Bring back ride quality!!
Discussion
FamilyDub said:
It makes me laugh, there's a bloke in my street with a fairly middling-looking Insignia* diesel.
He complains about the ride from the 20" (!) VXR alloys and wonders why his new baby won't sleep on car journeys and why his tyre bill is so expensive.
He also laughed at SWMBO's (non RFT) 16" on the 116d... t
t.
16" wheels are perfectly fine for a woman, they are after all training wheels He complains about the ride from the 20" (!) VXR alloys and wonders why his new baby won't sleep on car journeys and why his tyre bill is so expensive.
He also laughed at SWMBO's (non RFT) 16" on the 116d... t
t.-
which replaced a Vectra, so you know he's not a 'car man'
PumpkinSteve said:
Miglia 888 said:
Most new cars today will ride pretty well as long as you uncheck these when ordering:
Rubbish runflat tyres
Stiffer "sport" suspension that's still too soft for trackdays
Heavy big alloy wheels
Useless "handling" packs / switchable suspension
Just order whatever car car you want, get the smallest lightest wheels the base version has from eBay, fit the highest profile new tyres approved, and sell the heavy big alloys & tyres yours came with on eBay, all for a nice profit.
Ride sorted.
Are alloy wheels generally heavier than steel counterparts of the same diameter?Rubbish runflat tyres
Stiffer "sport" suspension that's still too soft for trackdays
Heavy big alloy wheels
Useless "handling" packs / switchable suspension
Just order whatever car car you want, get the smallest lightest wheels the base version has from eBay, fit the highest profile new tyres approved, and sell the heavy big alloys & tyres yours came with on eBay, all for a nice profit.
Ride sorted.
MINI OEM 15" steel wheel (with hubcap) - R12 14.8lb (6.7kg)
Lightest MINI OEM 15" alloys - R81 7-hole "Pepperpots" 12.0lb (5.45kg)
Typical MINI OEM 15" alloys - R93 5-spoke Rockets 14.8lb (6.7kg)
Heaviest MINI OEM 15" alloys - R101 15" Rotator-spokes 15.7lb (7.1kg)
Lightest MINI OEM 16" alloys - R102 S-winders 17.4lb (7.9kg)
Typical MINI OEM 16" alloys - R83 5-stars 20.1lb (9.1kg)
Heaviest MINI OEM 16" alloys - R90 cross-spokes 20.9lb (9.5kg)
Lightest MINI OEM 17" alloys - R91 5-spoke Bullets 20.6lb (9.4kg)
Typical MINI OEM 17" alloys - R104 Crown-spokes 22.7lb (10.3kg)
Heaviest MINI OEM 17" alloys - R85 S-spokes 25.1lb (11.4kg)
No prizes for deducing which OEM wheel, tyre, suspension combo our smooth riding yet still sweet handling LWB MINI Clubman is on.
Jaguar steve said:
Yup - C3 Picasso and C4 both experienced on extensive European hoonage recently are both better than my XJ8
Although sadly I'm reading bad things about the new DS5's ride. It seems Citroen, to chase sales, are going 'German'I had an E60 5 series on 17" RunFlats rather than the normal 18s or 19s. It looked a bit 'poverty spec', but was wonderfully supple. I find the XF very good, but 19" wheels aren't great on ridges and expansion joints.
The best ride quality I've experienced? Lotus Evora. Delicate, Supple and firm at the same time. Oh, and a 1983 Vauxhall Carlton on 185/40R14s...
My BMW 335 cab is atrocious on poor roads. So much so in fact that if I can't fix the issue I may have to sell it. Seriously entering a pothole or drainhole cover is akin to having dental surgery without anesthetics. How on earth a mainstream manufacturer like BMW thought it was acceptable to release a car with such piss poor ride quality is beyond me? I am no stranger to cars with stiff suspension but this is just taking the proverbial. It is on 18" as well so not massive alloys. They are run flats which I will be changing very soon but I have read on here that even changing to non-runflats doesn't really help so do I spend £600 on what could be a costly trial and error exercise or do I just get rid?
Definitely a problem with modern cars. The German manufacturers seem to be the worst for this, but almost everyone is doing it to some degree. People seem to think that stiffer springs and dampers somehow makes a car more "sporty", where in practice it usually completely ruins the handling on anything other than a perfectly smooth road, in my experience.
