Given
30%
while driving a
Rover 214 Si
(175/65 R14) on
a combination of roads
for 5,000
average miles
Tires(actually "grip 100") fitted a year ago, and since then nothing untoward until a few weeks ago when the front drive wheels spun, starting off as the lead car from the lights in my town, on a wet surface. Have driven for 46yrs without an accident, and have never gone over the line at a junction, but I did the other day at the fairly busy T junction at the end of my road.
This time there were no vehicles waiting to turn right, so I braked the car gingerly on the wet road to make a stop before the white line......or so I thought. A few yards from the line, and making no excessive braking effort considering the conditions, the car's wheels locked up as if on ice, allowing the car to slide into the main road, with little sense of retardation. So much so that the whole car seemed to have entered the carriageway before it finally stopped just feet from a transit van waiting to turn right into the junction.
Luckily for me, there had been a gap in the traffic coming from my right, so I was able to swiftly reverse back over the stop line, without incident. My brakes checked out o.k., so I'm blaming the Autogrip tires, more than I am blaming myself. To have slid so far forward has to be the tires, and not any gross miscalculation on my part, at a juction I know so well.
I'll be changing all my tires to a premium set; if I don't, likely next time, I won't be so lucky.