M4 loses control leaving Cars and Coffee, hits median, gets airborne. Owner explains.

[JTO24]

Steering wheel correction, throttle correction.. or just Leave dtc on.

[Falafel Combo]

Close call for sure. Glad no one was hurt.

[E46M3forRay]

At a quick glance, driver looks like Lewis Hamilton stunt double

[Jaymax85]

im glad it wasnt worse. stuff happens, I'm sure he learned a good lesson. lets all move on.

[m4pewpew]

Originally Posted by DBACE

Yikes, what needed to happen to get out of the situation this individual was in?

At a track or autocross, the text book version for this type of situation is to learn to force yourself to look where you want to go, modulate the throttle, and steer where you want to go (usually it means to simply unwind the steering, or actually counter-steer). In reality, when novices try to do this, often they can't respond to that kind of situation. Your brain probably goes blank if you've never done it before. They end up fishtailing due to over-correcting, or slide further than they should while trying to save the slide. So sometimes, we tell them don't even bother to save it, just stay on the brakes until you stop.

The only way to develop this skill is to learn it in a safer environment, you can't learn it by reading or watching videos :-)

The driver in the M4 got so lucky. He didn't kill anybody, and didn't get killed by the opposite traffic.

[TunedM2C]

Sometimes it happens...

[kitw]

Ouch. DSC off + cold tires...

Hope your car wasn't hurt too badly.

[RingMeister01]

Epic fail

[///M///]

I don't get fools who drive with the DSC off on the street If you paid for technology then use it. Was really lucky the oncoming lane was empty.

[consolidated]

Originally Posted by GGreek5

Wow. He didn't even try to correct that. Just left the steering wheel alone.

The lack of any sort of input (other than jump off the throttle which threw weight forward, reinforcing the rear slide) makes me think he was in surprised and didn't know how to correct.

But look at the rigidity of that chassis! The thing should be twisting a bit with a corner hit, but all the energy the suspension didn't take translated into big air.

[IRNM4N]

Whoa! That sucks...

[FogCityM3]

Exactly…any instructor or race driver will tell you this. The road is not the track and you are in far less control considering the environmental conditions. Driving with DSC off on the road is simply bad risk management.

Originally Posted by dsm918

I don't get fools who drive with the DSC off on the street If you paid for technology then use it. Was really lucky the oncoming lane was empty.

[Xtabi]

Man that sucks. Poor car!

Look at the rear wheel/tire travel. Looks like it may have really smacked the inside fender area.

Also, there is a piece of the car dangling by the front passenger wheel/tire area after he lands.

Yikes!!!

[m4pewpew]

Originally Posted by dsm918

I don't get fools who drive with the DSC off on the street If you paid for technology then use it. Was really lucky the oncoming lane was empty.

I agree, use the technology. I don't care if you're an experienced driver or not.

[chiplee]

That had to be a 6MT car. My car will not let me get it that badly out of shape no matter how hard I try.

[Damasconian]

Originally Posted by Reid

This is what happens when one buys a high performance car without any form of driver training.

Everyone should practice basic car control skills at a car control clinic, HPDE, autocross, etc.

I feel sorry for the guy, he wasn't being too aggressive. But I agree with your assessment of schooling. I just did the BMW car control school in SC and came away a much better driver. Everything from hand placement on the wheel to how to correctly set up the rear view mirros is covered. Then 6 hours on a track. I'm still a beginner, but what a great start.

[JoeFromPA]

I'm very encouraged as to the durability and capability of these vehicles when equipped with 18s. Now I can comfortably strike curbs head on and try rally driving.

I guess we now know what bmw and Michelin really spent their time customizing on the PSS: off road capability.

[kitw]

Originally Posted by chiplee

That had to be a 6MT car. My car will not let me get it that badly out of shape no matter how hard I try.

It sounds like DCT to me, but can't tell.

If you can't drive with DSC off, don't. Let's not get all preachy, though... . I always teach people with DSC off as they start getting fast so they learn to control the car without the nannies. And yes, most people probably should drive with DSC on all of the time.

[shortseller]

Seen this now a few times and I still don't get it. Pulls left over the median as he's going in a straight line beforehand. Not even taking a corner. Someone explain this to me how you get that far off track? I have much sympathy for this guy, but he has to be one of the worst drivers I've ever seen.

[shortseller]

Originally Posted by kitw

It sounds like DCT to me, but can't tell.

