vehicle dynamics
Two important elements here are how well are you able to able to control a car and how much fun it is to drive. There are also new safety systems such as ABS and ESC that can help you avoid a crash.
Controlling a car is usually fairly straightforward — you just steer, accelerate or brake, right? It's just that there are roads, other drivers and the weather conditions you have to cope with...… that’s when things can get dangerous.
Anti-lock Brakes & Stability Systems
If you exceed the capabilities of the car you’ll find that it will either skid or slide — you have to know what to do when this happens. Experience, or better still training, is what you need but there are systems such as Anti-lock Brakes (ABS) and Electronic Stability Control (ESC) that can help you but you must never rely on them to keep you out of trouble - after all, as Scotty from Star Trek used to say "You can'ay change the laws of physics, Cap'n".
If you drive too fast and have to make a sudden manouever or find yourself driving on a low-friction surface (a wet road, snow, ice or mud-on-the-road) you can easily find that you've exceeded the grip available and there's nothing you can do to avoid the accident that's coming. That's a position you really don't want to find yourself in.
Not all manufacturers use the same name for electronic stability systems — Dynamic Stability Control (DSC), Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) and Electronic Stability Programme (ESP, geddit?) are other commonly used names. The US news video below explains the benefits and how it works.
ESC is not yet a legal requirement in Europe but it will become one for cars sold in Europe after 1st November 2014. Following a realignment of the EuroNCAP scoring system to put increased emphasis on this important safety systems, a new car will now not get a 5-star EuroNCAP rating without at least 90% of that model's sales having ESC fitted. The car must also have Seat Belt Reminders for the front seats to pass the threshold. Find out more about ESC here.
What can go wrong
Here's an example of an urban accident that the fitment of ESC would almost certainly helped avoid
If you're buying new, you'd be smart to buy a model with ESC as standard fit or tick the options box — £200 to £500 extra but money well spent. There are still a few new models that currently don't even have ESC available as a cost-option on all- or some- derivatives, such as the new Citroen C3, but this will become less common. Currently just over half of new cars bought in the UK have ESC fitted to them but this should increase significantly in the next few years following EuroNCAP's rating system changes.
If you're buying a second-hand, you've got to get very lucky as very few cars have it fitted. Some owners might not even know if their car has got it, so take a look around the dashboard for any on/off buttons — it'll probably be marked ESC/ESP/DSC/SCS or have the 'slidey car' symbol (see left) on it - or look for the same things in the warning lights when you turn the ignition key to 'position 2'.
Ride & Handling
The enjoyment of driving often comes from having a car that is easy to drive and that responds consistently. Some cars can make you feel too isolated from what's going on between the tyres and the road, be sluggish in their responses or a bit roly-poly in corners. Some cars can be hyper and make all your fillings fall out over the smallest bump in the road, whilst the best ones are a balance and are just good cars to drive.
You can read a lot of reports about a car but you should really drive it before you buy, to confirm that you actually like it. It's a bit late once its yours.....
