Suspensions of Disbelief

It's easy to say a vehicle rides well but much more difficult to explain the nuanced implications of that highly subjective statement.

- Dave VanderWerp

It's harder still to do the design, engineering, and tuning work to make a vehicle thrive in the numerous circumstances it can encounter. Doing so involves far more than just tuning springs and dampers; engineers select the properties of each rubber suspension bushing and powertrain or subframe mount, not to mention wheel and tire properties, and must create a solid vehicle structure upon which to hang these subsystems. The more you dig into how and why vehicles ride the way they do, the more the complexities will blow you away.

The essence of good ride means filtering out whatever the tires encounter so that the occupants feel as little of those disturbances from the road surface as possible. Then again, ride comfort is only one of many attributes that make up a vehicle's character. Is it worth trading racetrack performance for a better ride? That depends on the goals for that vehicle and the segment in which it plays. For a luxury sedan? Coddle away.

For a sports car? Let's go with the 1.2-g setup.

In this test, we wanted to get past empty platitudes and dig deep into the complexities of ride quality, so we gathered a quintet of vehicles and called Cayman Dynamics, an independent engineering firm that does testing for various automakers; many years ago they helped us quantify handling for a best-handling test. And, like that test, measuring ride is anything but straightforward. When an impact feels objectionable, are you sure you're feeling it and not hearing it? Is it buzzing the floor, the seat, the steering wheel, or maybe the center console where your arm is resting? That's why we wanted the Cayman Dynamics crew's expertise in terms of both how to take ride measurements and, even more important, how to interpret the data.