GR Yaris Issues when driving on slippery surface

Onehp said:
You touch upon the next big challenge for real world driving, and that's when grip varies.
And it's usually into, on and out of crossings it can be extra slippery. For me this has been a big subject, wanting to enjoy a car winter time, but without crashing obviously.

We've already touched on lift-off and how that can make the car unstable. Something similar can happen on the throttle. I've you are familiar with the 'Mustang leaves car meet crash' phenomenon, this is basically powersliding that is uncontrolled. The slide is initiated not on balance but on overpowering traction. This can happen by stomping the pedal, or as here, by sudden reduction in grip. If the car was already yawing in a turn, this yaw will be reinforced, even on the GRY and despite awd - laws of physics. It is easy to loose control if the wheel speeds are much higher then road speeds as letting off throttle will both introduce weight transfer while, a specially when really slippery, the wheel spin doesn't necessarily stop when you think it will. Even if you know it is slippery, making a controlled slide can be hard as the turbo lag and boost coming in can make it hard to fine-tune the wheel slippage.

The solution to all this? Well other then trying to find the grip limits on braking or handbrake or on balance in controlled forms, the solution is again spelled left foot braking. With it you can immediately and simultaneously even when still on throttle, control wheel speed and stabilise the car.

As left foot braking requires a sensitivity in the left foot that usually isn't there on the clutch kick reflexes, this means a lot of practice. Practice in a safe place and with safe guidance if necessary, and if you get a hang of it, keep it up in dialy driving. I know I lose the 'touch' if I don't regularly practice it. In the GRY it is a joy that can be had on every drive. And I forgot who but remember someone of the GRY development team stating that left foot braking is key to mastering the GRY.
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Interesting points there, thanks. I‘ve tried left foot braking once or twice in previous cars when conditions allowed (not very often in the UK!) with hilariously bad results 😆. Feels like something which needs lots of practice and lots of safe space.

I think you’re right, it was a variable grip situaction but it definitely oversteered under power in normal driving mode.

I do love this car though, it’s my first winter with it and I think I’m going to enjoy it this season more than any other. Would love a heated steering wheel! Got one in my wife’s car and I’m so jealous, I will never buy another car without one.
 
grydoc said:
Interesting points there, thanks. I‘ve tried left foot braking once or twice in previous cars when conditions allowed (not very often in the UK!) with hilariously bad results 😆. Feels like something which needs lots of practice and lots of safe space.

I think you’re right, it was a variable grip situaction but it definitely oversteered under power in normal driving mode.

I do love this car though, it’s my first winter with it and I think I’m going to enjoy it this season more than any other. Would love a heated steering wheel! Got one in my wife’s car and I’m so jealous, I will never buy another car without one.
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@TheManWithTheStick is ahead of you there, and has retrofitted the heated steering wheel. I can confirm it is lovely and warm too. Details here:

GR Yaris - Retrofit heated steering wheel

To save hijacking the retrofit satnav thread any further I'd like to gather all info for retrofitting the heated wheel, it is getting chilly out there now!! @CommitConfirm I hope you don't mind providing some more information? I'm sure others would be keen to do this. And if anyone else knows...
www.gr-zoo.com www.gr-zoo.com
 
Onehp said:
Dragging isn't exactly the context we're talking about here, there yes it would probably cut off the engine.
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Poor choice of vocabulary from me. What I should have said is modulation of throttle and brake at the same time.
 
I’ve used the GRY this week given the weather. My immediate roads are hilly and un-gritted. I did have a moment at a junction where there car just started rotating on me but the grip recovered fairly quickly. In general the grip has been excellent given the conditions. 50/50 track mode everywhere in these conditions.
 
Michael Knight said:
GR Yaris - best car to go looking for "problems"
In the world where everything is autonomous and going via 6-line motorways, GR makes you to take that small path and extra loop of gravel road.
For driving enthusiast, GR is like taking that Red Pill and being reborn. ❤️💎🤘🏻

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The pill was blue !! I took a round the world trip in 98 to NY courtesy of the blue pill maker when at the time there were 250 thou men in USA on ED treatment and within two months of the launch there were 2,5 mill taking it !! To their credit they made the magic C19 pill and vaccine! If young Toyota had realised the GR was going to have the same effect he would have been ecstatic!! Actually it’s better and lasts longer , to quote Winston when talking about cigars !
 
grydoc said:
I was in normal mode so a slight surprise, I’ll try and explore further if I can find somewhere safe to experiment.
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AlphaDelta said:
50/50 track mode everywhere in these conditions.
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From this vid the Toyota engineer says oversteer is more likely to happen in normal and track.



From my own experience in the UK on roads and autosolo if I want to slide I go into track and expert, I have had it slide a few times not in expert but only when mashing the pedal at a junction in very cold conditions.

I still find it amazing just how much grip the car has in cold wet weather with summer tyres however this can also be its downfall I suspect as it encourages you to push harder.
 
Ecsrobin said:
10:13
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Thanks.
Ecsrobin said:
From this vid the Toyota engineer says oversteer is more likely to happen in normal and track.
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That's not what he said. Sport is more likely to kick out the rear (=oversteer), however if you want to keep a drift going (provoked by driver technique), normal or track is better.
 
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Actually noted yesterday that TC and ESP do not catch everything.
Had done all twisty sections and was joining bigger road from standstill. Did WOT launch on 1st gear and GR went into fat AWD drift even with all nanny systems were on.
Fun car and very enjoyable to make adventures with it.
 
Yes, it was incredibly icy on one of the backroads near me this morning, and despite having all systems active, it was a-slippin' and a-slidin' AOTS
 
I was driving in snow also last week had lots of snow in the back wheels had to clean them a lot.

Is there a solution for?

mudflaps?
 
AdvEvo said:
I was driving in snow also last week had lots of snow in the back wheels had to clean them a lot.

Is there a solution for?

mudflaps?
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Drive straight? 😂

Rally cars sometimes have rear wheel scrapes, attach a properly designed bracket to e.g. the rear caliper mount points and then a hard rubber 'mini plough' attached to that that pushes snow/dirt to the inside.
 
there is quite much air coming from the fender outwards via wheels. this is filling the rear wheels with snow so I'd say its a difficult task. Maybe if there was bigger brake plates/sheets (or what they're called) it could prevent snow from accumulating into wheel.
 
I think the snow is comming from the front wheels pushing into the inside rear wheels
 
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