Which is better, only one way to decide........ Fight

Not necessarily - I've either made it round a corner or I haven't, when pushing on, and the car has either been composed and surefooted, or it hasn't.

The point is you've, based on your experiences of Passats stated they've

*all* got issues when it comes to handling / ride etc, and I've stated that my experiences with my own car haven't aligned with what you've put forward as a 'they all do that, Sir'esque statement.

It's everything to do with handling; if it handled poorly given some of the speeds I've slung it into some corners in the past, it would have come to a sticky end long before the one momentary lapse of concentration that led to its current predicament...

I've said nothing about 'straight-line grunt', or are you assuming one can't give a car a wellyful of throttle if it's not pointed down a straight?

If so, I can assure you that's not the case.

Aye, well... that's your opinion and one you're entitled to, but here in the real world, 'handling' has plenty to do with cornering, and I think you're blustering a little in the hope of adding a little weight to your argument by shifting the goalposts.

My Passat, when not sitting there looking sorry for itself, could do with uprated brakes as these let the car down when you're really pushing on along and whilst 'Green Stuff' pads helped, they didn't eliminate the issue of brake fade in such circumstances.

It tends to ground out if you're a bit enthusiastic over speed humps, something which the Golf is also guilty of.

Very uneven backroads have been known to 'jiggle' the chassis a bit, but even then it's still fairly composed and goes where I point it.

It goes where I point it... but then so does the more soggy, sofa like Golf as well truth be told, if you're prepared to have a little faith in its capabilities.

You've obviously felt that the Passats you've tried aren't as responsive or sharp handling wise as other stuff you've owned / tried.

I on the other hand think that they're pretty good for the size of car and I have to say that whilst the rear end of that hired Focus refused to break free, I managed to get the front end to let go quite severely along a backroad I tend to use, in a place where the Passat would have carried on quite happily without letting go, and I'm sorry but 'handling' and 'grip' are to a certain extent linked.

Reply to
JackH
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No, if it had had insufficient grip, then it would have come unstuck...

What? I'm not saying anything like that. (IMO..) handling, grip and grunt are discrete and distinct things - the exception is that obviously the application of power whilst cornering has an impact on the behaviour of the car, so there is something of an overlap between the two.

No, absolutely not. *Everything* I have said about handling, regarding both the passat and anything else has been based on this premise - there is a very distinct difference between handling and grip. If you were interested enough to dig back through my arguments, and look at them with this in mind, I think you would find them to be consistent.

The original lotus elan is still rated as being one of the best handling cars around, but it has skinny tyres and manages considerably fewer cornering G's than any number of modern hatches - even a stiff mk2 corsa would probably out-grip one, even though it handles for s**te.

Reply to
Albert T Cone

Oh do f*ck off, you tedious little twerp - you're just being argumentative for the sake of it now.

Grip combines with the aesthetics of other aspects of the chassis to ensure a vehicle either makes it round a corner or it doesn't, factoring in uneven road surfaces / and the way the vehicle is being driven.

Either the chassis / tyres will do their job and the vehicle will do as you've asked, or it won't.

Yet again, I'll reiterate that having tried other supposedly good handling cars in the cooking sector of the market, my Passat has been pretty damn good overall on all bar the choppiest of road surfaces when you've been punting it along at silly speeds, and even then persevering with a bit of faith in it led to it doing exactly as it was asked - no nasty unexpected loss of grip, no 'shit your pants' moments when the car hasn't reacted as expected like so many others I've experienced this with in the past when I managed to push them beyond their limits, and whether you acknowledge it or not, the effects of the rest of the chassis in terms of weight shifting around / soaking up bumps etc, can all be factors in the loss of grip.

It's total shit at getting over speed bumps without the front valance grounding out... if you push it really hard down some twisties it will run out of brakes a bit too readily in standard form... it will 'jiggle' slightly on more choppy road surfaces but will still go where you point it, be that gradually or by turning / changing direction rapidly... but despite all this, it does, despite what you claim, handle well for a car of its size and weight.

If you can't agree with that, that's your problem - the reality of how my particular car handles, is something you can't really comment on unless you've driven it bloody hard anyway.

Reply to
JackH

Go on, throw the rattle out. We'll all be very impressed.

Unless we can agree that handling and grip are different things then you can't understand my argument.

Anyway, I'm sure everyone else is as bored of this dismal slanging match as I am, and I'm sure you must be, so how's about we knock it on the head?

Merry festivities!

Reply to
Albert T Cone

Unless you can both understand that what you're describing as "handling" is rather more subjective than you're both prepared to admit, you're going to get nowhere.

Seems to me that you prefer a car to handle one way, Jack another. Both ways may get the job done, just feel a bit different while it's doing it. You prefer it a bit more lively (giving you the opportunity to practice l33t skillz :-) ), and Jack prefers it to be able to just hang on and get on with it.

cheers, clive

Reply to
Clive George

You're being argumentative for the sake of it...

You've twisted the original points made to try and add weight to your original flawed and incorrect opinions stated as fact.

For the apparently hard of understanding, as in you, of the link between handling and grip, the handling of a vehicle is dependent to an extent on the amount of grip afford to it by the tyres / set up of the camber / toe in etc.

The amount of grip a tyre can give a vehicle is dependent to a certain extent on how well the chassis soaks up bumps etc, and keeps the tyre planted on the road.

You can have a pukka chassis which leaves the road due to suspension, as in part of the chassis and therefore part of the *handling* process, being set up way too hard meaning a vehicle gets out of shape on a choppy bit of road and in turn loses grip.

