Had a forum search but couldn't find this question ...
What actually makes a car handle well ? Super-stiff lowered suspension & huge section-tyres ? Some good handling cars, like the little Lotus Elise, don't seem to have such a hard ride, and don't run on 20" tyres....
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My Megane hadles very well on low profile sports alloys but in my opinion the ride suffers a bit. You couldn't say it was bad but there's definitely a bit more noise and vibration that penetrates the cabin on bad surfaces than previous Renaults I have driven.
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Suspension pixies. The more pixies you have, the better the car handles. Just don't forget to keep feeding them cheese or they fall off and go to a newer car (or at least that's my explanation for older cars not handling so well).
You've picked a complicated subject. The answer lies in more than just ride height and tyres. There's toe-in, castor angle, trail or rake angles, spring rates, damping rates, suspended v. unsuspended weight. Then there's bushes. Stiffer bushes typically improve handling but cause a loss of ride comfort.
Lotus are one of the finest suspension companies you will find. They tinker, tune, fettle and feed all of the above pixies, er, components until they get the right results. With the Elise they don't have to consider the compromises that carrying 3 passengers and a bootful of luggage dictate in other cars. They build a car within fairly tight parameters, so can get it more "right" within the limited operating ranges that a dedicated sports car works within.
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Low centre of gravity helps. It's all about balance, basically. The stiff suspension helps (on a good surface) by limiting body roll, hence keeping the balance of the car. Think transit van versus F1 car here.
The massive wheels/tyres get a larger contact patch with the road, thus higher friction forces occur, therefore higher centripetal force required from the centre of a corner's radius required to overcome the friction and put the car into a slide.
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A good driver.
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Stiffness of the body shell, the pixies can do all they can, but if the complete structure twists and bends, they can never get things right.
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I always remember LJK Setright remarks about the Jaguar XJS having superior handling more due to its clever chassis design, than to pumpled up tyres, etc... in fact, he reckoned some cars handled better wih smaller section tyres ...
Body stiffness - I wonder about this - the old Volvo 440 was renown as having a LACK of body stiffness, yet, for its time, was rated as a good handler (well, the sportier versions, anyway) ....
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Torsional stiffness..... Damn you, RF! Why didn't I put that?
After all, I fitted a strutbrace to the Alfa and spent the next month grinning like a loon at the improved ride and handling as the struts and springs were no longer fighting the twisting of the chassis.
Still think the pixies do a fine job.
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Body stiffness - I wonder about this - the old Volvo 440 was renown as having a LACK of body stiffness, yet, for its time, was rated as a good handler (well, the sportier versions, anyway) ....
Yup, my mother's 1989 440 GLi, owned by her from new, still handles like a go-kart. Unbelievable steering feedback, and lightning fast direction changes. Some have sneered and laughed at this thought, until proven wrong.
My wife's 306 Sedan though hits the sweet spot. Innocent looking face, but handling and on the limit poise to shame many a 'sports' car, and the magic carpet ride to rival Jag's best efforts. Compliant, but taught, this trick is delivered by a ten year old budget French car running on high profile 165 tyres.
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high profile 165 tyres
Correction: high profile 175 tyres.
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Stiffness.....
I quote from a US test of the Supra twin turbo Sport Roof - what we call the Aerotop.
" The handling/ride compromise was deemeed just right...
Then we unbolted the Sport Roof...
...With the roof out the Supra is disturbingly flexible, twisting and creaking like an old Mustang convertible. Bolt the roof back in and the Supra stiffens right up..."
Perhaps Toyota thought that Aerotops would only be bought by hairdressers.
On a personal and subjective level it has seemed to me that the Sonata (with opening roof)has a more vague turn in than the previous Magentis, virtually the same car but with solid roof.
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>>A good driver.
Not really. A good drvier can get more out of a car than a bad driver; a good driver might be able to get more out of a "bad-handler" than a bad driver could get out of a "good-handler" but he can't actually make the car better.
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Low centre of gravity and centre of mass somewhere around the mid point of the vehicle. This is why traditionally (lower slung) coupes handle better than their saloon equivalents and why higher vehicles (MPVs and SUVs) don't handle like sports cars, unless you get the pixies to all swing from the gearbox.
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What are pixies?
(hides waiting for verbal abuse...)
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What are pixies?
Tiny but very heavy wee men who hang on to the bottom of your car, holding it to the ground. Without them your car gets that "It's going to float away" feeling.
You have to feed them cheese to keep their weight up. It's the high saturated fat content.
