I got my new tC 2 and a half weeks ago. It was awesome for the most part. I loved the car. 4 days ago, I was driving home from work around 6:45 PM and when I made a turn off of the highway going about 20 MPH the back of the car started squeeling and bouncing. The ABS in the rear locked up but I was going slow enough and it was no real problem. The car righted itself soon after and all was fine. I dismissed the occurence as something I may have done wrong. At 10 PM later that night I was driving down a road going West. I was moving at 40 MPH and an animal came out of the woods. I swerved into the empty lane next to me and that is when the same thing happened again. This time there horrible results. The back of the car started bouncing, the tires were screetching and the back of the car spun me competely around. I hit a tree and totalled the tC and that is what brought me to a stop. My brakes did not work in the front. Watch out for this problem. My 2 week old tC is totalled. I am banged all up and am waiting for my insurance agent to tell me if this is a defect of the tC's. If you have had a similar problem be careful and also post so I know if this is a defect with my car or all cars. As angry as I am that my car spun me out of control, it saved my girlfriends life and mine. I am confined to my home for 2 weeks. Watch out.

 

Ouch, glad to hear you're ok. Thats damn scary to think that the car has problems in the brakes. Personally, I hate ABS anyways, wish you could get the tC without it. Anyways, good luck with getting some kind of replacement and finding out what the issue is.

 

whoah!

yeah, def. watch out for that...

i hope you recover fine and that everythings fine...and that the insurance takes care of it all...

 

I've heard of people on the scooby forums just hooking a switch to their ABS fuse. THis effectively cuts their ABS. THey flip the switch for Offroading, fiip it back on for street.

 

wow get well soon bro.

 

dang....so to hear that.....

 

feel better....they will replace the car....your lucky man !

 

Glad to hear you and your girlfriend are relatively ok. That's a pretty scary story. I haven't heard of anything like that happening in any car, let alone a tC. I hope it was an isolated problem. Best of luck with your recovery.

 

oh man, you have my sympathies

question: .. i thought ABS was a good thing, every car reviewer always says to get ABS? the abs feels different from non abs cars ive driven, to me it feels less powerful, i dunno?

 

I hope you get well very soon.

One question - was the road dry? Cause at 40mph the car can stop in about 60-100 feet, even with locked up rear end and spinning in circles, so theoretically you shouldn't have gotten banged up bad at that speed. Unless the tree was right at the edge of the road, or it was a little more than 40mph. Sorry for stupid questions - I'm into this "accident avoidance" thing now and am very curious about the physics of car behavior at different speeds/different road conditions.

 

was it raining or muggy by any chance? my '93 cavalier has ABS and when they get soaked (aka a car wash or sitting in heavy rain) the rear brakes won't engage, pretty much the same thing happens as what you described. The rear end bounces up and then falls hard. It is pretty scary, but I usually have to drive slow and keep testing the brakes and then it works itself out. I can see if I was going faster and this happened it wouldn't be good. Luckily it hasn't happened at higher speeds. But anyway, get better and be safe.

 

Wow...well hopefully things will work out for you. At least you and your gf are still here.

 

woah~ never heard of such occurrence.

with ABS... don't ever pump the brakes. Just press down and steer straight as possible. If you pump the brakes... u can definitely mess up the control of the vehicle..hence awful consequence. Glad to hear u didn't get hurt.

 

define animal... i feel for ya but if u totaled ur car cuz of a racoon or a squirrel... no comment....gl with the aftermath

 

i am not holding u responsible for whatever failure happened, its just amazing that the car somehow lost control like that for no reason... I hope you and your girlfriend fully recover without any longterm problems! get well soon

 

Damn, hope you make a nice recovery. Sorry about the ride man, I love this car, and would be crazy mad if that happened to me and especially my baby (not the car here either), I don't know that I would do. Just thank God that you survived, the car is nice, but her and you are here, end of story. Keep the post active with your progress on all levels. Good Luck!

 

hey man, im really sorry to hear about that, feel better and have a speedy recovery. A car is always replaceable, so long as you and your gf are alright

if you dont mind me asking, did you have the side airbags? and what part of the car hit the tree? front, back or side?

 

I'm really sorry to hear about your loss there..

But I do want to chime in about the brakes myself. It's only happened one time so far, but it rather freaked me out.

I was driving home from work the other day, and just reached an intersection where I had to stop normally.

For some strange reason, the brakes did not function right. It took multiple pulses of the pedal to get them going again, and it left me rather shaken.

I'm assuming there may have been an air bubble in the brakelines somewhere, but it felt as though the brakes were pulsing unevenly across the car.

It's something I've been watching for since then.. I'm curious to know as well if anyone else has had any weird 'burps' like that.

 

Thanks for the sympathies everyone. To anser a few questions now: The road was somewhat moist, it was thundering and lightning out but now down pooring. The animal was big, that is all that I can tell you, the house near where I crashed said they saw a deer. I can not remember for the life of me, it scared me to death. I did not have side airbags but the knee and driver and passenger airbags all deployed. The tree hit right in front of the driver door and had me stuck in the car (about where the front left tire is). ABS is supposed to be a good thing and insurance companies even give you a small break for buyin g a car with them however it is not entirely uncommon for them to fail and that is what Allstate told me. I was going 40 MPH and it was uncommon as hell for my car to do what it did, regardless it spun and hit the tree which was anchored to the very side of the road; it was so close in fact that there was a mailbox attatched to it on the side I did not hit. I did not skid far but it was enough to throw me around and into that tree. I took pictures and all. My insurance guy told me today it was totalled, surprise surprise, but they are investigating the accident because he said what it looks like to him is that my ABS did lock up but he has to try to prove it. I won't know for another week. It is totalled and it will be covered completely by my insurance and the GAP insurance I purchased from Del Scion. My only concern is how much will my insurace go up. I was so surprised with how well the tC held up that I plan on getting another one soon. The insurance agent said that it was a maricle we walked away. If you are getting this car you are getting a safe car.

 

Your insurance won't go up at all, it's a safety related issue, if anything, you're gonna get another car and then some. This is what people make millions off of when they sue car manufacturers, because it could have killed you.