Yesterday while driving on a rutted, but not deeply rutted road, I had some almost scary moments. The car yawed quite quickly at times. I've driven on many a rutted dirt road, but this was a first time where the movements were on the edge of unpredictability. Was it the electric steering, the electric motors, a case of wider tires in narrow tracks, higher center of gravity, vehicle stability system, a combination of some of those things or what? We have almost 32,000 highly predictable miles on this car. It is a 2006 400h AWD. It was a long dirt road, so I had an opportunity to try a few things (while my wife silently screamed as we met cars). Interestingly, some improvement occurred with moving my hands from the bottom steering position to 10 and 2. My thinking it was the electric steering and the electric motors doing something together that resulted in overcorrection. There were a number of times when the yaw was so quick that I wondered if we were going off the road or into an on-coming vehicle. I sometimes have a similar "feeling" when making a fast, accelerating swing-around move on the Interstate in the 40 to 65 mph range. I associated that yawing movement to the electric motors unloading a lot energy onto a relatively high center of gravity vehicle.

Anyone else have a similar dirt road driving experience? Anyone have a guess at why the yaw movements were so sudden?
wstr75

 

IMHO I have noticed this also I am reasonably sure it was "a case of wider tires in narrow tracks" I have a section of road that has rumble strip uneven ruts 5 MPH is the most anyone dared to try. Wheels slid into one bounced out then the opposite wheel got it etc. I noticed quite a yaw with this roadway. Very poor paving job!!!