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My area is plagued with speed cushions and humps...even the places I work have the things. It is well known that they damage cars so which models cope bets with them?
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Of all the expensive machinery I have driven over the years, the one that coped best with the humps near one of our offices was er...a bog standard Pug. 306 hire car we used to get.....nothing I've driven before or since gave such a magic carpet ride...superb little motors.
Edited by Pugugly {P} on 17/02/2008 at 21:59
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Short Wheel Base?
Mine bottoms out when the front and rear wheels are on the road and the middle is straddling the hump
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Mercedes Unimog, or maybe a Citroen C6.
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Subaru Forester Mk1 non-turbo - like a maginc carpet. The Mk2 isn't bad either.
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Berlingo....previous picasso (same susp)...forester agreed....most 4 x 4s, old shape hyundai accent.
But you mustn't have any of these as they have no street cred, you must own the sporty looking hatch with the 26'' wheels and elastic bands around them, and 2'' of total suspension travel and then complain to the BR about poor ride.
I wont bite my own tongue so i wont poison meself.
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I have no problems with humps despite low profile (35) tyres, 18 inch wheels and lowered Sports suspension.
I simply slow right down going over them. Reduces the chance of damage.
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Volvo FM12! ;-)
Wider track on HGV's means that only the full-width ones are a hassle. Air-suspended seat's useful too if the little blighters are camouflaged!
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>>which models cope
When you say cope, what do you mean?
Do you mean which are the most mechanically robust and will suffer less suspension damage?, or do you mean which cars can absorb the bumps best, and provide the smoothest ride for the passengers?
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"It is well known that they damage cars"
Only if you tackle them at the wrong speed! Any hydropneumatically suspended Citroen will soak them up well, even the conventionally sprung ones are pretty good. Same applies to most Peugeots and Subarus, I believe. I saw a test on TV where an old BX went over them better than a large 4x4 (a Cayman, IIRC).
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A lot of newer buses can cope with them really well as a lot of them have air suspension.
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Lexus LS460 with the new Bose magnetic suspension (12k optional extra)...
You can see some movies of it on an older Lexus here (links are bottom right hand side).
tinyurl.com/ymahuw
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A lot of newer buses can cope with them really well as a lot of them have air suspension.
Not the ones in Edinburgh! The local bus company cannot put new buses on a certain route because of humps and lumps - the new buses "ground" themselves. (The local council is a major shareholder in the bus company too!)
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Our original model Renalt Megane was great over speed bumps. Looks like French motors are the stars here. Weird, cos our roads are much worse than those in France these days.
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I didn't drive it for long enough to be sure, but the Citroen C4 I tried last year, which also had very big wheels and lowish profile tyres, seemed to lollop over them very nicely. Of course it was a new car on loan to someone else, so I was pretty gentle with it. Nevertheless it seemed very composed I thought.
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Fifteen-year-old Kia Pride. Its got the softest springs I've ever come across (wallows like a pig). It cost fifty quid, and doesn't matter too much if it breaks, although I'll strangely miss it if it does.
Peugeot Partner van, surprisingly, absorbs speed bumps very well, even when empty. Perhaps someone here will know if the suspension's from something else?
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Bathtub The peugot partner and the citroen berlingo vans are the same vehicles.
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"Peugeot Partner van, surprisingly, absorbs speed bumps very well, even when empty. Perhaps someone here will know if the suspension's from something else?"
According to HJ CbyC " Peugeot 405 estate car rear suspension. "
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Challenger II - British built and able to glide over traffic bumps (and anything else that gets in its way) with impunity.
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Can vouch for Berlingos- They're brill over speedhumps. I would imagine a Cit C5 would be good to or a Rover 75.
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I'd also endorse the Berlingo, BX or Xantia. The 205 was more inlined to rattle my fillings.
Anything with a slightly wider track will straddle the "cushion" type. Inverted drain pipes are more of a test of travel and resilience.
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best I've experienced was my '67 Rover 2000 TC.
Rover went to great lengths to optimize unsprung weight ratio, going to the trouble of mounting the rear disc brakes inboard on either side of the differential and this thinking, combined with 9 inches of travel all 'round produced a car that went over very rough surfaces like no other I know. All this in complete comfort and quiet.
