Do cobbled roads damage cars?
Discussion
There is a 1/4 mile cobbled road (on a steep hill) near where we live and is quite heavily used as its the easiest way out of the village if you are heading towards the motorway etc. The road is classed as 'listed' so it will never be tarmaced (tarmaced!! Is that a word??). Anyway, I avoid it like the plague as its rather uneven and extremely unpleasant to drive either up or down, more so if I were to take my MX5 or one of my Triumphs up or down it. Now my mate drives up & down it twice every day and swears that cars are built to cope with cobbled roads!! I say He is wrong and that long term He is asking for trouble, bits wearing out quickly, suspension damage, rattles etc etc.
So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
Well the primary vehicle longevity test is MIRA's Belgian pave course - cobbles with a series of dips and height variations of various depths and lengths inputting a range of forces. One mile of pave equals about 100 miles of normal driving. Every lap, the vehicles will drive through a water bath to cool the dampers. Drivers must wear back braces. Any vehicle completing the test will have burst spot welds, cracks in the structure (also entry points for rust), knackered bushes, snapped fixings and more.
A normal cobbled street will be far, far smoother than the pave test. But if you can feel the thump-thump in the car, components are being stressed and the structure fatiguing at an accelerated rate. How much, and how much that matters to the owner, is a different story.
A normal cobbled street will be far, far smoother than the pave test. But if you can feel the thump-thump in the car, components are being stressed and the structure fatiguing at an accelerated rate. How much, and how much that matters to the owner, is a different story.
Well a modern car wont just fall to bits if you drive it down a cobbled street, but it will obviously wear suspension components faster than driving on a perfectly smooth (if there's such a thing) road. In practice most moving suspension components are consumable parts - that kind of driving will just mean they are consumed a bit faster.
TriumphVitesse said:
There is a 1/4 mile cobbled road (on a steep hill) near where we live and is quite heavily used as its the easiest way out of the village if you are heading towards the motorway etc. The road is classed as 'listed' so it will never be tarmaced (tarmaced!! Is that a word??). Anyway, I avoid it like the plague as its rather uneven and extremely unpleasant to drive either up or down, more so if I were to take my MX5 or one of my Triumphs up or down it. Now my mate drives up & down it twice every day and swears that cars are built to cope with cobbled roads!! I say He is wrong and that long term He is asking for trouble, bits wearing out quickly, suspension damage, rattles etc etc.
So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
In Huddersfield by any chance??So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
Moose1978 said:
TriumphVitesse said:
There is a 1/4 mile cobbled road (on a steep hill) near where we live and is quite heavily used as its the easiest way out of the village if you are heading towards the motorway etc. The road is classed as 'listed' so it will never be tarmaced (tarmaced!! Is that a word??). Anyway, I avoid it like the plague as its rather uneven and extremely unpleasant to drive either up or down, more so if I were to take my MX5 or one of my Triumphs up or down it. Now my mate drives up & down it twice every day and swears that cars are built to cope with cobbled roads!! I say He is wrong and that long term He is asking for trouble, bits wearing out quickly, suspension damage, rattles etc etc.
So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
In Huddersfield by any chance??So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
TubbyRutter said:
The belgians seem to manage!
The Belgians couldnt give a flying f
about their cars though 
3 year lease deal then throw it back at the dealer to try and pull the hundreds of dents chips and various mechanical faults out of the car!
The cobbles are the least of your problems in Belgium - Try the 'dropped kerbs'...!
A911DOM said:
TubbyRutter said:
The belgians seem to manage!
The Belgians couldnt give a flying f about their cars though 3 year lease deal then throw it back at the dealer to try and pull the hundreds of dents chips and various mechanical faults out of the car!
The cobbles are the least of your problems in Belgium - Try the 'dropped kerbs'...!
Sounds like a road in Belper, Derbyshire, that goes off the main street. Every year I go to a New Year party at the house of a mate who lives up that road, and if you forget the convenient short cut to his house off the A6, you have to go up it. Thankfully I didn't do this last year when everything was covered in ice.
I've driven up there before though, and I thought several things would fall off the car in the process.
I've driven up there before though, and I thought several things would fall off the car in the process.
TriumphVitesse said:
There is a 1/4 mile cobbled road (on a steep hill) near where we live and is quite heavily used as its the easiest way out of the village if you are heading towards the motorway etc. The road is classed as 'listed' so it will never be tarmaced (tarmaced!! Is that a word??). Anyway, I avoid it like the plague as its rather uneven and extremely unpleasant to drive either up or down, more so if I were to take my MX5 or one of my Triumphs up or down it. Now my mate drives up & down it twice every day and swears that cars are built to cope with cobbled roads!! I say He is wrong and that long term He is asking for trouble, bits wearing out quickly, suspension damage, rattles etc etc.
So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
Depends how bumpy and how fast you go. And if you care or not.So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
More suspension work will likely wear out bushes, springs and shocks quicker, and violent continuous shacking of the car might cause other bits to fall off. But I can't see it really being all that bad, many UK roads are pretty uneven anyhow, so is it really any worse. Not too mention some people drive along plenty of lanes and non tarmaced roads regulary too.
There are quite a few in the town near me and some of them are pretty big roads. I avoid them almost completely as they feel like they are destroying my car. My road bike is just plain nasty on them.
(One of the reasons I very rarely go up to a farm where one of my best mates lives is the road - over a mile of uneven cobbles - utter car breaker
)
(One of the reasons I very rarely go up to a farm where one of my best mates lives is the road - over a mile of uneven cobbles - utter car breaker
)
Moose1978 said:
TriumphVitesse said:
There is a 1/4 mile cobbled road (on a steep hill) near where we live and is quite heavily used as its the easiest way out of the village if you are heading towards the motorway etc. The road is classed as 'listed' so it will never be tarmaced (tarmaced!! Is that a word??). Anyway, I avoid it like the plague as its rather uneven and extremely unpleasant to drive either up or down, more so if I were to take my MX5 or one of my Triumphs up or down it. Now my mate drives up & down it twice every day and swears that cars are built to cope with cobbled roads!! I say He is wrong and that long term He is asking for trouble, bits wearing out quickly, suspension damage, rattles etc etc.
So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
In Huddersfield by any chance??So go on then, are cobbled roads ok to drive on regulary? Is it Me being over careful with my cars by going about a mile out of my way to avoid it, or is my mate asking for trouble?
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