I have a 2012 c250. During a rain storm on the interstate my car experienced hydroplane. I actually lost control and spun around going 60mph. Are these cars prone to this.

 

If you drive too fast for the conditions you'll hydroplane no matter what you're driving.

Slow down!

 

[QUOTE=cvx5832;7099681]If you drive too fast for the conditions you'll hydroplane no matter what you're driving.


And it will be even worse if you have very worn tires. Just comes down to how much and how quickly your tires can evacuate the water. Our cars are not prone to hydroplaning. Look at a race car out on slicks and all of a sudden it starts raining. They can spin out going only a few miles an hour because there are no grooves and channels for the water to go. The car just pushes the water instead of channeling it.

 

4matic? curious

 

I would think pretty much the same thing. If you aren't contacting the road and instead have water between the pavement and your tires it's still like being on ice. You are just floating.

 

Assuming the other 3 would have contact it would make sense that it would be ok, but then again if all his tires are bald then it would still be highly susceptible.

 

What's your tread depth and what tire are you using?

4matic or not there is a tiny bit where rubber meets road.

I've gone a solid 100mph where I probably shat bricks over a puddle but made it alive. Since that moment in time I make sure I have enough tread depth and just drive like a tank on rails.

4matic can't respond quickly enough when hydroplaning over a small puddle, IMHO.

 

No car is prone to hydroplane or less prone. It's about the tires. Get new tires. I've gone 80MPH over a section of standing water on the interstate and all I experienced was the car slowing down a bit and the traction control light flashing. If you spun out at 60mph it's your tires.

 

Just as important as new tires, is buying the best ones you can.

 

Aquaplaning (hydroplaning) is a function of tire pressure.

The GENERAL RULE for the minimum vehicle speed is (9 x sq. rt. of tire pressure).

...so, at 36 PSI inflation pressure is: sq rt 36 = 6, then 6 x 9 = 54 MPH

Of course, tread wear changes (less ability to siping water from under tire) the speed where it would happen, so worn tires would quickly approach your 60 MPH mishap!

 

So based on this math, the higher the tire pressure the less prone a tire is to hydroplaning? (makes sense to me, but I'm not an engineer so thought I'd doubly check)

 

Yea, that's why jets have tires cranked up to 200 PSIG

 

As a pilot...I would disagree here.

I think it's a function of surface area wrt rubber contact patch.

The same tire filled at 1psi will have a much great surface area and higher probability of hydroplaning than that same tire at 40psi due to a smaller contact area. (similar when it comes to a tire's ability to cut through snow.)

No?

 

As a pilot you should be getting some glam pics of your benz next to a plane

 

Wrong. tire pressure does not dictate anything of that sort. Resistance to hydroplaning comes down to the tires characteristics. mostly affected by tire compound and tire tread/ply design. Tire compound effects the cars ability to grip a variety of surfaces and tread design affects the tires ability to evacuate water and other road debris/contaminates. The ability as for speed speed ratings comes down to the construction of the tires, as speed increases so do rotational forces on the tires construction as it has to be strong enough to resist them, a speed rating of say 140mph means the structure of the tire is designed to resist forces produced by speeds up to 140mph, above that risk of tire failure increases substantially if maintained. However, tire pressure does have an affect to a degree. lower tire pressure causes higher rolling resistance which can affect tire characteristics, remember that whole Firestone tire deal used on ford explorers or whatever they were? The tires blew out because Ford designated the tire pressures for the SUV BELOW the tires designed minimum PSI rating, that caused the tires to undergo high stress and internal frictional forces causing failures aka blow outs. Higher PSI reduces rolling resistance. Airplane tires are a huge difference in technology and design from vehicle tires and I have one thing I do know about them that proves this. They are designed to resist extreme forces, such as going from 0-250mph in 0.5s when the plane lands. Being that, their construction is probably vastly different from a cars on principle function alone. They don't need as much design against lateral forces as planes pretty much go straight at any remotely significant speed. Tire wear does not change based on PSI, the only change it has is on where the wear occures, a tires wear characteristics do not change. If you want proper performance from a tire get a good one and maintain proper pressures and driving speed. Worn tires lose traction easily in rain because there is simply not enough tread depth to counter it and evacuate it fro the tires contact patch, tire PSI at that point isn't going to have any affect on that at all...