If a suspension pixie gets weak from hunger it may allow its attention to wander. This often leads to accidental crushing of a pixie extremity in the darker environs of the underside of the car. This explains the propensity for a car's suspension to creak when not working at full efficiency; it's the cry of a hungry, wounded pixie.
Can anyone tell that it's Friday by the content of my posts today?
No Do$h - Alfa-driving Backroom Moderator
mailto:moderators@honestjohn.co.uk
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"Can anyone tell that it's Friday by the content of my posts today?"
Yes indeed, you normally talk far worse garbage than that.
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I always understood the pixies to be intensly loyal, but with a limited lifespan and a propensity to develop arthritis at an early age.
(can I have some of what you're on today?)
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(can I have some of what you're on today?)
No, it's mine, my preciousssss
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Also well known that Italian pixies are better for handling than French pixies who have too much wine with lunch and swing around a lot causing the car to roll
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There are Fridays in the Back Room and there are Fridays-before-a-Bank-Holiday in the Back Room......
How do you all fit into one coat?
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No French pixies are great lovers, with style and flair. They caresss and guide you, and only get provoked and angry if you ask them to do something that has no benefit for them.
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"and only get provoked and angry if you ask them to do something that has no benefit for them"
That?s slightly worrying. I have French pixies too. What do you think I should feed them before I load my mother-in-law into the car for a 100 mile drive? She?s kinda XXXXXL.
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Well according the various threads about hairdressers cars if M-I-L is a manatee she should be wedged into an MX5 - towed behind perhaps?
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The most useles pixies are the German ones. Rather than holding the car down onto the road like the Italian pixies, our German friends amuse themselves by climbing out and kicking hard into the underside of the seat if the road surface is less smooth than glass. (German pixies are believed to be recruited in Prussia)
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What are pixies?
"Tiny but very heavy wee men who hang on to the bottom of your car, holding it to the ground......."
I have suddenly lost the will to live...
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ahh... must be what makes the XJS handle (and the better, older, XJ6's) ....
And must be why I really hated the handling of the current Civic - such a tall body, OK when the suspension could handle the corners, then a rapid feeling it's going to lose it .... Type 'R' excepted ....
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Boys, boys, boys ... I despair of you all.
Real men know that there is only one sort of car wot handles well, and PJ O'Rourke explains it at tinyurl.com/3y85o "Some say a front-engined car; some say a rear-engined car. I say a rented car."
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How does the size of the contact patch affect the avalable friction? As far as I know the friction available is normal load multiplied by co-efficent of friction ???
But there must be a benefit of wider tyres or they wouldnt use them?
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The friction equation you give is applicable when you have two solid surfaces in contact, and, as you say is independant of area.
Roughly paraphrased from the seminal book on the subject by Bowden & Tabor - the situation is like taking one mountain range, turning it upside down, and placing it on another mountain range.
By this, it is meant that because of the roughness of surface asperities when viewed on a microscopic scale, the true area of contact (the mountain peaks) is very much smaller that the apparent area of contact. In fact, because of the kinematic requirements of contact, the true area of contact is virtually independent of the apparent area of contact.
As you increase the normal load, the very high stress in the area of the contact points causes plastic deformation, and the true contact area increases, which is the mechanism for increasing the friction force proportional to applied normal load.
But - a tyre is completely different, it conforms to the road, and by increasing the footprint size, one can increase the true contact area, and hence obtain more friction force. Having bigger, wider tyres may not always be helpful, especially if there is standing water or snow.
number_cruncher
p.s. NW - the content of the link you posted rather surprised me!
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Oh, sorry, I forgot - with wider tyres, the suspension pixies have to work harder keeping the tyre cambered properly.
number_cruncher
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p.s. NW - the content of the link you posted rather surprised me!
I disagree with PJ on just about everything, but he is very funny, even if you are on the receiving end of his jokes (or maybe especially if you're the target). His "Holidays in Hell" is one of my all-time favourite reads, esp the chapter about England
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Driver of the said vehicle and his/her competance in reading/ understanding the road and other prevailing conditions.
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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It's all down to the quality of the designers, development engineers and test drivers etc. If the manufacturer skimps on the quality of their employees then the the quality (in all respects) of their products will suffer accordingly.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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Hey all,
Is it true that the Ford Ka can handle round bends better then a standard VW Golf GTI or is it just talk talk???
Considering many say the Ka has a fantastic chassis & myself being a proud owner i could agree with them.
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
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Fundamentally it's about a wide footprint and weight distribution.
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