What exactly does "Handles well" mean?
 

I honestly want to understand what people mean when they say the car handles well. Someone wrote something before about how they avoided an accident with nimble and quick steering, but isn't that more so traction control keeping the car from spinning out?
People say it means the car corners well, but maybe I'm just an idiot and don't know how to drive this thing (granted, it's my first manual RWD), but it feels like it understeers at low speed when I had it in stock form.

Does handling well mean when you take a corner, your body doesn't sway that much? Because I feel like some Accords sway/tilt less in a corner, but maybe that's at lower speed.

Don't flame me, lol, please, I really want to understand.

What do you mean by "it feels like it understeers at low speed when [you] had it in stock form''? :popcorn:

I know I can now take turns at speeds that in my old car would have sent me into a tree. The car is very confidence inspiring.
When this car does break free of traction when pushed past it's limit, it's also easier to adjust it back where you want it to go.

Simply put, the twins have stiffer bodies and suspensions than your average family sedan. Take your car out to an abandoned parking lot, bring it up to 10 mph, and turn the wheel rapidly to one side and then abruptly stop turning. The twins have a lower tendency to "recoil" once you stop moving the wheel, a reflection of their stiffer handling. Most family sedans will rock in the opposite direction of the wheel movement to varying degrees.

At speed, you really begin to notice the twins' exquisite handling as the car does not lean to the outside of any given turn nearly as much as the family sedan. This really improves confidence while turning aggressively. Most importantly, it allows the driver to induce oversteer in a much more controlled manner.

The increased suspension movement at low speed that you report is likely your sensation of the car "hugging" the road more closely than other vehicles. This is due to several variables, including the suspension geometry and the low-profile tires.

You will know when traction control kicks in because the rectangular light in the center of the tachometer will flash angrily.

Of course, this topic is a lot more complicated than this, but hopefully this helps somewhat.

I think I actually get where you're coming from.

I'm curious to hear some answers also, but here's my take on it: If I was to go for a nice relaxing Sunday drive, I'd more than likely find myself having FUN before too long. I'd be keeping my right foot down in the corners more and more. In no time at all I'd find myself at the top of the mountain or whatever, and I'd want to do it all over again. Let's say it took me twenty minutes.

Next I hop in my wife's Rav4 and do the same drive. It wallows in the corners and the whole car leans to the outside, forcing me to let off the gas so I don't plough off the road. In thirty minutes I'm bored out of my mind and I'm still not at the top of the d@mn mountain. :(

With a car that handles well, a person can access a potential accident situation (often in a fraction of a second), then do
one or more of three things...brake, steer, or even accelerate to avoid an accident.


Many people, seeing a potential accident in front of them just give up... they don't try to steer out of it, brake out of it, etc.


If you're alert in this car, you've got a better chance to live...it's often up to the driver in numerous situations.

Well, when I say a car "handles well", I mean that the car goes where I expect it to go ..... and when it doesn't, it responds predictably to my inputs.


humfrz

Stiff suspension, well weight balance while in speed, easy to handle on the hands and decent acceleration is my definition.

You don't have enough driving experience to understand what is understeer and oversteer by that above line.

When people say it handles well, they mean that the car goes where you want it to go.

If you are understeering this car, you are driving it wrong.
If you drive it correctly and still feel that this car understeers, you have the wrong perception of understeer.

Kind of like snowboarding or skiing. With the right board, it will do exactly what you want it to do.

-alex

Drive some cars that handle poorly, that have large amounts of body roll, unpredictable response to your inputs, vague steering and braking and unresponsive throttle, truly excessive under/oversteer. It's very easy to forget how much can go wrong when you drive this car everyday and it gets so much of it right. Poor handling cars leave you uninspired, take your confidence away, good handling cars give you confidence to push and explore the limits of grip, there's a ton of small factors listed above that can be debated endlessly but all that's important is that the 86 ties it into a neat little bow for most people.

