what would be the effect of a single deflated tire?

[vvaffle]

Look at the last sentence for the short version.

Yesterday I had my first close call in the 240 while taking a left turning on ramp while the ground was wet. I felt a bit of oversteer coming into it, corrected and then half way through it snapped out. I'm not so confident in my ability to correct such large oversteer at over 40mph so I just countersteered and didn't press the brake or gas until the car just came to a stop. I didn't end up turning more than 90 degrees. I didn't hit anything or anyone either. I thought that I had gotten on the brakes too hard/too late and my rear brakes are newer while the rear tires are older.

However, this morning when I went outside, my rear left tire was totaly deflated. It turns out that dirt got in between the rim and the tire and there was a small leak. It was a $20 fix and there is no damage to the rim or the tire.

So I was wondering, what effect would an under inflated inside rear tire have on handling and if it could be part of the reason for my little mishap yesterday.

[continental_drift]

wow, that really sucks. from my experience running all different tire pressures (though never intentionally 2 different pressures left to right)what would most likely occurr is the tire with less pressure would have more traction, acting as a pivot point against the other tires rotation, especially if you're open diff...as wheel speeds may vary... and especiallyif you were steering into it at the time the weight shifted...

this is not science, this is just trying to reason why that would happen.

Micah

[zippitta]

If the left rear was low on air then it should pull to the right. If the right rear was low on air then it will pull to the left.

[C-Kwik]

Not having enough air can create some unpredictable results. At the very least it will respond slowly and may allow you to put too much load and not feel it until it's too late. It's possibly you also began rolling onto the sidewall which isn't really designed to grip the road. Even worse if you had any tire dressing on it.

I've seen worse though. I handled a claim where a kid had fairly new tires and he did something to his car that required he remove his front wheels from the car. Later that week, he hydroplaned pretty bad and swore something was wrong with the car as there was little water on the road. Upon viewing the photos of his damage, I noticed he installed his directional tires in the wrong direction. I made a quick call to his father and let him know. His father had been hounding me that there was some mechanical malfunction and that his son was not at fault. He felt pretty lame after I told him about that.

[vvaffle]

Well I guess it depends on what the pressure in the tire was but I doubt that it would have rolled on to the sidewallas it was wet and as far as I know, the rear left should have been the tire with the least load on it while braking in a left hand turn.

I have heard though that an improperly inflated tire will lose alot of traction when it's wet as the tread will not not expell as much water as it was designed to. I've pretty much figured out what my error was, just trying to see how much the tire could have had to do with it.

[skydragoness]

From what I've learned, counter steering when the 240 gives you that hint of oversteer is the worst thing to do, best thing is to keep the wheel/nose pointed in the direction you were going and ease off the throttle. As for the tire, like C-kwik said, it will make it heavy and slow to react to your inputs. A 2-3psi deviation on any of your tires can definitely manifest itself in bad ways. BTW, what kind of tires are you running anyway?

[vvaffle]

Why do you think counter steering is the worst thing to do? On the first hint of it I eased off the throttle but not all the way and reduced steering input (didn't steer in the opposite direction though). After it snapped out, I let go of the brake (that's what I was doing since I realized I was going too fast for the turn and I thought that it would start understeering soon) and countersteered as much as I could. A better driver probably could have gotten out of it but I decided not to test my skill and just let my self come to a stop since I had plenty of space.

As far as my tires, they came with the car when I bought it 6 months ago. Here's the specs:front - Falken Ziex ze512 treadwear 420, traction A, temperature A, 88H

rear left (the one that was deflated) - futura challenger GTH treadwear 360, traction A, temperature A, 87H

rear right - futura GLS Super Sport treadwear 440, traction A, Temperature B, 87T

They are all P195/60R15 (stock size) M+S

I know it's not great that I have different tires in the back and as far as I know the fronts are better tires than the rears. They also have about 20% more tread than in the back since they were changed about 11 months ago. The fronts are also directional and as far as I know, the rears are not.

[Red coupe]

I think she is just saying that most of the time, if the back end is just starting to slip out, counter steer isn't really necessary, just a slight decrease in steering angle.

My truck used to have a tire that leaked, It would become very noticeable at the mid-low 20 psi range. You can usually feel how much movement the rim is allowed. it feels kinda sloppy and sluggish and as it got to the lower end it would over-steer pretty easily

I guess this is one of the major benefits of messing around with your car in a safe area so you are comfortable in an almost out of control car before you have to deal with it in an emergency....personally I think there should be a little skid pad time on the licensing test