Driving Experience ???

[ryker]

Driving Experience is a personal feeling. The sensations you feel can be altered by seat adjustments, sterring wheel adjustments, sounds of the engine bay area, sounds of the exhuast, vibarations in the car, look/design of the speedo and tach.

Acceleration- Your body can feel g-force of acceleration and rapid changes of it. Your body can't feel the specs from a website. Your body can't feel the shootout test drives a magazine did.

A poorly designed car with a huge turbo and bad shocks can feel faster and more powerfull than a faster and smoother car with a tight suspension. Drive a 1970's muscle car. Punch the pedal and the car will open up power and the poor suspension will allow the car to launch you back in the seat. Your neck will be jarred around and you will feel the power. A much faster BMW M3 will also be powerfull but because it is smooth in power delivery and has a tight chassis the human body will not feel as much g-force. To some one car will be fun to drive even though it is slower than another car.

Sounds Read the threads on the Si section about getting pulled over for driving too fast even though the car wasn't going fast. The driver was just using the high RPMS range and tight gears. So the cop heard a "fast" sounding car even though the driver wasn't driving fast. Some people might like to hear that sound of the engine RPM's rapidly increasing and other might like a more powerfull v8 grunt. In general when you hear an engine go from low RPMS to very high RPMS you think of speed and power. Not always the case. I could have a 6speed trans with super tight gears in a VW Bug and it would sound fast and be fun to drive (sorta) yet not be fast. Sounds can be an illusion or sensory trickery on the mind.


gauges The visual display of the gauges can also trick your mind with perception of power. The size of the tach and the sweep degree can make you think the car is fast or slow. When you watch that needle rush by you = that to fast. In a 12 second 1/4 diesel truck the tach would appear to be slow yet the truck is hauling ass. Speedometer has the same effect. I had an old Celica once and that car felt fast becuase the tach and speedo needles moved so quickly-- the car wasn't fast at all but was fun.


Pedal Car A is a really fast car. It is also noisy, has alot of engine vibration feedback, and a poor suspension. Car B is slower, quite, smooth, and very clean feeling. Becuase car A has the characters you don't like when driving on the street you might not use as much thottle - thus drive slower than you might other wise. Car B is perfect for you and without knowing it you use more throttle and often acclerate much faster than what you would in Car A. So the slower car can be fast enough for you. Note this is not wide open drag racing. But how you might drive on the street with your wife, mom, or boss in the car.

[Mutato]

Good explanation.

I recently switched from a 2002 GTI, with 173k miles to a 2007 Si Sedan with 6000 miles. Drastic change in driving experience. The GTI would give more power at lower rpms and at a lower decibel level. My new Si is a lot louder overall (less sound deadening) and gives the illusion of being a lot faster. The higher revving engine contributes to that as well.

Bottom line is the "fun to drive" factor. Both cars are fun to drive. Just different takes on how they design the "fun"!

[order2go]

okay.

[TcivicT3]

very true.

[evolution921]

Very true, especially the first 2 part.

[waldo08]

It's the sound that get's me...