Our Octavia was awful on the original (18 inch) wheels. It's infinitely better in every way (except initial responsiveness on turn-in) on 16s. Even on 16s is still rides worse than my Elise at speed.
Our Octavia was awful on the original (18 inch) wheels. It's infinitely better in every way (except initial responsiveness on turn-in) on 16s. Even on 16s is still rides worse than my Elise at speed.
Edited by kambites on Saturday 11th February 17:18
What's changed in the last 6-7 years to bring this on though? I don't remember this being an issue on previous German cars! Where has this fad come from. This is were I get a little upset at motoring journo's. If you are reviewing a car, telling me how easy it is to get the back out with a dab of oppo Troy Queef style really isn't big or clever.
How a car rides is far more important and yet this is given hardly any thought. Surely it should be the proffesional journo's jobs to highlight such glaring mistakes and make it known that this isn't acceptable. Like it or not, we as individual customers have no say in such matters, surely it is the duty of journo's who have the ear of the manfucturers to highlight such shortcomings on our behalf?
How a car rides is far more important and yet this is given hardly any thought. Surely it should be the proffesional journo's jobs to highlight such glaring mistakes and make it known that this isn't acceptable. Like it or not, we as individual customers have no say in such matters, surely it is the duty of journo's who have the ear of the manfucturers to highlight such shortcomings on our behalf?
I picked up my e36 323 touring last summer and it was running on 18's with 40 profile tyres. Looked great to me. For the winter I swapped it onto some 16's I had in the garage running (slightly narrower than standard) 205/55's. It was a revelation! The car was so much more comfortable. So I've picked up some OE 16's for the summer now and the 18's will be sold. It's an auto anyway and I have a 328 track car so it may as well be as nice as possible to cruise on. If it wasn't meant to be cheap (ish) motoring I'd fit a new set of standard dampers and improve it some more. I do wish I'd gone for 15's now though!
kambites said:
Fashion - both the visual appeal of huge wheels and the belief that having a car with rock-hard suspension is somehow "better" than having one that doesn't shake your teeth out.
It is the customer's fault. Every vehicle engineer wants smaller wheels. But customers want bling, big wheels and S-Line or M-Sport .
The Alfa 159 I had on 16" wheels was lovely, by the way.
The problem isn't so much that customers want big wheels - it's that customers want big wheels but aren't willing to pay for decent ones so the manufacturers give them 18 inch wheels that weigh 20kg each. I tried to pick up one of the wheels from the Octavia without getting brake dust on my clothes when I was putting winter wheels on and I actually couldn't hold one out in front of me - they weigh a tonne!
I do enjoy a nice soft ride now and then, but sometimes you can really feel those sorts of cars barrel rolling around on twistier B roads! In general though, I think we've become a bit silly. Buyers now are obsessed with having a diesel saloon with the stiffest suspension going, so it crashes over everything except the smoothest tarmac. I guess they're obsessed with pretending their car is 'sporty' and having massive wheels!
Baryonyx said:
I do enjoy a nice soft ride now and then, but sometimes you can really feel those sorts of cars barrel rolling around on twistier B roads! In general though, I think we've become a bit silly. Buyers now are obsessed with having a diesel saloon with the stiffest suspension going, so it crashes over everything except the smoothest tarmac. I guess they're obsessed with pretending their car is 'sporty' and having massive wheels!
There's no reason why cars which absorb bumps well have to roll in corners - that's why god gave us anti-roll bars. There's also no particular reason that body-roll should be bad if it's properly damped. Some of the greatest drivers' cars ever have been extremely soft in roll. I've always appreciated a car with good ride quality ever since I learned to drive, if anything a car with sqishy suspension will probably be faster over our crap roads the same car with typical rock hard suspension.
And TBH decent ride quality doesn't mean compromised handling/grip as my old Clio RSi and current MR2 clearly demonstrated. Heck even my Morris Minor handled well and had a good ride!
That said I'm pretty tolerant since I had a FN2 CTR and didn't mind how it rode at all!
And TBH decent ride quality doesn't mean compromised handling/grip as my old Clio RSi and current MR2 clearly demonstrated. Heck even my Morris Minor handled well and had a good ride!
That said I'm pretty tolerant since I had a FN2 CTR and didn't mind how it rode at all!
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff