Well you didn't do anything crazy, I remember praising your good driving when we stopped playing f-150 roulette...I agree with the guy who said i"ts for sure not the battery, the alternator will keep the truck running without the battery, and even if the motor stopped running while driving, it wont cause you to spin, especially in an automatic." I think you need to change your battery for your own mental well-being, so that you won't always be wondering what if. And then drive cautiously (as usual) with it and see how it handles for a while. Your chica I'm sure will meet you at the other end.....or buy a helmet.

 

I was forming a response to this in my head before I got to this post about how my truck would be shutting off all the time in the winter as I power slide and whip ****ties all the time. Any switch designed to kill the motor, and power steering and brakes at that, in a spin or slide would be extremly dangerous IMO as you would have nothing left to correct the vehicle.

 

And definately not trying to impress my girlfriend. Her Z71 Avalanche is a far superior vehicle....hands down.

J-[/QUOTE]

 

actually the engine will be killed as soon as thetruck starts going backward in a forward gear. I've done this screwing around doing j-turns. If i didn't put it into a foward gear quick enough it would stall coming around.

 

I've had an engine stall, battery blow, a rear brake lock up, a front brake lock up and even got hit by lightning once while on the highway... and never lost control of the vehicle.

If you started sliding all over the place (for whatever reason) your fuel shut off probably kicked off your engine. That would easily explain why the engine died but the radio kept playing.

Driver error and/or weather sounds more likely to me than mechanical failure.

 

There is no inertia switch that will trip in a spin, then miraculously reset itself and allow you to drive away. First of all, it won't trip in a spin, and second of all, if it did trip, for whatever reason, it would not miraculously reset itself and let you restart it and drive away. Once tripped, it requires a manual reset.

It sounds like operator error to me, plain and simple. You wrote,
That is the absolute wrong thing to do in a spin. Regardless of what precipitated the spin in the first place, when the back end kicks out to the right, yanking the wheel to the left is going to make the spin worse. Sounds like somebody needs to take driver's ed again. Unless you want to spin out, you need to steer into the skid to regain control. Anyone that's lived in the snow belt can tell you that.

Play a game with it: The game is called, "Keep the front wheels in front of the rear wheels." If someone is walking behind you, and tries to step around to your right side, which way do you need to step to block that person? To the right. The same thing applies to cars. Again, operator error caused the spin.

Now as for what caused the initial loss of traction that started it all? We can theorize about it, but only you know the truth. A 5000 lb truck does not just spontaneously start to spin, plain and simple. The tires could have hydroplaned, you could have hit an oily spot, or you may have over-corrected slightly on marginally slick pavement. At any rate, your attempt to correct the skid only made a bad situation worse. I'm just glad nobody was hurt in the incident.

-Joe

 

if he would have steered into the skid he would have hit the gaurd rail wouldnt he?

 

Not necessarily, before i got my a/t's and even with them sometimes i can skid around a very sharp turn by my house on a narrow road and stay in my lane. All you do to stay going straight(or in my case straight around the curve) is steer slightly into the skid, i dont think i have ever corrected more than half a steering wheel turn. I believe that if he had corrected properly for the skid it would have snapped right back into place just like mine does every time. and FYI i only have experiece on wet roads as i live in alabama i dont know how any of this works on ice.

 

Not necessarily. Run a search for 'drifting' on Putfile or google videos. Watch a few of the videos and you'll see which way the wheels are pointed when the rear end skids out to the side. Better yet, watch an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard. They were my drifting idols when I was a kid.

The physics behind it aren't very complicated. I'll see if I can explain it later.

-Joe

 

[/QUOTE]

The guy who works for the FDA across the parking lot has an avalanche, I had to pull him out of a snowdrift last winter with a real truck.

 

The guy who works for the FDA across the parking lot has an avalanche, I had to pull him out of a snowdrift last winter with a real truck.[/QUOTE]

I can't tell you how many of those real trucks I've had to jump.

 

Can't tell you how many people don't think about their batteries until their dead, but I can tell you it's not too often you see a big ugly plastic folding thing stuck in a snow drift a Maxima went through 5 minutes before and listen to the driver say it was one of the worst winters he'd seen.

He avoids the mud puddles in the lot too now, but that's a different story.

 

There's no "motor kill" sensor in any car I'm aware of. However pretty much any car from OBD1 on will have a fuel reset switch. It's the NYC mechanic's favorite little prank. Someone gets in a minor fender bender, but it's enough to trip the sensor(similar in design to a tilt sensor in a pinball machine, just not as sensitive). Motor won't start, brings it to a mechanic. 2 minutes later, it's fixed and the owner gets a $100 bill. All he did was find the switch and press the reset button on it. I don't know about newer Fords, but my '93 has a "fuel reset" idiot light that comes on if the sensor tripped and shut off fuel.

Avalances are jack of all trades, master of none. It's a tiny SUV. One bizarre looking pickup. I'm already seeing them rust out after only what, a year or two on the market? And all this can be mine for $30k+? No thanks. I'll take an old truck with 3 pedals, roll-up windows, locks that use a key, and rust on the back wheels anyday. It's a no-BS car. I swear I get in some new cars and it feels like the car's driving me. Beepers and lights going off telling me "low traction", backup cameras as a make-up for pisspoor visibility and more idiot lights than a Christmas tree. It's telling me to turn left in .8 miles, and change into the middle lane. It's telling me who was the primary and secondary producer of the song playing, essential info while driving of course. I want a speedometer and gas gauge. That's all I want the car to tell me. And half the time when these cars are in the shop with only 5000 miles, it's these stupid gadgets that are going out. Make no mistake, I love my computer and am well-professed in it's use and really like gadgets, but NOT while I'm driving.

I doubt you would have hit the rail. If you're a good driver and know how to counter drifts properly, you shouldn't spin the other way at all. 95% of people on the road don't have a clue what to do if their car was to spin, since they have 0 experience with it. I learned it from my dune buggy and got damn good and really flinging it around turns. Often times the best thing to do with rear drive vehicles it to give the wheel a slight turn against the spin, then straighten it, and essentially let go. Don't let go of the wheel, but loosen your grip so it can freely spin on it's own. Most of the time it will straighten itself up with surprising accuracy. Remember the law of inertia, kids. Your car is going in a straight line at 70mph times 3000lbs or whatever, that adds up to a LOT of force going straight foward. It has an extreme tendency to NOT alter it's direction, and strongly resists change in course. So, if you have a blowout or whatever happened to you, your car wants to keep going straight and all that inertia can actually overpower the front wheels that may be turned, at least for a time and keep going straight. More often than not people that wildly spin the wheel the other way make things worse. Let it. Unless you spin more than about 90 degrees, then you'll auto correct the other way and probably blow your trans. Going 70 in reverse, with the trans in drive = bad news. Here's an old phrase from driver ed, applying to standards:
"when in doubt, both feet out, when in spin, both feet in"

 

I hate to sound pessimistic but this whole thread sounds a little fishy to me...

avalanche_girl, if you're here just to bash the best truck on the market, you need to find something better to do.

 

Like I said, when i correct a drift, and i think thats a good term for it, the truck almost always snaps right back, turn the wheel slightly in the direction the back end is sliding and then let it spin back through your hand and you will probably find yourself going straight again. Its not idiot proof but neither is it overly complicated. IF you know what to do, the first time it happens will scare the crap out of you, the second time will just startle you a little and by the third or fourth time you should be going oh wow im drifting let me just correct that real quick....