Whilst technically separate issues, they are inherently linked when it comes to whether or not a hard pushed vehicle will make that next bend or not.

Or perhaps you'd like to explain how this isn't so.

And whilst we're here I'll state once again the Passat is fine in this respect, despite your best misinformed efforts.

Nice try at dragging others into it, but no cigar.

For someone who is 'bored of this dismal slanging match', you seem determined to have the last word... even if it is misinformed opinion rather than factually based.

Reply to
JackH

"Albert T Cone" wrote in message news:gino77$d8l$ snipped-for-privacy@heffalump.dur.ac.uk...

Whilst I don't agree that handling has 0% to do with grip, I don't think it's all about grip. For me, it's more about feel and balance, I like the feeling of a really light, nimble car that feels as such in the bends. Also, I want it to be predictable, and behave in the same way all the time. Obviously, things can suffer from age and mileage such as shocks/springs/ARBs/bushes etc etc much to the detriment of the feel and the grip as well which is something that makes it much more likely that two cars, of the same model could feel quite different.

One, rather extreme example of this would be that my Clio had one of batch of dodgy shocks (Koni's), and front right shock was broken (I dunno how, it wasn't physically snapped in half or anything as I had a full view whilst it was on the ramps). It was only noticeable under fast, right hand corners and I didd think, I wonder how many people would notice that, or even think there was anything wrong. It caused a sort of violent judder through the wheel when you were really going some and caught a big bump on a right hander, but at just normal fast road speeds it made the front right feel odd. It's hard to explain but left handers were fine - which is the opposite of what myself an the mechanic thought would be the case - and right handers was almost like you lost any feel after a certain point. Anyway, they fixed it the next day for free under warranty of course, and whilst they were there he said (probably caused by the shock) that there was a tiny bit of play in, iirc a "track rod end" (is that likely/a real part?), not enough so I'd feel it till it had got a lot worse, but he said they'd do it anyway as it was under warranty when it was handy for me, or at the next service. Conveniently I was going to have it serviced some time in the next week anyway as it was closing on 12k miles and I was going to The 'Ring and driving 2,600 miles round Europe is a few weeks time, so I booked it in for a few days time. Driving with the new shock was just totally diifferent, it definately doesn't get a lot of praise for the handling in the press and from owners for nothing :-)

Probably the thing that makes the most difference, especially on sporty cars, is the tyres, both how worn they are and also whether they're the correct ones the manufacturer specced the car with as standard. I know that'll make equivlent sweet FA of difference for most people and cars, but for example the Clio 182 when fitted with the Cup pack is specced with Michelin Pilot Exaltos IIRC and people, more the track day types, recommend always getting those as replacement tyres for the car as the grip and feel can really suffer.

Probably one good example of the difference between grip and handling would be something like my parents Mondeo, which has lovely wide tyres and lots of grip. When I used to drive it though, despite the fact you could go pretty fast round corners - it wasn't any fun really. It feels big and heavy and whilst you can, sort of, chuck it around it feels more like the power steering is doing it for you as it lumbers around country roads with me thinking, I hope nothing wide comes the other way... Where as in Clio I'd have had a seriously huge grin on my face as I threw it from corner to corner, braking far too late compared to what is 'safe' as I rushed the gearbox down to 2nd or 3rd and nailed it through the bend, torturing the tyres :-p Or there's a tractor so I have to torture the brakes/my bowels/my heart...

Reply to
DanB

Bingo.

I think there are, in the main, two types of 'enthusiastic' road car driver and they always used to be easily spotted by their choices of car. When I was first driving there were two main camps - Ford drivers and Vauxhall drivers.

A Capri / RS2000 / Cortina driver would tend to ease a car into a corner, apply power, get the back end to step out and steer with a lot of throttle and using smooth and relatively small steering inputs thereby relying on what I class as handling; high corner speeds are more to do with balancing the car on the edge of adhesion using feedback rather than absolute mechanical grip.

A Chevette [1] / Manta [2] / Cavalier [3] driver would be much more aggressive with the steering but a bit smoother on the throttle than the Ford driver. This driving style relies more on grip than handling, the tyres may have more mechanical grip on the road than on the Ford but when the tyres lose adhesion it tends to be in a much less forgiving fashion, making it a lot messier to catch whatever happens next.

Funnily enough, it was pretty much the same story with the Mk1 XR2 vs the Nova SR, and the same again with the Series 2 RS Turbo / 16v Astra GTE - though not as obviously as neither was particularly good to drive.

Reply to
Pete M

Forgot to say "Apart from the inducing oversteer technique" bit in regard to the FWD stuff.

Oh, and the footnote fairy sends these.

[1] HS / 2300 drivers obviously, the piddly engined ones don't count. [2] I know it's an Opel, but fukkit. [3] RWD obviously. Another Opel, if you prefer (or use Metric).
Reply to
Pete M

Amen. I do think that they are different things, insofar as you can have either without the other. That said, whilst handling is more important to me than grip, both are good things to have.

My experience of the passat would be described similarly, albeit on a scale where the mondeo isn't bad at all.

That's where the joy of driving is for me. The delicacy, the balance, feeling what's going on at the limit... I still have the 205 - to be honest it's possibly getting a bit long in the tooth and expensive to keep on the road, but it still puts a grin on my mug every time I drive it, so I'll be keeping it until something serious goes bang.

Reply to
Albert T Cone

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