Yeah - A heavier car will tolerate more wheel jiggling than a light car.
It is a matter of the ratio of sprung to unsprung weight. Unsprung
weight is the weight of the wheel, tire & moving suspension parts.
Sprung weight is everything else.
To illustrate - a 2000 lb car which has a wheel/unsprung weight of 50
pounds will be bounced around more by the wheel thrashing around (from
bumps & unbalance) than would a car weighing 4000 pounds with the same
50 pound unsprung weight. This is one of the reasons that heavy cars
seem to ride smoother. The only way around the problem is to make the
unsprung weight proportionally less on the light car. This is difficult
& expensive to do.
Dave Russell
shiples@comcast.net wrote:
>
> At 09:43 AM 12/14/2003 -0500, Steven W. Reilly wrote:
>
>> Hey All,
>
>
> Some cars need a better wheel balance than others. My
> Europa shook even after the wheel and tire assemblies were "computer"
> balanced on modern equipment at the local tire store. Don't know why this
>occurs other
> than noting that the Europa weighs at least 2000 pounds less I'll
> leave it to
> the reader to determine if adding large weights to the vehicle will
> eliminate the
> need to add small weights to the wheels.
> Steve Shipley
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