If you can't drive with DSC off, don't. Let's not get all preachy, though... . I always teach people with DSC off as they start getting fast so they learn to control the car without the nannies. And yes, most people probably should drive with DSC on all of the time.

I would think DCT also, as I have a stick and pound through gears all the time with DSC off at times and the car to its credit stays straight and true without going crazy. Now in corners it's a completely different matter.

[Maddict3]

I agree that driving with DSC off is a bit risky but MDM is fine, especially with US spec MDM in the new M4. Its pretty much like driving with traction on.

[onatuesday]

Hey guys,

It was my car that was involved and a mistake was made. There were no intentions of doing anything out of the norm. In fact, you'll notice in the video that the car was going very slowly in front of the crowd. This was intentional because we've all watched too many YouTube videos of this sort of thing happening and wanted to make sure that nobody would get hurt should anything unexpected happen. Once the car was past the crowd the accelerator was pushed in a straight-line as I have done many times in the past when the rear snapped violently. The car was going ~30mph at that time. The car has been driven for 4700 miles and has been driven with DSC off many times including in the rain and never has the car snapped so violently just from accelerating. I chalk it up to several factors including cold temps (low 40s), cold tires and incorrect psi (more on that later) and of course driver error. More judicious use of the throttle should have been exercised. MDM mode was not used because MDM is too quick to intervene and cuts power prematurely (or maybe not).

Usually when the rear breaks loose, it does so progressively and steering correction will suffice. However, you can see in the video that the front tires are turned slightly to the right indicating opposite lock was put on the steering trying to prevent the car from doing a complete 180 however there wasn't enough real estate to counter how violently it snapped - though admittedty the gravity of the snap required immediate full oppo lock which was misread. I'm not sure why some are saying that no steering input was made because it was - one could argue it should have been sooner but again usually a little wiggle just takes small steering input and power through not a full-on immediate opposite lock as was needed in such a big snap - to me it actually seemed like it was happening in slow-mo although the vid makes it seem like it happened so fast. As the car started to correct it became apparent that there was no way out except over the curb which is where I put on the brakes and tried to straightline the curb as much as possible to avoid hitting the curb at an angle which would cause a lot of damage and potentiality flip/roll the car.

I've driven many high hp rwd cars including vipers, porsches, corvettes, and formula cars and I've graduated from formula racing schools and have years of training in advanced car control and plenty of track time. Heck I remember day one of Formula school, half of the first day was spent on the skid pad learning how to keep a car from spinning if you lose traction. Maybe I need a refresher since it's been awhile and I've been driving AWD Audis for the past few years. Some of those other RWD cars I mentioned will snap fiercely and you have to be on extremely high alert, however my experience with the M4 has been that it tends to not snap so viciously in a straight line - but this time I was wrong. I would caution anyone thinking that it can't happen to them (count me as previously one of those) that anyone can make a mistake. I'm thankful that nobody was injured from such a mistake. Surprisingly, the car seems to be driving just fine with the only damage being the right plastic guard underneath the bumper which can be seen in the video. Surprising I know.

I mentioned earlier that I had incorrect PSI - let me explain. My PSI was low, so I inflated it a bit with a pump with an analog tire guage which of course is very imprecise compared to a digital gauge. I noticed that my right tire pressure was 1.5psi off of my left when viewing the PSI from the BMW onboard digital gauge (you can only do this while driving). However, as my car had been pulling to the right from day 1 of delivery (there's a big thread of many complaining about that on these forums). Miraculously, the car drifted to the right to a lesser extent with the right tire PSI being slightly higher than the left and so I was playing around with the idea of keeping it that way for a short time- however I knew that I needed to put the PSI equally across both tires but I just failed to do that before going to the meet. I have no idea if unequal PSI left to right contributed to the right rear spinning so differently than the left.

Anyways, I know I'll be ridiculed and called an idiot (and rightfully so) but I think many of you also know that I didn't do anything intentionally out of the ordinary or unsafe. I'm not sure I was even trying to show off as acceleration happened when the car was past the crowd and it's not like a powerslide or burnout or anything of that sort occurred.

I also think the M4 is a fine car and I have no complaints about the amount of power or torque or tire width or grip or anything. In fact, the whole reason I got the M4 is because it's not AWD and I like the rear moving around a bit. Mistakes happen and I've learned a lesson - and from now on will keep DSC on when driving around because there's too much at stake to make a mistake while driving - no matter how good or bad of a driver you are. Thanks for hearing me out. It certainly has been a humbling experience.