[mattCSLnut]

Originally Posted by GregorJP

A little story for everyone about traction and the winter.

One fine winter Saturday I was on my way with my wife and children to Homebase in Hatfield. By this time, I was very comfortable with my E46 M3 and, as a matter of course, switched off the traction before any journey. I always felt the traction control was too restrictive and the car was nice and predictable anyway. So, we come to the Welwyn Garden City roundabout (Shimmy will know it well) and I turn right to hit the dual carriageway to Hatfield.

At this point, my wife told me not to do my usual favourite trick, which is to attempt a nice drift round the roundabout. There was no traffic, but I listened anyway, and pottered around. I then hit the dual carriageway, a very straight stretch. Accelerate gently, second, third gear.

At about 60mph while accelerating, the revs rose very suddenly, the rear wheels spun up and the car jinked left towards the barrier. I tried to correct it. We then fishtailed right, left again, hard right and hit full lock and then we hit the barrier backwards on the rear driver's side. The car then slid a good 6 car lengths along the barrier, scraping the whole side of the car. £8k of damage. Most embarrassing.

After that, I thought I'd try the 911 given that I wasn't competent enough to handle the M3. I never drive CSL without the traction on in the winter and in fact have now tucked him up to hibernate.

I presume you were on normal summer tyres and ambient temps were near or below 7 deg C ? Sounds like you hit a stretch of black ice or diesel spill and got a tank slapper on.