Describing Handling

[xcel]

So what's a lift-off oversteering car with turn-in understeer?

Julian Edgar - AutoSpeed - May 15, 2012

A 2013 Lexus GS350 F-Sport exiting hard on the throttle - One of the best handling and somewhat affordable -- compared to the exotics -- showroom floor handling super cars available anywhere.

This article was first published in 2008.

Here we cover the definitions of some of the words used to describe car handling and suspension. If you don't know how to describe it, it's a lot harder to get someone to help you fix it.

Understeer is when the cornering car does not turn as sharply as the amount of steering lock indicates it should. In other words, the front of the car is sliding. A car that understeers off the road does so with the front still facing the original direction. Understeer is safer than oversteer (see below) and so all car manufacturers set their cars up to understeer when grip levels are exceeded.

A car with plough understeer has completely stopped responding to steering inputs – turning the wheel further makes no difference to the direction the car is headed. Plough understeer is dangerous because steering control has been lost.

Power understeer means that the understeer increases when more power is applied. This normally applies to front-wheel drive cars. Power understeer can be remedied by reducing power, so transferring weight forwards and also reducing the work the front tires need to do… [Read More]

[RichXKU]

Excellent article. IMO this type of information should be required knowledge to get a license. It's extremely important to know the limits of the car you drive when an emergency handling situation arises.

The CR-Z is the first car I've owned with turn-in oversteer.

[WriConsult]

I was fortunate to have grown up and learned to drive in Minnesota, where snowy roads gave me the opportunity to experience and learn to deal with most of the phenomena described in the article.

[ALS]

It took me some time to get use to driving a FWD in the winter over a RWD. 33 years of driving RWD with Pittsburgh winters and hills taught me a lot about how to control a car in a slide. The Prius was my first FWD and those first few weeks of snow in the winter of 2009-2010 were an extreme learning curve.

I can't tell you how many times I almost wreaked the Prius at low speeds when learning to transition to a FWD's quirks on snow and ice, that first winter. BTW I still hate ABS on snow and ice.

Twitchiness

My Volvo with 44 psi in the tires in the rain. It is very unnerving to drive that car with more than 40 psi in wet weather.

[Nevyn]

Originally Posted by ALS

It took me some time to get use to driving a FWD in the winter over a RWD. 33 years of driving RWD with Pittsburgh winters and hills taught me a lot about how to control a car in a slide. The Prius was my first FWD and those first few weeks of snow in the winter of 2009-2010 were an extreme learning curve.

I can't tell you how many times I almost wreaked the Prius at low speeds when learning to transition to a FWD's quirks on snow and ice, that first winter. BTW I still hate ABS on snow and ice.



My Volvo with 44 psi in the tires in the rain. It is very unnerving to drive that car with more than 40 psi in wet weather.

I was deliberately taught "snow driving" by my dad when I was learning to drive. This was in an 87 Town Car...I still, to this day, want a RWD car in the snow.

[WriConsult]

I should add that I was also fortunate that my parents had one FWD car and one RWD car, so I got to learn the at-the-limits handling traits of both types of cars at moderate speeds.