Extremely Close Call After a Car Pulled Out In Front of Me
 

After lifting my disco, fitting larger tires and adding a roof rack I have been getting increasingly worried about its numb steering and immense body roll. Last night I was driving home with a couple of friends on a two-way highway with a 45mph speed limit. I had just come down from a long hill going somewhere between 45-50 mph when a subaru outback pulled out from the right side and tried turning left (blocking my lane in the process). My two friends and I saw the car pulling out immediately but I only had about 100ft of road to react. Luckily there were no cars coming in the oncoming traffic lane so I cranked the wheel sharply left. The rover not only leaned tremendously but the back wheels also lost traction and I was doing a full on drift at 45mph on asphalt. The subaru was blocking my entire lane at this point and my rear bumper panel nearly clipped it's hood as I skidded past it in the oncoming traffic lane. Immediately after passing the car, I counter-steered and corrected the direction of the rover. I pulled off on to the side of the road afterwards, got out of my car and started dry heaving like I needed to vomit, then I got back in and saw the blank stares each of my friends were giving me. We were all shaking. I haven't lived for very long but that definitely tops the list for the scariest things to happen to me.

So, the reason I am writing this is to ask you all what can be done to improve my handling. Keep in mind, I lifted my rover 2 inches so the steering geometry is off slightly.

Do you have both factory sway bars still installed?

You're never going to have great handling out of these beasts. They're solid axle and top heavy. You can install more heavy duty sway bars which will improve handling but decrease articulation. You can remove the roof rack. If it's one of the big steel ones that will lower your center of gravity quite a bit.

What load rating and size are your tires? Switching to an e load 10 ply tire will increase sidewall stiffness and slightly improve body roll.

Frankly, there's not a lot you can do. Even lowering back to factory height wouldn't help *that* much. My handling actually improved with my lift because of the stiffer springs decreasing body roll.

Get a D2 with ACE! My D2’s handle & feel 20 times better vs my mother inlaws 2016 Ford Explorer!! I don’t even wanna think about that POS in a severe situation.

My D2’s are lifted 2-3inches and my steering isn’t nearly as numb/slow as a lifted TJ/LJ!

If you want better handling out of a D2, ACE is gonna pretty much be your only option, or lowering it back to stock. As mentioned above it’s a solid axle SUV, and even in stock form it will never corner like a BMW 3 series.


I own one ACE equipped 99 D2 and on tight corners, S curves I can feel the difference.

No experience/advice on the handling improvement question.

Attended a defensive driving course in DC when 18 or 19 to avoid points or to decrease fine. Main takeaway from that was it's better to hit a deer than attempt to avoid and possibly hit a tree or loose control of you vehicle. The same holds true for situations like you just had.
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Yeah you shouldn't have tried to get around him. Should have stomped the brakes and tried to keep it pointed strait. Might have hit him, but it would be his fault and you might have had a sore neck. If you had rolled it could have killed everyone in the vehicle.

Even an ACE equipped disco is top heavy. Speed, or lack thereof is your only defense. That and vigilance. Riding a motorcycle has made me extremely skeptical of the average humans driving ability. Just assume that every person on the road is a complete moron and/or is intentionally trying to kill you.

Yep ACE will do better at keeping wheels on the ground and the vehicle level up to the point it runs out of travel, then it’s hang on to your butts.....

I’ve been in 2 roll over accidents in my life 87 Mitsubishi Montero (rolled it over, drove home, fixed it), and my first LR a 97 D1. The LR was completely destroyed while I walked away without a scratch. I rolled a total of 5 1/2 times at 45-50mph, did 2 360’s and when I rolled I went along a 5ft t post fence before getting back onto it’s wheels and spinning into a 1.5ft wide tree trunk, and finally landing on it’s side back near the road.....

Both accidents I was avoiding deer, and in the LR I just went around the deer, but due to tall grass I didn’t see the hidden 3-4ft deep ditch! After walking away un-harmed from both I learned 3 things for the TX Hill Country. #1 ARB Bumper time! #2 plenty of aux lights to spot the deer at night. #3 steer straight, slow down without skidding (a skidding wheel does you no good), and hit the deer or idiot driver vs rolling over off a mountain, hill, or into oncoming traffic = you’re most likely not going to survive.

If you can find someone that will let you, test drive an ACE D2. You will definitely notice a lot of improvement. Maybe enough to go find one for yourself. It really helps, plus it articulates more than stock.

Yes, I have the original rear sways and heavy duty disconnectable sway bar links for the front. I do have a full size rack that I might end up removing to increase handling :(

Yes, driving such a top-heavy vehicle made me think that in the event of a deer/car pulling out, I wouldn't even think about swerving. However, in last night's scenario, if I hadn't swerved, I would have killed the idiot driver without a doubt. Even after stomping the brakes I would have still hit them going 35-40 and with my bumper at their head level, T-boning their driver's side door wouldn't end well. I'm just super lucky that my vehicle stayed upright. I have a close friend who drove a G4 edition disco and ended up going off a 200 ft cliff at 50 mph and nose-dived into a creek. He hopped out of the rover with a scratch on his arm and a line across his chest from the seat belt. True miracle.

Heavy duty links won't effect stability. I'm talking about actual heavier sway bars. Nobody makes them specifically for the Disco, but you could get some universal ones to fit.