“An M4 could easily make that turn at 60.”
A BMW M4 driver is drawing serious attention on TikTok after posting a video that shows him understeering off a canyon road.
Peter (@peter.sadm4), who regularly shares car content, posted a clip of himself behind the wheel of a BMW M4. The TikTok begins with a bit of self-deprecation.
“POV: you drive a fast car but have no idea how to drive a fast car,” he writes in the video’s text overlay. In the caption, he leans into the moment even more, adding, “Can’t believe the streets of Mexico got me again, they really gotta fix the roads soon.”
After the clip took off, Peter followed up with another video explaining what actually went wrong. He says that as he approached the turn, he was “trying to turn the wheel for my dear life,” but the car refused to respond.
“So now you know what understeering looks like,” he adds.
Peter also pushed back on the idea that speed alone caused the scare. While he admits he had been driving in the 80 mph range earlier, he says he slowed to about 60 mph before attempting the turn.
“If you know anything about cars, you know an M4 could easily make that turn at 60,” Peter says. “So why did it go bad?”
According to him, the answer came down to grip. His tires, he explains, had none, which is why the BMW M4 kept going straight even as he tried to steer out of trouble.
As of this writing, the original clip showing the car veering off the road had racked up more than 12.2 million views.
Understeer happens when a car doesn’t turn as much as its driver expects.
In practice, this is how it plays out: Instead of following the steering input, the front end often pushes wide, making it feel like the car is plowing through the corner rather than making a smooth turn—similar to what happened in Peter’s video.
As the content creator suggested, this can happen when you take a turn too fast or when the front tires lose grip (often accompanied by that telltale screech as the vehicle starts to slide).
At its most basic, understeer comes down to grip. The front tires do the work of turning the car, and once they’re asked to do more than the road surface allows, they give up traction. When that happens, the vehicle stops following the line you’re trying to take and instead continues straight or drifts toward the outside of the turn.
Cranking the wheel harder doesn’t fix it. In fact, it usually makes things worse. The good news is that understeer can be fixed.
No, it isn’t about yanking the wheel harder. It’s about restoring traction. Total Car Control recommends easing off the throttle and braking if needed, saying that this method helps get the car back in line.
Tire quality and their condition matter, too, as Peter said. Ensuring your tires have the proper pressure and decent tread can help provide cleaner turns.
Viewers who watched Peter’s clip were divided over whether the skid off-road was caused by the road itself or by Peter driving too fast. Many pointed out that he exceeded the 40 mph speed limit.
“Speeding up while staring at the bend?” one commenter asked.
“First rule, don’t speed on unknown streets,” another added.
“Yeah, I also like to speed up as soon as I see a turn in the road,” a third chimed in.
“Yeah, lemme just speed up at a curve,” a fourth echoed, attaching a photo of the road that clearly posted a 40 mph limit—well below the speed Peter was traveling, even if he insisted his car could handle sharper turns at higher speeds.
“Why you coming fast?” a fifth person asked.
As such, many viewers were skeptical of Peter’s suggestion that the road itself caused the near-accident.
“Yeah, the road ain’t the problem, gang,” one commenter said.
“Skill issue,” another agreed.
At the same time, others were more understanding, pointing to the car’s tires and understeer as the real reason he couldn’t make the turn.
“People discovering understeer,” one user quipped.
“I feel like a lot of the people in the comments don’t know what understeer actually is or how it works,” another explained.
Motor1 has reached out to Peter via a direct message on TikTok. We’ll be sure to update this if he responds.
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