Honda Accord Contact Patch the Critical Concept


	My shopping cart: 0
	Cart total: $0.00

Call Us (800) 306-8631

Featured Product

Honda Accord Ksport Basic Airtech Air Suspension System - Basic

Ksport Airtech Air Suspension System - Basic Unlike air bag suspension systems of the past where consumers must piece together a complete kit from scratch, often at a compromise to reliability and performance, KSport's revolutionary Airtech Suspension System comes as a complete, model specific kit

From: $2,295.00

Honda Accord Suspension Techniques Camber Kit

In order to bring the most out of your performance suspension, a properly optimized wheel alignment is an absolute must. The ST Pro Align kit provides everything required to align your lowered vehicle with the accuracy of a race car. In fact many professional race teams use both our ProAlign and Toe

From: $26.35

Honda Accord Tanabe Sustec Under Brace

Often overlooked, especially on vehicles that are reaching higher levels of modification, is the importance of reinforcing the chassis. All vehicles experience flexing of the unibody under various handling loads. Twisting of the chassis is also very common on higher horsepower vehicles. The SUSTEC

From: $98.00

Honda Accord Tokico RAK Series Coilovers

Tokico Advanced Handling Suspension Kits improve handling and vehicle appearance. The kits combine either the performance HP Series non-adjustable shocks/struts, or the five-position adjustable Illumina Series shocks/struts with a matched set of performance lowering springs. Manufactured from the

From: $880.00

Honda Accord Vogtland Sport Suspension Kits

We use our tried and trusted sport springs with progressive tuning and only the best quality performance shock absorbers in our VOGTLAND complete kits. Brake dives and body roll during cornering are significantly reduced. All complete kits respond immediately to your input and provide you with a saf

From: $467.49

The Accord Contact Patch

Let's image that you are cruising down the highway at 65 miles per hour and suddenly you see an animal jump out in front of your car. Could be a 2 lb rabbit or a 100 lb plus deer, either way you want to avoid hitting it.

So you yank the wheel to turn the car away from the critter. Did you make it? Was it just a close call, or is there something behind the car lying in the road?

One of the determining factors that helped decide what just happened is the "contact patch" of your tires. So just what is a "contact patch"? It's one of the most misunderstood words about cars. And the contact patch idea is very simple.

Let's use our imagination again. This time we will image driving our car up a ramp onto a platform made out of very thick glass. Don't worry, its strong enough to hold your car, you and your mother-in-law up in the air.

Now walk under the platform and look up. Do you see where the tires are touching the glass? Well that's the contact patch. The contact patch is that portion of your tire that is in contact with the road surface. Without a contact patch, you are not going anywhere.

Not too much touching is there? If we looked at a 3,000 car with 30 lbs per square inch of tire pressure it would have about 100 sq-in of contact patch. Since there are four tires, each one would have about the area of a 4 x 6 inch index card. Or another way, about the size of one your hand prints.So your contact patch is very small compared to the area of the car.

This contact patch is all that is touching the road, and every maneuver you make with the car is transferred to these small patches of rubber.

The more contact patch you have, the better you apply the thrust the car has against the road surface to accelerate, brake or corner the vehicle. When you hear about racing terms such as "oversteer" and "understeer" they are referring to how well the rubber of the tire grips the road and what happens when that grip starts to slip loose from the road surface. Typically the contact patch of either the rear or the front end of the car breaks loose before the opposite end.

What is harder to understand is that the contact patch does not remain constant while you drive. Go around a curve and the tires will not have the same shape or amount of contact patch as when the car is standing still. Hit a big bump and your contact patch may vanish. No patch means no control.

So I hope your tires were in good shape and properly inflated when you encountered the situation we started out with.

By the way, what happened in your mind? Did you miss that poor helpless animal or are you attending a funeral?

Yahoo News

7/30/2010 -	Honda posts record Q1 and Renault returns to H1 profit (Reuters) Reuters - Honda Motor Co (7267.T) raised its full-year forecasts after posting a record quarterly net profit on Friday, while brisk sales returned France's Renault to profit in the first half.
7/30/2010 -	Obama to sell auto bailout good news in Michigan (AP) AP - President Barack Obama is going to the heart of the U.S. auto industry to push an important election-year claim: his administration's unpopular auto industry bailout has turned into an economic good-news story.
7/30/2010 -	Honda posts record quarterly profit on sales rise (AP) AP - Honda's quarterly profit ballooned to 272.4 billion yen ($3.2 billion) and the carmaker raised its full year earnings forecast as sales grew in North America, Japan and the rest of Asia.
7/29/2010 -	Tenneco , (Investor's Business Daily) Investor's Business Daily - Tenneco , an auto parts maker, swung to a Q2 profit of 62 cents ex items, topping views by 18 cents. Revenue rose 36% to $1.5 bil, above views. Tenneco, which makes emission control products, shock absorbers and other components, climbed 7.6% to 25.97.
7/29/2010 -	Obama: We'll get back money from auto bailout (AP) AP - President Barack Obama said the government will recover all the taxpayer money his administration provided to bail out the auto industry last year.
7/29/2010 -	UAW head: GM to file paperwork in August for IPO (AP) AP - General Motors Co. will file paperwork in mid-August to start the process of selling stock to the public, the head of the United Auto Workers union said Thursday.
7/29/2010 -	White House: car bailouts saved a million jobs (AFP) AFP - The White House on Thursday said its multi-billion dollar auto industry bailout had saved a million jobs and brought the fabled sector back from the brink of collapse.
7/29/2010 -	Toyota recalls 412,000 cars in US to fix steering (AP) AP - Toyota is recalling nearly half a million cars, most of them large sedans sold in the U.S., for problems that can cause the steering wheel to lock up. It's the latest indication that the automaker is still struggling with vehicle problems even as it works to overhaul quality control.