So you're telling me that this car, off the showroom floor, with zero camber up front, doesn't understeer?

lol

Certainly a good driver can make it work (I didn't have the patience to figure it out) but it's not as balanced as it could be with some relatively simple adjustments. I don't think you're criticisms of OP are wrong but the massive difference in balance by changing one variable... I'll never go back.

Handling can be quite subjective at times

It's not just the car and driver that become variables but also the location as well

if a person lives in a relatively flat area their perception of how this car handles may be completely different tosomeone who lives in an area with lots of hills and bendy 'drivers' roads...

Me? Well, I have airbags, so my car handles like shit.

Understeer in this car is always 100% driver error.
It's always 110% your braking too late.

Pointing out the discrepancy between what OP thinks versus what other, more experienced drivers think.

I can make this car understeer. I can make it oversteer. What I won't say is that the car is inherently understeering overall.

-alex

Handleing well is what your car does. I've had many many cars front wheel drives and high powered rwd and none of them handled like this car NONE. You are just inexperienced with MT and RWD as you said.

This morning, I went thru a huge standing water puddle and the car never moved off the line I was on, that's handling well. My mustang woulda went sideways. This car truly has your back

This has nothing to do with this post but I noticed your avatar. I love old vintage racers. Heres something I did for a 3d modeling contest back in the day

http://www.blenderf1.com/f12002/15.html

Cuz it does what u want it to do within the condition allowed & you "feel" it. You feel the traction of the tires, you feel the road & steering very well, you feel how ur steering input transfer directly to how the car reacts, you feel where edge is whether it's low or high depending on the tire/road condition. It tells u where the limit is with what u got on the car.

Atleast that's how I feel.


Like ppl said above... I don't understand what u mean by "it feels like it understeers at low speed when I had it in stock form"... O__O.... are you like all camber out & stuff? If anything you feel understeer @ high speed entering a corner turning..O__O Since you live in San Jose, take ur car to highway 130 & drive east. Go enjoy the car & feel it on that road.

Handle:

to manage, deal with, or be responsible for:

to use or employ, especially in a particular manner; manipulate:

Well:

in a good or satisfactory manner:

thoroughly, carefully, or soundly:

TADA!

Handle + Well= to use or employ, especially in a particular manner; manipulate in a good or satisfactory manner.

It really takes driving other cars back to back along with a twin to see how well it handles, as well as how easy it is to know what the car is doing.

That's really the key point.

I had an EVO X, which was a beast. However, most of the time you had no clue what the car was doing, and the answer to just about every situation was "give it more power." The computers and fancy AWD did the rest. I've heard from many GT-R owners it's very similar just cranked up to 10.

The twins are exceptionally manageable and predictable.

Even compared to a very balanced sedan/hatch chassis (Focus, GTI etc), it's much more compliant to your input. *at least in my opinion

Came in here to post this. "Handling well" can be interpreted differently by everyone.

The OP said 'at low speeds'. i'm assuming that's like normal driving in a parking lot, or making a U-turn. maybe he's talking about steering ratio, and not understeer, like he thinks that the car should turn tighter in a U-turn than it does.

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_handling

Handles well means you hit that green-line at the highest speed.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m94jpEp3Go"]The Racing Line - Hitting The Apex - Explained - YouTube[/ame]

"Handling" compensates for the average drivers lack of skills and enables the practiced driver.

All things being equal, a car that "handles" would get you around a slalom or racetrack faster than one that does not.

Damn, guess I should brake earlier on the skidpad.

Agree to disagree, with caveats of course. Who knows maybe I'll up my game and come to the same conclusion, I'll never claim to be an ace.
:cheers:

The way I explain it for people who don't understand autos are simply put: "This car doesn't feel like you're driving/piloting a bag of marshmallows"

I think my dad's explanation put it well. He is not a gear head by any means.

"It hugs the road and you can corner fast".