Too bad they weren't reliable!
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My hopes are raised whenever I see messages from people looking for better ride quality. It means that one day the Germans (particularly Audi) might drop the huge wheel obsession and add some form of cushioning to their suspension so we can drive about in comfort again!
For now it's still the French who do it best. My other half's old 106 rode a heck of a lot better than most new cars I've sat in, including her bouncy new C1. Contrary to popular belief, my C6 does NOT cope with potholes or road humps very well, with the modern hydractive setup combined with 17-inch rims only delivering the ride you'd expect well above 30mph. Below that it crashes and thuds and really isn't very luxurious.
I too would go for an old 306, which along with the RR Silver Shadow has the best low-speed ride and hump-yomping capability of any car ever. I just find it depressing that as the roads get worse and traffic calming measures pop up in every town, cars are getting a lot less comfortable than they were 20 years ago. Weird.
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No, not weird, just stupid.
Car manufacturers listen to the motoring journalists from the influential magazines such as Car. As tastes have changed between say the 1970s and 1990s, cars started having lower and lower profile tyres to improve grip, handling and high speed safety. All well and good, but then fashion got in the way and everyone wanted the stylish new alloy wheels and low profiles and damn the consequences.
However car magazines test cars on smooth test tracks and roads selected by the manufacturer. So they do not understand the need for long travel soft suspension set ups with higher profile tyres to suit the majority of drivers out there. If I could find a Legacy driver who wanted my 17" wheels in return for his 16" wheels, I would swap immediately, although my OUtback rides pretty well.
It is one of the reasons I drive Subarus and the though of driving an Audi A4 for three years fills me with horror.
Edited by Webmaster on 20/02/2008 at 10:21
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There are techniques to minimise the impact of speed humps.
I brake lightly before them.. so the front springs are compressed then as the front wheels hit the hump, accelerate slightly, thus bringing the front end of the car up, then when the front wheels are over the hump, brake again so the rear wheels are high when they contact the hump.
But then the cars I drive,(106,Yaris) have far more suspension travel than many cars.
I tried an A3 quattro on humps: my dentist would have been very busy if I had bought it..
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I brake lightly before them.. so the front springs are compressed then as the front wheels hit the hump,
Eh? Don't you want maximum flexion coupled with upwards momentum when the front wheels hit the hump?
So I brake before the hump & , when actually hitting the hump the springs are on the return travel & the weight of the car is already going in the right (upwards rebound) direction.
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I think Peugeot is a winner here!
I've had a Peugeot 106 and I thrashed that car for well over a month in pizza deliveries when the insurance company told me it was a total lost, lots of humps where I did deliveries and believe me it was surprisingly good over the humps.
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Accleration forces the front of the car up slightly: thus making the springs work less when they hit the hump.
Tried in again this am on 20 humps (in my way:-( and works a treat.
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I'd love to know if the new 308 is as good as the old 306 for bump-smoothing. Some of the reviews I've read say it's really very good, whereas others say it's pretty mediocre. Like a lot of cars it might just come down to wheel choice.
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I think a lot depends on driver skills , competence and attitude. Many road testers (certainly those in TV programs) act as if their minds stopped developing at 17 months old and their emotional responses to cars at the time when the rest of use (if boys) gave up playing with cars on the carpet. i.e. about 12 years old. :-))
So I expect some try to cross speed humps at their usual 35mph in a 30 limit...:-)
My experience of many years reading of road testers is they appear to be illogical and decide what they will write before they drive the car. A lot depends on the badge up front and the bling. Wrong badge and wrong bling and it is dismissed as carp before being driven.
The late George Bishop called the Motoring Writers Guild "the Guild of Muttering Rotters "... which to me sums them up perfectly.
:-)
Edited by madf on 19/02/2008 at 15:34
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Still reckon a Xantia is the best option - you could drive over a dead body and not feel a thing! (not that I tried!)
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Yeah you won't feel a thing because the bones would be crushed!
Just kidding :)
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The ride seems to be soft enough not to crush most of the bones. Rib cages do tend to suffer, though.
:)
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