Puzzled by oversteer and understeer? Here's the low-down

By dpa | 29 August 2016


HANOVER: Cars do not run on rails and if a driver takes a corner too fast, he or she can encounter one of two hairy scenarios known as oversteer and understeer.

Both mean the tyres have run out of grip, especially if the road surface is wet. The effects can be tricky to handle, but they can be overcome provided a few rules of thumb are adhered to, say experts at safety-inspection company TUV Nord.

The two terms are frequently used to describe the behaviour of cars in media road tests, but they are often confused too.

Understeer is when a car's front wheels lose grip through a corner owing to excessive speed. The front end gets pushed towards the outside of the curve, and instead of going around the corner properly, the car has a tendency to go straight on.



The easiest cure is to just ease your foot off the accelerator, or just depress the clutch, and take the corner a little slower. Slacken off the steering angle a bit too and in most cases this will do the trick.

To explain oversteer, we need to move to the back of the car. It is used to describe a tendency for the rear wheels to skid away from the line of the curve. It generally happens when a driver accelerates too soon while going around a corner.

Oversteer leads to drifting, which can be provoked for controlled effect by experienced drivers.

The same advice applies here too. Drop the speed and keep looking and steering in the direction you want to go. Do not suddenly apply the brakes as this can make oversteer worse. By easing off the throttle, the driver can bring the car back into line.

It's worth noting that modern traction control systems such as ESP will iron out both tendencies, unless the driver is really travelling far too fast.

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