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SUSPENSION 101: Everything You Wanted To Know About Vehicle Handling



So how do you pick the right tires? That’s a tough one. The tire industry seems determined to make tire choice as difficult as possible. Tire names are a meaningless alphanumeric soup. What’s the difference between a Nitto NT01, NT05, NT05R and NT555R? The reality is that they’re all very different tires distinguished by a few changes in numbers and letters.Closeup of Radial Tire. Sometimes you can judge a tire by its tread pattern. In general, performance tires will have bigger tread blocks, since they are physically stronger and less likely to be ripped apart by hard driving. Performance is fashionable, though, and despite all the hype about tread stability, water evacuation and the like, tread patterns are largely dictated by fashion.

Having enough suspension travel is almost as important as having good tires. Think about this when you’re fantasizing about how low you want your car to be. Some cars, like the old double-wishbone Civics, have so much travel that you can be in the weeds and still have plenty of travel. Others, like the MAZDASPEED3, can hardly be lowered at all before they start pounding the bump stops. How much travel you need is determined partly by the terrain you’re driving on and partly by your suspension setup. Having stiffer springs means your suspension will move less, so you don’t need as much travel. The same is true if you have a lot of low-speed damping from your shocks.