Is how heavy or light a car is important to you?

[cerb4.5lee]

I personally seem to get a bit too obsessed with a cars weight for some reason, and I put quite a lot of importance on it. So is the cars weight important to you in terms of the way it drives?

For example I much prefer lighter cars when it comes to braking and cornering for example, but obviously most modern cars are heavy though nowadays, so it isn't all that easy to get lighter cars generally now I think.

I have a personal sweet spot of around 1200kg, because that was what the 200SX/Cerbera weighed roughly for example.

So what would be your ideal weight for a car, and is the weight of the car important to you?

[RandomCarChat]

"Fun" cars I like them to be as light as possible. My 205 is around 800kg and that is a breath of fresh air to drive.

For my daily drivers I don't really care about weight, but I tend to go for stuff that's more engineering focused so naturally they are on the lighter side.

Modern stuff can be engineered to feel light but once you have experienced something sub 1000kg you understand that less really is more.

[Unreal]

Depends on the car.

Sportsters - prefer lighter.
Cruisers - heavy is fine.

I don't think you can disguise mass any more than size however much tech you use. I'm always aware of it and dislike it unless I'm pottering about.

[Mr E]

Depends on the car.
For the family barge, don’t care. In fact in many ways heavier is better (as long as there’s sufficient shove).

For the sports car, I want it as light as possible (and perhaps don’t care about the power as much)

[GeniusOfLove]

RandomCarChat said:

Modern stuff can be engineered to feel light but once you have experienced something sub 1000kg you understand that less really is more.

I had a Peugeot 208 shed that was remarkably fun to drive, turns out it was a 1 ton car which explained a lot.

It is very noticeably on even the handful of larger cars where an effort has been made to manage weight. Drive a 2003 ish Jaguar X350 3.0 (1600KG) and a contemporary W221 S500 (2000KG) and it's truly night and day. Same goes for the follow X351, the relatively low weight pays massive dividends. Not that barge buyers cared much.

Manufacturers have become very clever at hiding the really lumbering feeling heavy cars used to have but once you start actually driving hard... you can't change the laws of physics.

[NDA]

cerb4.5lee said:

is the weight of the car important to you?

Not in the slightest. I have light cars and heavy cars - but most days I am not driving the Route Napoleon or ragging them on a track. With my typical driving, the weight doesn't make much difference.

[ImbackYo]

Depends on application. Track, light, road, not fussed.

[John D.]

I like light cars, although I've never driven any particularly heavy performance cars to have a strong view on it. Heaviest I've had is a RS Megane 275 at around 1350kg.

[Baldchap]

Depends what it's for.

In cars I have 400kg, 900kg, 1250kg all the way up to 2100kg. They all do different things well (except one). For a track toy I think low weight is better, but for massive distances a well insulated, comfy barge with a million toys is better.

I do think modern engineering masks weight exceptionally well, dare I say it, especially in some EVs.

[cerb4.5lee]

Unreal said:

Depends on the car.

Sportsters - prefer lighter.
Cruisers - heavy is fine.

I don't think you can disguise mass any more than size however much tech you use. I'm always aware of it and dislike it unless I'm pottering about.

Mr E said:

Depends on the car.
For the family barge, don’t care. In fact in many ways heavier is better (as long as there’s sufficient shove).

For the sports car, I want it as light as possible (and perhaps don’t care about the power as much)

I mirror that as well, and the X5 is 2400kg, whereas the Caterham is only 550kg in comparison.

The shove bit is important to me as well, and I always tend to grumble if I'm driving a fairly heavy car that hasn't got much punch for example. I didn't like my old 520d Touring(1700kg) in that regard either.

[cerb4.5lee]

John D. said:

I like light cars, although I've never driven any particularly heavy performance cars to have a strong view on it. Heaviest I've had is a RS Megane 275 at around 1350kg.

That is impressive!

It all went downhill weight wise for me when I got into beemers to be honest, because they've pretty much never made a light car for example.

