Springs

Springs have several jobs in your car. The springs support the weight of the car and absorb the impact of bumps. Springs can affect many areas of a car’s handling, from roll stiffness and the balance between understeer and oversteer to the harshness of the ride.

There are several varieties of spring. The most common sort is the coil spring, made from a large coiled steel rod. The metal in coil springs is often called wire, although this wire is much thicker than the sort of wire used for electrical work. Other sorts of springs include leaf springs and torsion bars. Leaf springs are made from strips of metal (or, sometimes, fiberglass) and usually attach to the rear axle on pickup trucks or older rear-wheel-drive cars. Torsion bars are ...

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