Bring back ride quality!!
Discussion
HBFS said:
I'm considering getting some smaller wheels for my Fabia vRS, in order to help out the ride (Maybe cabin noise too?) It currently sits on 205/40/17's
Unfortunately I have a full set of winter and summer tyres that I feel should be worn down first
The sidewall height was one of the reasons I decided against the Fabia. If you're thinking of downsizing, one thing to check is whether the smaller wheel fits over brake caliper. I specified the smaller wheels 16" on my current Volvo and am surprise how small a clearance Volvo think is accaptable.Unfortunately I have a full set of winter and summer tyres that I feel should be worn down first
niva441 said:
The sidewall height was one of the reasons I decided against the Fabia. If you're thinking of downsizing, one thing to check is whether the smaller wheel fits over brake caliper. I specified the smaller wheels 16" on my current Volvo and am surprise how small a clearance Volvo think is accaptable.
You make a very valid point there, will have to investigate further when funds allow.phib said:
In my case three reasons,firstly I have a bad back and the standard seats / comfort seats don't support enough where as the sports seats are one of the most comfortable seats I have ever sat in. Second I was coming from a 9 911's inna row as daily drivers and the standard car felt too much like a barge especially on country lanes where we live and felt very loose on high speed motorway turns. Thirdly the standard car made both me and my other half feel car sick as I guess we had always been used to a crashy and hard ride from years of sports cars
So I thick basically it was the best compromise for us, hope that makes sense
Phib
This is the conundrum - I much prefer sports seats in a car, Recaro's are usually superb, but to have sports seats you need a sport version of the car, which means you then have to have sports suspension - I would like sports seats in a car with standard suspension and large profile tyres, but the combination doesn't exist unless you start to modify the car.So I thick basically it was the best compromise for us, hope that makes sense
Phib
I think ride quality is a very subjective thing, for instance if we had a couple of cars in front of us, say a Rolls Royce Ghost and a Gumpert Apollo I would only cock an eyebrow if it was the former that had people complaining. So I think expectations play a large part here.
For an example look at the original poster, he's going for a ride in a Jag. So what does he expect? He expects wafting, but Jaguar have now stopped wafting and had a go at handling to boot, so there are bound to be compromises. Jaguar 2012 is not Jaguar 1989.
Having said that I do think car companies are making it hard for themselves. Wheels are getting larger every year and tyres are lower profile, runflat or whatever. All these things just do not help when it comes to ride comfort, so the car companies have to work around this on the suspension front.
The question is not "Why is ride quality so bad" but instead, why are us punters prepared to pay for bigger, heavier, more expensive wheels with bigger, heavier more expensive tyres stretched over them?
I wonder what the ride quality is like on the new Toyota GT86? It's got Prius tyres you know
At least that sounds like it is reducing the replacement cost after opposite lock oversteer for 6 months?
A new dawn? ( cue Star Wars music)
For an example look at the original poster, he's going for a ride in a Jag. So what does he expect? He expects wafting, but Jaguar have now stopped wafting and had a go at handling to boot, so there are bound to be compromises. Jaguar 2012 is not Jaguar 1989.
Having said that I do think car companies are making it hard for themselves. Wheels are getting larger every year and tyres are lower profile, runflat or whatever. All these things just do not help when it comes to ride comfort, so the car companies have to work around this on the suspension front.
The question is not "Why is ride quality so bad" but instead, why are us punters prepared to pay for bigger, heavier, more expensive wheels with bigger, heavier more expensive tyres stretched over them?
I wonder what the ride quality is like on the new Toyota GT86? It's got Prius tyres you know
At least that sounds like it is reducing the replacement cost after opposite lock oversteer for 6 months?A new dawn? ( cue Star Wars music)
Good topic.
As a BM owner, it seems I must lust after 30" alloys in 15 profile tyres. I don't. I got the smallest I could (17s) and stuck no run flats on them. The result? Lovely balance of grip, ride quality and comfort. I cannot grasp the current obsession with massive wheels, silly tyres and often on a car with naff all power.
As a BM owner, it seems I must lust after 30" alloys in 15 profile tyres. I don't. I got the smallest I could (17s) and stuck no run flats on them. The result? Lovely balance of grip, ride quality and comfort. I cannot grasp the current obsession with massive wheels, silly tyres and often on a car with naff all power.
StevieB said:
Maybe its because having turned 43 yesterday I am moving into middle age, but all the modern cars I go on, I find way to firm in the ride department. Basically Im just trying to think of a car on sale today that doesnt cost a fortune that could be sold on great ride quality, rather than sport handling? Is Ride quality dead and buried? Certainly a ride in my father in laws new Jag XF diesel makes me wonder....In the meantime, I shall just put on my slippers and pipe and go off in my motorised sofa, i.e. my 9 year old Passat!!
