Understeer?

[Garvin]

All the reviews I've read about the Z4 comment that it has a natural tendency to understeer. Well mine doesn't - I have experienced no understeer at all and it will oversteer at the drop of a hat. This has been accentuated over recent days when the temperature drops and the grip of the RFTs diminishes to 'not a lot'. I would expect the front tyres to degrade as per the rears but, no, the front turns in crisply, hangs on doggedly and the back end requires a good dose of concentration to 'catch'.

So, the question is - "Does your Z4 understeer or oversteer?"

 

[Maniac]

It depends.. At slow speed I get under steer. My e85 used to do the same, in fact there was a lot of under steer at slow speeds on my e85. At higher speeds it's more neutral. I have to put power down or weight into a bend to lose the back. I'm on Pirelli P Zeros. The e89 feels a bit dead on centre and just at the point you feel it's going to under steer it bites and turns in. When I test drove the 20i, less weight at the front made it turn in quicker.

 

[Garvin]

So what you are saying is that I need to drive slower . . . . . . you're probably right

 

[Atom1]

It does what I tell it too do

I'v had one proper dose of oversteer, hitting a corner too hard and accelerating into it, the car held a steady angle and recovered neatly, no drama.

In the time iv had the car iv had no hint of understeer. In my previous car, TT, there was heaps of it. I believe it was the cars way of politely saying, you have reached the limit back off!

 

[Quadracer]

I was suffering understeer for a while until I learnt to drive it how it should be driven. You need to brake hard to slow the car then trail the brake until the point where you need to feed the gas back in, almost to the apex. By doing this you keep the weight on the front end and it grips rather than understeers. On the exit of the corner, gently switch from braking to feeding the gas keeping the car balanced.
If you don't trail the brake keeping the front planted the front will go light when you released the brakes causing understeer on the way in. You will then naturally back off the gas unstabling the car, make the back light and switch to oversteer. This is fun but not much use if you want to be fast and/or save your tyres.

 

[adam.b]

My 20 gets VERY vague much over 125-130, at low speeds I have never had it do anything I didn't want. I can make the front end wash our OR the rear slide happily with orange lights flashing all over the place...sometimes bot in the same corner if I am REALLY trying to upset someone.

I tend not to flail it about too much as those 19" tyres are a fair whack!!