New Prius Handling Components to be available soon!!

I wonder if this brace will help in a specific situation. There is a small bump of concrete (one of those random blobs left inadvertantly by road construction workers) around the corner of the street I live on. I try to avoid it b/c when I take the turn while braking and hit it, there's this moment where it feels as if the tire that hit it has lost contact with the ground and for a moment is going faster than it should be if it there were no bump and I was braking through the turn normally. Would the brace help in that situation? I mean, is my chassis flexing in that case such that my suspension is not able to keep my tires as firmly planted to the ground as possible causing me to momentarily lose a bit of braking ability?

 

Since so many people still do not post their location, it's a little hard to arrange a double blind.

I live in San Diego, CA.

Anyone want to stop by and drive my car?

 

PM me. I'm also in SD and would love to feel the difference.

 

I have no idea how to do that.

Send me an e-mail. I have an e-mail link under my avatar.

 

OK, I guess the repeated "If my plate shows signs of flexing I'll look into getting a stiffer one" stuff wasn't expressed properly. That's how I'm expressing it now. Happy?

I started out by asking what changing this plate would do for the car, and all I get is people who'd prefer to be driving high-MPG Lamborghinis or something telling me that I wouldn't benefit from the mod. I don't like crosswinds buffeting me when I drive, but I have serious doubts that this piece of metal is a panacea for all Prius ills, unless I determine that it's not tough enough for the given job and needs replacement.

When I need to, the car whips from lane to lane quite solidly, with no instability I notice. Would I notice less with a solider bar in the right place? Not doing enough really dangerous moves on a regular basis, I'm not sure. I'd just wanted to ask about it, and apparently this was the wrong place to ask that particular question...

 

Hello everyone.. I thought I would chime in here and though I have explained this before, I know this thread is quite long. so......

Brian - You've got people here claiming that a chasis brace is going to help in cross winds. It won't. Will the car feel more solid? Sure, but it isn't changing what the wind does.

I would argue you did the wrong thing. Strut braces are far more in need of strengthening than a unitbody. I'm positive that the brace helps feel, but realistically I don't see it doing much else.
I would opt for stiffer sidewalls before doing this.

And everyone jumps all over Mikepaul who only wants the empirical evidence that no one can give him. Nor will they ever.

 

I've seen this before, elsewhere. Fact is only fact if it is agreed to, otherwise it is demoted to mere opinion. All the easier to dismiss it.

I'll try to only say things that will be universally agreed to, so that nobody will have any reason to point out that it's just my opinion anymore. Odds are I'll fail, but I'll try...

 

Ah, well.

Thanks...

 

If you are happy with the way your Prius handles, why all the fuss?

No one is forcing you to purchase and install this modification.

Some of us are accustomed to driving well handling European and Japanese sports sedans. Our standard for comparison is not the Ford Tempo, but Mercedes Benz, BMW, Audi, Acura and their likes.

It is all a matter of perspective.

 

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I'm trying to refocus the thread here so please bear with me.
The BT Tech Stiffening Plate WILL increase the chassis stiffness by some amount. Thicker cross sections of anything resist tortional bending loads better. This is basic physics-engineering.
Increasing chassis stiffness WILL result in quantitave (skid pad, lane changes, etc) and subjective handling (feel) improvements.

So for me the real question is how much improvement will come from the BT Tech Plate?
If people say they feel an improvement then I beleive them (they have nothing to gain by saying the BT Tech plate is better then stock). I've driven a new Ford Focus and it drives 10 times better then the Prius (the focus has nearly identical dimensions and tires to the Prius) and this tells me the handling engineering or components in the Prius can be better. This is also proven by the changes announced by Toyota (and already implemented in the Euro version).

In summary, I'm sure we could measure the BT Tech improved skid pad or slalom times as an X% improvement over stock(but what would this mean to an average Prius driver?). So the most important thing for me is the subjective improvement to handling that helps drivers on the freeway, etc. If you're happy with your handling now then ignore this thread. No one has a right to question or bad mouth this product unless you've tried it yourself.
Brian, I'll be ordering a Stiffening Plate from you soon.

 

Since it looks like this should be addressed to me and not the other poster, I'll take a shot at explaining the 'fuss'.

