2002 Rav4 - Poor Grip In Wet

[ahmurray]

Hi folks.

There is a roundabout just near my home which has an adverse camber and poor road surface. If i take this roundabout at anything more than 20mph in the wet, the Rav starts to slide quite alarmingly.

The car is my wife's and often has my wife and kiddie in it so I find this a bit alarming.

This is the first 4*4 I have had and I suppose I am comparing it to my BMW 535, which is a little unfair - Is this just the nature of the beast and "you canna change the laws of physics" or is there a better set of tyres I could put on it to improve grip in the wet?

Cheers,

Ali

[sjrainsford]

I would hope it's just your tyres mate.

The Rav 4 is renowned for it's car like handling. I have the earlier mark 1 model, and combined with the new set of Pirelli Scorpians on it I can chuck it round islands etc.

They border very slightly on understear (for safety) but the chassis I quite balanced I find. Just don't forget, they have a higher centre of gravity than your BMW!!

I mean, they ain't a normal car of course. But for a 4x4 they work well on the tarmac!

[jonbr]

There may have been some oil or diesel spilt onm the round a bout. I had this near my office, gave me a very nasty fright the first time I went over it. Now that the rainy season is here, and washing it off, I'm getting much better grip on it :-)

[AMH]

Worth checking the tyre pressures too - my old 3dr MK1 was quite sensitive - my MK2 5dr is less so.

[sjrainsford]

Funny you should mention the tyre pressures.

When I bought mine, the previous owner had them at 32psi!!

As you can imagine, it was very bumpy and didn't exactly stick to the road like it does now. Bit different from the recommended 25psi!

[Sartori]

As a biker (and motorcycles are very sensitive to tyre pressure) I can reliably say that garage air hoses are generally 1 to 3 psi out and sometimes 5 or more psi out. I only check pressures with my own guage now having had some near death experiences on a badly inflated bike.

[sjrainsford]

That's true, always check your pressures with a British Standard pencil guage or similar.