How do you roll an Explorer

[wpurple]

With all this lawsuit over rollovers surfacing again, I would like to know a bit of detail of how you get a X to roll.....let me be a bit more specific. Does it take losing control and going off the road, or can you do it on totally flat ground. I think my X and Mountaineer handle very well for what they are. I have made some serious swerves and had no problem recovering. I just want a better understanding on how people are doing it. Today on my way home from work, doing 75, I swerved from my lane to the next and back again to simulate avoiding a obstacle and did it flawlessly. The only real complain is that when taking a turn really fast I get a bit of wheel hop but heck I got that in my Mustang.

Thanks!

 

[X~FACTOR]

How? By driving recklessly going 75 and swerving between lanes simulating an obstacle course.
















As I understand, most rollover involves a blowout of one of the tires first. Most drivers panic at this point and start swerving, causing the rollover.

 

[Hokie]

Classic SUV roll over...

Swerve to miss something
(run off road)
freak out, over correct, swerve back on road
(too much momentum, end up in opposing lane)
freak out even more, swerve back to the right side of the road

by this time the body is quite off kilter, has some good momentum and the last swerve flips the high center of gravity SUV right over and the vehicle rolls into the ditch

Heck, some Boy Scouts at a jamboree in VA went joy riding in an H1 and managed to flip it by the method I described

 

[MONMIX]

By thinking your 3,500 + pound SUV should handle just like a Mazda Miata.

Get some sway bars from EE, your cornering will improve dramatically.

 

[CodePoet]

I think Hokie is 100% correct...once you get that osscilation and a driver that is over correcting it just snowballs and :roll:

just my thoughts on the subject
cp

 

[etc]

Start running really fast foward, the turn to your right 90 degrees. What's gonna happen? You're gonna bust your ass. Same concept. The momentum of the car at 70 mph is gonna go at 70 mph regardeless of which was the car is facing. If the tires aren't facing the way they should be they're not gonna rotate, to the car essentially tips to the side, but side the wheel was turned, the "side" is not in the same direction the car was goin at 70 mph.

Like hokie said, it happens from overcorrecting.

 

[Critical_Level2]

Trying to keep up with a corvette, mustang, or other high performance car going extremely fast on a very winding and twisting mountain road. By doing this you would probably start to roll, hit the guard rail, flip over it or go through it, and land at the bottom of a cliff 1,000 feet down.

 

[Nate1]

Park on train tracks?

 

[Bionc Marsh.]

First you get some really big papers and then............. Oh, you mean turn it over, never mind. :roll:

 

[have2goski]

i think alot of it comes from driver error.

Same stuff as above but people just don't know how to drive and when some people get in an SUV they think they are indestructable and throw sensibility out the window, they end up driving beyond the road conditions and stuff like roll-overs and spinouts happen.

I had a professor a few years ago that was a demostration driver for comercials and what not. He showed us a video where they took a handful of compact/sports cars and flipped them right over in a flat parking lot on a dry day. He basically said any consumer car can be flipped. Some cars just have to move a little faster or cut back and forth a little harder, but they will all go over if you know how to do it.

I also saw a study about the blowouts where they would blowout a tire on an explorer and nothing really happened. The driver (professional) said it was just like any other tire blowout. He spectualted people don't know not to slam on their brakes and basically panic and just lose control of the vehicle.

The thing with explorers and firestone.....i wonder what the ratio between blowouts and roll overs is for any car compared to that of an explorer. Maybe there were just more tire failures overall but proportionally the same number of roll overs compared to other vehicles.

 

[odxtoxic]

when i rolled, it was totaly my fault, i went into a gravel turn too fast, over corrected when i went into a slide, front tire went in a soft ditch, front rim grabed the ground and the truck was THROWN over, i rolled once, landed on the wheels, and drove right out of the ditch to my house after contacting my parents and police

here is the link to the thread of my rollover http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=89064/

 

[00XLS]

or you could back up really fast attempting to do a J turn and cut the wheel to hard completely flipping the truck onto the passenger side

 

[Stic-o]

If you drive it normal you'll be fine! You just have understand that its not a sports car and has higher center of gravity!

To give an exsample: My truck has a 3" body lift and a bit of TT and 31's. Even with an OHV, if I do a Uoey (flip a bi+ch) and hevy on the gas out of it, I can lift a tire! It wouldn't take much to flip if I wanted too.

 

[wpurple]

I just watched a video that is on the Bridgestone site about blowouts and I was amazed that they said to just about floor it, increase speed, then decide when to pull over. This is done to overcome the force that will be pushing you to the side of the blowout. If I can find the link again I will post it. Very informative. I would never have thought to increase speed during a blowout. I bet 99% of the Firestone/X's rollovers were due to the driver smashing the break and losing control.

 

[mrboyle]

How do you roll an Explorer? The same way you roll a Vette, Mustang, Porsche, Munster Truck, etc.... You drive it past the ability to maintain control.

From what I have seen, most rollovers are 90% driver fault and 10% mechanical failure.

 

[jimbo74]

I KNOW HOW YO ROLL AN EXPLORER......

it can all be related to driver stupidity!!!!

 

[Glacier991]

Really LARGE cigarette paper and some BIG GUYS!

 

[beau]

You could silde around a snowy/icy corner then hit a dry patch. That seems to work. (Actually did this in a Jeep, not my X. It was like a 78 CJ something. We were right in front of the high school and a bunch of our classmates came out and helped flip it back onto its wheels. Other than a flooded carb - which started after about 30 sec of cranking - and a bent mirror - which was bent back out - no damage to the beast.)