I feel the Prius is fundamentally sound, but suffers from aerodynamic problems that mostly involve crosswinds. The car wanders on an equal-opportunity basis when one releases the steering wheel, which, to me, indicates no particular bad part but a general tendency for the whole car to be easily misdirected.

So I see a thread about this 'stiffening plate' thing, and the anecdotes sounded nice, but I wondered what said plate did for the car, and asked. I even said a link to a performance website would be OK. What I got was that the thread included all I needed to know, and what more did I want? I looked again, and still didn't see what one piece of metal would do to fix the car's wandering. Some people thought the performance was better. Well, new (larger) tires and an alignment job helped too, but a crosswind still sends the car off course.

I realize it wasn't really nice to make the comment that perhaps spending $160 on a part places rose-colored glasses in front of the part's performance results, but in the end that could be a truth and I didn't feel like being the guy who didn't 'get it' once it was done.

And if the plate seems bent when I look at it, I'll think about replacing it...

 

This is basic physics-engineering.
Increasing chassis stiffness WILL result in quantitave (skid pad, lane changes, etc) and subjective handling (feel) improvements

But the questioning that got hammered involved cross wind. This will not change that. Nor will it change "wandering". What it will maybe do is change the feel of the car. If that's all you want, go for it. Personally, it does not make sense to put in a "stiffer" subframe connector and not do something about the shock towers. But, that is JMO.

If people say they feel an improvement then I beleive them (they have nothing to gain by saying the BT Tech plate is better then stock).

Sure they do, they spent money and don't want to feel like they wasted it. Placebos work as well. The mind is a great thing.

I've done plenty of things to plenty of cars b/c I wanted to. No evidence, just seemed like fun. $160 isn't much to spend for that. For me, tho, the prius is a way to get from point a to point b pretty cheaply, and it does that well. If I want to have fun, I have other things to drive.

 

I'm having a difficult time with the phrasing of this. I asked for what amounts to objective information on what the part did for the car, and somehow subjective is enough, no questions allowed?...

 

So does this plate get changed a lot in the Real World?

Why isn't the thickest plate that's practical welded in place in all cars if stiffness is a benefit?

Would the OEM plate give out after repeated lane changes of the variety that sports-car-types would (seem to) be pulling off on a regular basis to form a judgement that the stock Prius isn't good at them?...

 

Your opinion is much appreciated. Most of us are here so that we can express our opinion and learn. I simply requested that you express your opinion exactly as that, and not make a dogmatic statement such as "The car is quite stable at any street-legal high speed. "

BTW, if the existing plate is bent when you look at it, that means you survived the accident. :lol:

 

Most people do not want a car to be as stiff as possible. Sub frame connectors are routinely upgraded in race cars and in convertibles. Rag tops obviously lose stiffness do to the lack of a top. The stock plate will never wear out. Ever. This is simple for if you don't like the "feel" of the car. It isn't even going to make it safer. There are just too many elements involved in a suspension to think that changing one element will have significant impact.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(\"mikepaul\";p=\"115719\")</div>

Each penny that can be shaved off the manufacturing cost adds up to a lot of dollars at the end of the year. I would guess that the stock plate is engineered to a minimum standard.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(popoff\";p=\"115720)</div>

So is our main point of contention the crosswind issue? Or some plate-related one?

The car is stable at 70MPH. On a windless day, I can certainly let go of the wheel and not leave the road for 1/4 mile or so. I'd prefer it if some mechanism auto-straightened the wheels under those conditions but I can live with it as it is now.

If the car is considered unstable because it responds to crosswinds in an unacceptable way, then people like Consumer Reports need to reevaluate their opinions:

If only sports-car-driver opinions on stability really matter, then I'm out of luck...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mikepaul\";p=\"115732)</div>

To quote Ronald Reagan, "there you go again."

Perhaps your car is stable at 70 mph. Mine is not. If I were to let go of the steering wheel on my car for 1/4 mile< I'd be off in the woods with a badly bent BT Tech stiffening plate.

All I'm asking is that you make statements based on your opinion and experience. A few examples of the type of statement I'm suggesting might begin with "In my opinion" or "It's been my experience"