The movement of this fluid is how a damper absorbs energy, turning it into heat and slowing down the motion of the suspension. This causes very high stresses in all the parts that make up the suspension and can seriously reduce the life of those parts, especially the dampers.ĭampers work by forcing hydraulic fluid through many tiny holes as the wheels move up and down. The faster you go, the faster the suspension has to get out of the way. When your suspension comes up to a speed bump, it has to move up and out of the way to cross it. The faster you go the less you feel them – Must be good, right? Well, not exactly. Some people believe when it comes to speed bumps that the accelerator is their best friend. Much of the suspension doesn’t really care about this but most cars these days come equipped with anti-roll bars front and rear and these bars connect the left and right side suspension systems. The same twisting is also happening in your suspension. Do this enough times and those little fasteners will start to loosen and create nasty squeaks and rattles. What is more likely to happen, though, is that as the body is trying to twist, other parts that are connected to it - like the dashboard, or the seats, or the headliner - are also being asked to twist and the clips and bolts holding those things in place aren’t nearly as strong as a weld. In the meantime, the welds of the body have been stressed and it is possible for some of them to just give up and pop open. Put the car down and everything is fine again because the twist is gone. The body has been twisted out of its normal shape and the doors are now jammed shut. If you’ve ever jacked up a corner of an older car you may have noticed it can be hard to open the doors. The result is that the body wants to twist out of shape and the only reason it doesn’t is because of the welds that hold it together and the stiffness of the metal it is made of. This means the body of the car is fighting with the other three wheels as it tries to push down on some and lift the others. Even though the suspension is designed to isolate the sheetmetal from the forces coming from the road, those forces still go into the body via the springs and dampers. But the other three wheels are still on level ground and they don’t want to be picked up. Or your passenger just whacked their head against the door glass and is now cursing you instead of the speed bump.Īs each wheel drives over the speed bump it wants to lift the car. If you had any coffee in your cupholder it has now drenched your center console. Each wheel hits the bump separately and the car pitches sideways as each wheel goes over. These are the folks who approach a speed bump and then at the last minute turn the wheel sharply so the car drives diagonally over the bump. Let’s first talk about diagonal speed bump crossers. Let’s talk about each of these and then I’ll let you know which “speed bumper” I am and why. Slow down and turn just before the bump to cross over diagonallyģ. In my years of driving I’ve noticed different ways people cross these dreaded things and I’ve boiled those methods down to three strategies:ġ. and pretty much everywhere, residential areas seem to be the favorite places for them to breed their rate of multiplication tends to match that of local residents. These speed-reduction devices seem to be popping up in more and more places these days, and if you live in India, they are absolutely everywhere - even in the middle of highways. Or as the English call them, the sleeping policeman (a bit morbid if you ask me, but hey, they invented the language so I suppose they can call it what they want). I’m talking about your and my favorite road feature, the speed bump. If you’ve spent any time driving a car these days you will no doubt have encountered them, probably cursed them, and maybe even damaged your car on them.
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