In August CAR mag. Title:"One Man thanks his lucky stars and Porsche that he is still alive." Mark Walton, a professional road tester for CAR mag was out with his daughter driving a new GT3 at 11:30 pm in heavy rain cruising in 6th gear, rain torrential and water was standing in big puddles in the right lane so he decided to use left lane - no cars in sight, and water there was draining better. (all quoted from article)
How fast, my statement to police said 65-70 mph - with hindsight too fast, but not immoral.
Then it happened, the GT3 hit a stream of deep water running across the road and in a blink, the car aquaplaned and turned suddenly, violently left.
Now, I may not have the car control of Leqis Hamilton, but I am no slouch. Yet by this time, I snapped an armful of opposite lock, I knew it was already too late. We were passengers and, as the tires reconnected to the road, the car drove clean offf the highway, over the grass, headed for trees.
Trees tend to prove fatal in car accidents because they don't give.

The GT3 landed upside down. The car was destroyed. It seemed like the trees were young, not solid, and the car bounced off and rolled over. External panels were crushed around passenger cell and the roll cage..a no cost option.. fitted to this GT3. The strength of 911s shell and cage saved our lives.

We were told by police that this was the seventh accident that day on this stretch of road and two cars had crashed within 100 meters of us after hitting the same pool of standing water which made me feel a little better about writing off one of my favorite cars of all time. A little bit. (end quote)

I know these cars with wide tires tend to hydroplane easily, but reading something like this gives one something to seriously consider when speeding along any highway in heavy rain.

 

Thanks for sharing.

I thought the AWD was bullet-proof in the rain.

 

That would be RWD and MPSC tires on a 997GT3

 

broke the axel in my 996 exactly like that.

 

Newsflash; an AWD TT would drive right thru that ****, like Doug said, it's a GT3, rwd with R cmpd tires. WTF is the idiot doing driving that car like that in the heavy rain with his kid? Dumbass.
I've driven my C4S back from the track in torrential rains with cups, it's very much a white knuckle experience.

 

Nice! In the dark, heavy rain, not used to the car, and stock tires that I believe come with a warning about driving in even somewhat damp conditions. If I were in that same situation I would have taken the slow back roads tiptoeing. Apparently better safe then sorry isn’t in every ones repertoire. Learning the hard way is never fun.

 

the car in the accident was a GT3 not a Turbo!

 

I had a similar experience a couple weeks ago. I was driving back from Shreveport...too fast...and it was raining, only lightly at first.

Then I hit a massive puddle and the back end started to wag back and forth. Yikes!

I kept my cool and removed my foot from the gas, calmly making slight corrections until the tail stopped wagging.

I was more careful with my speed for the rest of the trip.

 

I disagree with the opinion that AWD would drive right through that. If the tires actually hydroplaned, they are not touching the ground. If that is the case, it doesnt matter if a driveshaft is attached to the wheels or not, you are along for the ride. If they had a less agressive tire on the car, they stood a better chance of not hydroplaning, but thats not going to happen on a GT3.

With wide tires and an agressive tread, slower speed in rain is the only good option. The driver was admittedly speeding when he hit the water, so driver error is the reason for this crash.

 

AWD and the stock(non cup) tires won't have an issue. I noted that even w/ awd, my C4S was a handful in the rain with cups.

 

Obviously, I would agree that cups are much worse than stock TT tires in the rain. Its all about the tires ability to channel water away without lifting the tire off the ground.

 

I was going 70 in the rain a couple of days ago and hit a puddle...thank god I was going straight but I had just been tracking at VIR and those 5 seconds gave me WAY, WAY more of a adrenal response and cause my heart rate to soar...

 

nonsense - my car is a death trap in the rain (AWD intact) and i rarely do above 55mph and even then it's not fun. i do have 19" wheels and Motons but standing puddles of water are very dangerous.

once i was driving 55mph in the 2nd lane of a 4 lane highway, cars passed me at the same time on each side, and i hit a standing puddle. holy s***! the back end flung out about 45 degrees, i was looking at one of the car's front quarter panels, and i thought i was a goner.

fortunately, the PSM kicked in and snapped the car straight so fast it nearly hurt my neck. the PSM always stays on in the rain after that.

- chuck

 

The TT in my experience is not like a A4 quattro with 195mm tires cutting through the rain. I have felt alot of squirming over standing water even at speeds as low as 65 mph. I even had trouble following my friends 430 in heavy rain. Remember Chris the bias is strongly to the rear, and the 305's are like pontoons. I would still take caution over heavier water.

 

I have a wonderful idea...
How bout I take my daughter out in the GT3, in a torrential rain storm, and do 70mph through standing water?