Driving in the rain

[snapdragon]

This email originated in USA 10+ years ago. I suppose it may have been true. Back in those days in USA with cocrete roads, long life tyres, wallowy suspension, and basic mechanical cruise control, it probably causes this probem, especially in those awful RWD pickup 'trucks' with 90:10 weight distrubution. I can see how hitting standing water with the situations above could cause a sudden slowdown and then the cruise would downshift and give too much gas for the prevailing conditions, spin the wheels, reduce gas to compensate and spin out.

[Conquistador]

I had a new Ford Focus last year for a few months and experienced some aquaplaning in that. As soon as it hit the standing water, the cruise control cut out and the ESP light blinked quickly.

Surely its best to just stay on the power through the standing water? Or turn ESP off when on a wet fast road??

[tonupkid]

This has happened to me' on snow.
Years ago in my Renault 25 I was driving at 40'ish on packed snow, on a straight road.
Suddenly one of the (front driven) wheels started to spin like crazy while the revs went bananas. The car slewed sideways with me and my passenger facing the nearside hedge while still moving at quite a speed.
I couldn't switch of the wheel mounted cruise as I was clutching the wheel on full oppy lock, and I didn't want to brake. I jabbed the pedal enough though to cancel the cruise and thankfully the Renault followed my opposite lock, and straightened up.
It happened so fast.
I figured the wheel feeding the stopped info wheel lost traction on the snow, the cruise upped the revs to maintain the programmed speed and with a simple dumb old diff it was then a case of feedback going berserk.
Since then I tend not to use cruise on snow and have told everyone who will listen the same. I do however suspect our more clever cars won't react in this way.

BTW After we straightened up and were once more lookingng a road rather than a hedge in front of the bonnet, my passenger turned to me and dead pan said "do you often do that?"

[HPsauce]

That doesn't make sense unless the speed sensor was linked to the back wheels.
If, as is normal, it was on the gearbox then a wheel revving up and increased engine revs would say "too fast" to the cruise control.
Unless it was a VERY simplistic system that just set the throttle at a fixed place. But that wouldn't keep a constant speed up or down hills.