[AstonZagato]

Never been an issue for me. Even my sporty cars have mostly been V12s so weight is always going to be high.

The only time I've worried about it is when jacking my Range Rover (they make their jacks out of chocolate).

[KobayashiMaru86]

It's always a concern, especially on fun cars. The GR86 is supposed to be 1275kg with a full tank and I'd believe that. I've put lighter wheels on, saving 3.5kg a corner. Changed exhaust that's saved a bit of weight too and it was all noticeable. My daily is a Swift that weighs 1075kg and with 101bhp it's really good fun for what it is. Modern dailies are too heavy but I'd like to be under 1500kg if I can unless there's a specific use case

[captain_cynic]

cerb4.5lee said:

I personally seem to get a bit too obsessed with a cars weight for some reason, and I put quite a lot of importance on it. So is the cars weight important to you in terms of the way it drives?

For example I much prefer lighter cars when it comes to braking and cornering for example, but obviously most modern cars are heavy though nowadays, so it isn't all that easy to get lighter cars generally now I think.

I have a personal sweet spot of around 1200kg, because that was what the 200SX/Cerbera weighed roughly for example.

So what would be your ideal weight for a car, and is the weight of the car important to you?

Having also owned a 200SX (S15, Australian delivered) I agree it was the perfect balance of weight and convenience.

Lighter and you're starting to get into track car territory where you're stripping off things like rooves. Heavier and handling starts to suffer.

So yeah, I think weight is quite important. The heavier you get the less fun a car is to drive.

[TWPC]

My view is we should obsess about the consequences of weight rather than weight itself.

My perfect car would be:
- fun to drive
- fast
- economical to run
- cheap to buy
- great looking
- safe
- reliable
- spacious
- not huge

Weight has an impact on all of these and I may end up searching for cars that happen to be light. Unfortunately, family demands mean that one of the cars is likely to be heavy. This is an excuse to own more than one car.

Our 1.0 litre 2015 Hyundai i10 does well on several of these criteria and is light.

[brillomaster]

I'm aware of the benefits of lightweight, but don't really let it sway my purchasing decisions. The daily driver I'll just accept that the weight is what it is... for the track car, I consider the intention of the manufacturer. For example, currently have a porsche boxster, and well, it's a porsche, I trust that they know what they're doing and that it's the weight it needs to be to achieve the level of performance expected from it.

[swisstoni]

A forum of car enthusiasts aside, I'd expect that most people have no idea what their car weighs or why they should care.

[kambites]

The number doesn't matter. How a car feels to drive is very important to me though and whilst there are plenty of light cars which drive poorly, I've never experienced a heavy car which drives really well.

I'd quite happily drive a 1600kg car if someone could make one which behaves like my 800kg car, but I rather suspect it's impossible.

Edited by kambites on Thursday 8th May 12:44

[Heaveho]

I don't mind if the car in question disguises the weight well enough to still feel agile.

[SS427 Camaro]

My much missed E46 M3 supposedly weighed circa 1,560kgs, but it carried its weight really well, due to its 51/49 weight distribution ( and it’s CSL steering rack ) Jumping out of it and into my then Griff with it’s 1,050kgs didn’t feel the Huge 500kgs difference that it should have done.
I stripped out the M3s rear seats for the near 5 years that I had it for, which made a noticeable difference. However I took out the boat anchor passenger seat one day and omg the difference was night and day, but i never had the spare ££ at the time, for a pair of leather Recaro Pole Positions that I craved.
I had a long test drive of a 996 Turbo one day and then jumped straight into that Griff. The difference in weight ( over 300kgs ) Was noticeable !
My Clio 182 @ 1,060kgs does feel incredibly light. But if I still had my last R5 GT Turbo, then the difference between the 2 hot hatches would have been very noticeable.
The up front weight of my sons 330d M sport coupe is noticeable, would really like to fit an M3 ( alloy ) bonnet to it…..