All of this - modern car ride quality sucks and the stiffly sprung and over damped don't go round corners eitherThe thing is though, it's all well and good saying just fit smaller tyres but they look ridiculous on modern cars. Car designers now design the bumpers and wheelarches in such a way that putting on small wheels makes a car look absolutely silly. I have 18" wheels on my car and even they look too small for the design of the wheelarches. The whole design is geared towards making you buy bigger alloys. One thing I do agree with is the low profile tyres. When I finally get rid of my run flats, I need to investigate going to bigger profile tyres but this may then effect the electronic gubbins of the car adversely.
Goodness! Just yesterday I took the alloy wheels off my company car, a (ahem) Y reg Smart, and replaced them with standard steel wheels and new wheel trims.
It's a car I bought from a customer which has a distinctive paint job. It was on 195 tyres, now replaced with 145s and 175s. I had strongly thought that the car was on aftermarket shocks and springs, but discovered it wasn't and that it's appalling ride stemmed only from the wheels.
Interestingly the wheels were the same/correct diameter, but much heavier and wrong offset. Ride quality has been transformed although it'll never be limo-like with a Smart.
Thrums along nicely at 85 though.
It's a car I bought from a customer which has a distinctive paint job. It was on 195 tyres, now replaced with 145s and 175s. I had strongly thought that the car was on aftermarket shocks and springs, but discovered it wasn't and that it's appalling ride stemmed only from the wheels.
Interestingly the wheels were the same/correct diameter, but much heavier and wrong offset. Ride quality has been transformed although it'll never be limo-like with a Smart.
Thrums along nicely at 85 though.
Guvernator said:
The thing is though, it's all well and good saying just fit smaller tyres but they look ridiculous on modern cars.
If they do, who cares? I buy my vehicles to drive, not for my neighbours and colleagues to appreciate from a fashion point of view. (For years spectacles were becoming smaller and more discrete. Now people are wandering about looking like Deirdre Barlow in the early 80s)
Ps. The rolling radius should be the same with the smaller and larger wheels, although it's not necessarily the same with spectacles.
heppers75 said:
Have to say my 1988 XJ-S is light years ahead of my X-Type in quality of ride but the XJ-S would get marmalised on a fast B road despite its BHP advantage.
The wheels&tyres on my XJS look comical when it's parked at work next to the more modern stuff on big rims and skinny rubber but I love the way it rides and I'm finding that as I head towards the big five-oh I don't care about being marmalised on B roads .... I love wafting along at a very reasonable pace. I test drove a XFS recently looking for an oil burning daily driver (I have a long commute) and it was a wonderful place to be .... until I started driving it. Maybe I need to look at one with smaller wheels and more rubber ...Mark-C said:
heppers75 said:
Have to say my 1988 XJ-S is light years ahead of my X-Type in quality of ride but the XJ-S would get marmalised on a fast B road despite its BHP advantage.
The wheels&tyres on my XJS look comical when it's parked at work next to the more modern stuff on big rims and skinny rubber but I love the way it rides and I'm finding that as I head towards the big five-oh I don't care about being marmalised on B roads .... I love wafting along at a very reasonable pace. I test drove a XFS recently looking for an oil burning daily driver (I have a long commute) and it was a wonderful place to be .... until I started driving it. Maybe I need to look at one with smaller wheels and more rubber ...MC Bodge said:
If they do, who cares?
I care, one of the reasons for buying a car is how it looks for me (not bothered what other people think). I'm not a fashion victim so I didn't go for the 19's but the car has to be aesthetically pleasing to me too. I'd go for smaller wheels if they suited the car but they've designed the car specifically to be fitted with big wheels, the wheel arches are huge. I've already gone for the smaller wheel option, if I fitted anything smaller, it would look like I'd fitted roller skate wheels to the thing. If they had made the arches smaller to begin with it wouldn't look so silly.Anyway big wheels aren't necesarily the problem either. If they actually tuned the suspension properly, the wheel size wouldn't matter too much. Oh and run flats, they are sh*t.
I've been thinking about this, it seems the problem is not the actual diameter of the tyres but their low profile. A tyre with the circumference to fill the wheelarch need not be stupidly low profile i.e. make tyres have the same rolling radius as a current 20" wheel but give them a higher profile and reduce the wheel diameter, this way they can look good and absorb bumps (whilst still being too heavy I know). What is the profile of an F1 tyre? they look to have a very high profile compared to a road car yet you can't get more "sporty" than F1 can you?
I also wonder how much fuel it wastes accelerating and braking these heavy wheels,I wish I could find the link to the article that found fitting a motorbike with very light wheels improved lap time by over a second due just to reducing weight by a couple of kilos.
I also wonder how much fuel it wastes accelerating and braking these heavy wheels,I wish I could find the link to the article that found fitting a motorbike with very light wheels improved lap time by over a second due just to reducing weight by a couple of kilos.
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