- thankfully.

So I take this turn at about 30. I proceed to hear the tires squeal and the cars that were once in front of me are now out my side window. Oh ****.

The rear of the car continues to swing out like I'm doing a f*cking donut, and at this point I catch the guard rail out of the right corner of my eye. I'm going right for it.

Well, the sight of that triggered my action, which happened to be to slam on the brakes. It turns out my 'lightning quick' reactions stopped me about 4-5 inches away from the guardrail. At this point I have so much adrenaline that I start laughing as I put it in R and try to get going again.

About when I get to work it hits my stomach like a bunch of Mexican food and I realize how close I came to losing my car. Ha. That was scary.

So, throughout this experience, I learned that the pavement was slick, which caused me to spin. But, being that 60+% of the weight is up front, that would lead you to believe I would understeer into the waiting cars. Wrong. The tail flung completely out like a mad JDM drifter. I could've been in an S13 for all it mattered. Same light rear end.

I just had to get that out.. lol.. I freaked out pretty bad a couple minutes after it happened. I felt so stupid. It was just one of those things where you don't realize what a bad idea it was until after the fact.

Has anyone else had experiences with oversteer? Or maybe not technically oversteer, but the tail swinging out?

 

Um yea, kinda?? I do that quite a bit onto the street I live off of, because no one is ever hardly there, and if there is, I don't do it.. And mostly at night though...
Mostly trying to get a feel for how the car handles, as I've only one reeaaalllyyy tried driving it in a AutoX Fashion... My street back in MS was being extended and a new sub-division being built at the end, and they laid the pavement and that was is... = GREAT DRIVING ROADS :D
Back, out of the city, most off all the trees were gone so no random huge animals running out. So I took it for a spin.. And this was right after I had got it running after a year of downtime.. So I was aching to drive her.. :D
I spun out a couple times maybe, but that's when I'm really cutting the wheel, and same with where/when I do it now... I don't normally swing out unless I cut it sharp and fast... Otherwise, when I turn with the wheel steady and I just slide sideways, depending on speed = how much/long of a slide.


Main problem I'm having is the same as someone posted a long time ago, at least a year... (And sorry to thread jack, lol) But I have a really hard time doing U-Turns. I mean, I need, being in middle lane, two lanes at least to be able to turn around in without curbing/reversing... And this depends on speed, as I have to go extra slow and then speed up fast so I don't get my butt smashed... Not that that part isn't fun, but...
I just started doing U-Turns here in AZ, as they're illegal back in MS. So, I'm just now learning how bad the Turning Radius is..
My girl's Jeep Cherokee has a better turning radius than my Prelude... By like 3-5ft easy...

Otherwise I'm enjoying how my car is handling and I'm sure it would be much better minus some weight, nice, lighter wheels, plus some nice sticky tires..

And some new suspension..

 

if you brake while taking a turn hard, the rear will step out because by braking, youre transferring weight off the rear wheels. also if your turning hard and lift off the throttle youll spin in every car.

 

Hmm, those are two good points.

I honestly couldn't tell you what I did. But the intersection sort of angles down from the four lane road, so I'm assuming there was just less contact/weight when I started to spin and the momentum just kept em sliding.

 

ya the lift-off oversteer in hondas is almost as bad as the understeer, if you autocross you start to realize you have to be "smooth" with the gas and the brake regardless of where you are in the turn or the straight, because upsetting the balance of the vehicle creates some undesireable situations.

 

my Accord( roughly the same length as a 5th gen 'Lude) oversteers easily. Ihave 380lb springs in the rear an 400lbs in the front. I have an ST rear sway bar but a stock front sway bar,and I beleive this is as close to neutral as i can get with a tendency towards oversteer. Heavy FF's arent the best handlers