Handles well means for me that it is very well balanced. This can have different applications. One example is to have a fun to drive (tail happy and well controlled) car. Another example is to have a car that goes very fast in the corners. You can achieve the one or the other with small changes. It depends of what you want.

For me, it means consistency, dependability, and predictability. It inspires confidence because it goes where I tell it to, every time. It gives me enough feedback that I can understand what the wheels are doing under me. And when it breaks free, it does so in a controlled, predictable manner. I drove the gf's g37 and tried some tail-out shenanigans--it snapped on me and pulled a 180. No bueno.

It's all been said but my thoughts are: "Just point and go" and "driver connectivity".

There's very little steering wheel play. First day I got the car, I was having fun on my street going 10 mph swinging the car's nose from left to right. The only other car that I've had direct experience with to compare is the POS Corolla I used to have. Lots of steering wheel play and no feedback at all (Yes, I know its an ecobox :D).

In fact, I had to play "avoid the incoming giant rock flying from the commercial truck" the other day while on the highway. It was a butt puckering experience but because of the car's handling, I was able to quickly snap the car away from it.

The Corolla? Whole different story.

Yes, to some extent it is about that feeling that it's not that the car is a device external to you, and you tell it what to do, and it follows or not exactly, but the car becomes an extension of you, and it's you interacting with the road.


It might be because I know my Corolla so well and I am used to it, but handling-wise I still prefer it over a few newer GM products I have tried, from Sonic to Mustang.

Handle well to me is.....turn like go kart,,and everything is in my control

I was just pointing out that if the Corolla was in that situation, there would have been a giant rock in the car, or worse..

Anyhoo, what year do you currently have?

Sure, and I'd very much prefer a faster response to steering input in my Corolla as well, less body roll etc, just saying that it may be still not that bad compared to some other cars.


2007

2000 over here!

Its just sitting in the front of the house, collecting rust (literally).

I would drive it around to remind myself how boring every day drives used to be but dead battery and don't care to replace it.

I've been in that situation. It's a combination of all the systems in the car doing what they're supposed to do.

I'll give you an example. Shortly after I got this car, I was driving along in traffic when a big pile of steel chain suddenly appeared in the road directly in front of me. I had to react quickly, but I simply went around it.

The maneuver was similar to the infamous moose test. Below is what happens to a vehicle that doesn't handle well. No amount of traction control would help this thing.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaYFLb8WMGM"]Jeep Grand Cherokee moose test -- the full story - YouTube[/ame]

These are opposite extremes, but they help to illustrate the differences. Our cars have the lowest center of gravity of any production vehicle. That helps put the force on the tires laterally, so that they continue to grip. The suspension keeps it from rolling, further enhancing grip. And when it cuts loose, it cuts loose in a slide rather than a tumble. Further, our steering is tight and assisted electrically, so that not only do we feel the road better, we can steer with more precision in those critical moments. If I had had to do that move in my Cherokee, I probably would have rolled it or overcorrected and ended up in the median.

Part of your issue is that you're not accustomed to RWD. If it makes you feel any better, I have never owned a FWD vehicle and absolutely hate them when I rent them because they never react the way I expect when put to the test. It comes down to what you're used to. I'd suggest finding a very large parking lot with no cars or light poles in it. Wait until it rains, then go there, turn off traction control and go nuts for a while to get a feel for how the car reacts close to the limit.

It's a corolla. they are nice for what they are. problem free car with comfort. It might not seem like much now but i remember when i sat in the corolla for the first time as a kid back around 95? It was alot comfier then other cars of the time.

Handling mean: if i focus enough i can drift to reach 2cm of the guardrail without screwing the tofu.

You do know you can correct understeer when it happens. You just don't give up and let it plow into the wall.

If your bitching understeer drive an MR2.

Reaction time to correct understeer in the MR2 is .5 seconds
Reaction time to correct understeer in the twins is about 30 minutes

I dont like Jeep no more... ty

being able to correct understeer =/= car does not inherently understeer