 

In short no.

What you have is an issue with the combination of tires and relative speed. You either need more tire depth (aka your tires are worn out), better rubber compound (tire upgrade), or just simply slow down. FYI, summer tires (in general) will be better than all seasons in both dry and WET weather. All-seasons only beat summer when temps start to go below 40F (again in general).

This IMO is the #1 most overlooked upgrade, yet ironically is probably the most important/best bang for the buck mod you can do on any car. I always shake my head when I see users here post their mod list but are still on stock rubber.

Bottom line...if you want to drive fast then you better have GOOD tires. As for reference, I'm currently on Michelin Pilot Super Sports and I can tell you the limits of them are very high. Even if you don't push the car to the limits, you still benefit in daily driving by having better emergency handling and shorter overall braking distance.

 

Thats somewhat true. However, both tires probably would fail at the same point because despite contact patch if the ability of the tires tread to evacuate water is exceeded it will hydroplane at the same point.

 

Was just taking something to the extreme.

For more real world tire pressures, I would hazard a guess that given the same tire...one that is inflated at 30psi would hydroplane more easily than one at 45psi.

 

Take a look at Horne's formula as it applies to aircraft tires.

Also, as I noted, the formula is a GENERAL RULE, it needs to be tempered by a number of factors, mainly the depth of the water on the road, and the siping ability of the tire. In short... if the water is higher than the tread depth remaining, and it can't get rid of the water beneath it fast enough...you are screwed.

I'll offer 2 examples from practical experience:

My C250 has the staggered 18's, so I couldn't rotate the tires. I didn't expect to have the original Conti's rears wear so quickly. During a rainstorm, I could not exceed 50 MPH without aquaplaning! The entire set was replaced the following week.

My 911 is a street and track car. I have driven it in the rain at Watkins Glen with worn Toyo T1R's (my rain tire setup) at speeds of 120 MPH and cornering speeds of 60 MPH with no loss of control.

The difference... at the track, I could read the surface and avoid the standing water on the straight (look for the dark, flat grey color), and "rim-shot" the corners. Rim-shot is taking the turns along the top of the banking...water runs downhill!

Another interesting fact, Ice Skating is really Water Skating. The pressure of the skate blade actually momentarily melts the ice and you glide on the film of water.

 

There are factors you are not accounting for in your examples.

Your conti's are all season tires, which means ok performance in most conditions. They can't touch dedicated season or purpose built tires in performance ability.

Your track cars tires are specifically purpose designed for wet driving, they are designed for max performance in the rain and wet as that is their purpose so of course driving differences are minimized comparing to the dry.

These examples are like comparing apples and oranges imho.

A huge factor in hydroplaning is speed and vehicle weight. as a car goes faster it lifts up reducing weight on the tires in a sense, then is speed which is even bigger. Rate of displacement is volume x time=xxxx, as a car goes faster time to displace and channel water away from the tires reduces drastically, based on this principle of physics in the ability of a tire to channel water away depth of the water is a smaller factor. You can drive just fine in a couple inches of standing water with even slicks if you go slow enough. My truck can go through a ft of water just fine as well, just depends on how fast you go.

 

My "dedicated track rain tires" are Toyo T1R all season street tires. My dedicated track dry weather tires are Nitto NT1

 

Toyo Proxes T1R are dedicated high performance summer tires, not all seasons. They are also low tread wear and sticky rubber compound to promote grip with aggressive tread for wet and dry. unless these are not Proxes which I have not heard of.

My last car had Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R tires, insane dry grip but scary in decent rain as they easily hydroplane since they are dedicated dry track tires..

 

Man, this thread must have really struck a nerve and ignited passions. 22 replies within a day and oddly enough nothing further from the original poster. Maybe he is too busy tire shopping.

 

LMAO!!! I'm one of the passionate ones . I'm extremely particular and picky when it comes to tires and try to be well versed in them. If I come across very direct/harshly I apologize then, no harm meant .

 

I wasn't dissing anyone for anything posted, I just thought it amusing all the posts coming in over this so quickly. Generally you don't see that kind of response to anything on here other than maybe dino vs. synthetic oil (but that is on EVERY forum), the steering lock that goes bad and maybe the Takata air bag issue. This topic is WAY more fun than any of those.