The official "my Yaris handles bad on the highway/with crosswinds" thread

[blacksan]

Originally Posted by Jerkratt

i got aharbour hreight like 5-10 mins from me... lol maybe we can work something out and i can get it and ship it or osmething

Thanks for the offer! I am going to call my local HF today and see if pricing in the store is same as web price. If it is cheaper to send my heavy crap vs driving down then that is how I am going to do it. stay tuned.

[nsmitchell]

Check this one out. I think we have hi"jacked" this thread.

http://www2.northerntool.com/product-1/200313500.htm

[blacksan]

Originally Posted by nsmitchell

Check this one out. I think we have hi"jacked" this thread.

http://www2.northerntool.com/product-1/200313500.htm

Good find! No, this is all about making my Yaris handle better over 60 through wheel rotation.

[H2XcapePod]

This is just my two cents but it seems to be a large disparity between the handling on the LB and Sedan( LB for me). With heavy crosswinds I do get tossed a bit and when I first got the car I thought the handling wasn't quite right for a car this size. A few months ago I started over inflating the Potenza RE 92's to 40 psi. She definietly feels tighter, and a lot more fun. Even under emergency braking and breaking traction she's stable and predictable...(too bad some poor schmuck had to soil his trousers for me to find out Sorry!)

[Lillydot]

my car gets blown around too. i think its part tires, and part getting used to the car. inflate the tires up too 36 psi and just get used to the way the car handles. after about 4 months of driving, i've got the body roll almost completely under control. i can do 60mph, maybe push it to 70, but i know the car can't handle anything over that on a windy day or going over a bridge over a lake (thats when the wind gets me the worst! ). so i stay at 60. its better for your gas mileage, anyways!

[Creeper]

just my 2 cents checked my tire pressure today and it was at 40 so i droped it down to 35 and it handles alot better then it did on the highway, no more moving sidways in the crosswind or anything, drives like a charm :) had it sense october 06 and have 4286 miles on it

[thomasward00]

Thats why i've ordered 16x7 rims and tires for my sedan, it does get blown around a bit on the interstate, hopefully with the wider rims and more high performance tires it will help some with stability.

[spkrman]

Rims and tires basically eliminate this problem.

Its a highway machine with the dubs on... but I never had issues before... just grab hold of the wheel.

I've never been in a car that kept going straight when there was 40mph gusts... as a matter of fact, the only time I get "blown around" is when every other car on the road gets blown around. The only time its ever been sqiurrely at all due to wind was winter on the highway in storms around curves... now of course all you have to do is slow down, and snow tires help alot... I should also add that for every day my stock tired yaris made it though, there were 10-20 of something larger on the side of the road.

The car itself isn't so unstable, it just takes a tighter grip on the wheel... an abnormally tight grip for such a small car. I suppose chalk it up to electric steering.

[eTiMaGo]

Originally Posted by spkrman

The car itself isn't so unstable, it just takes a tighter grip on the wheel... an abnormally tight grip for such a small car. I suppose chalk it up to electric steering.

That, and the very short lock-to-lock ratio... I think some people might be used to older cars where you can spin the wheel 3-4 times lock to lock, ours is about 2 and a half turns I think? So a "normal" steering input causes a bigger than anticipated response from the wheels, which can make the car feel squirelly at high speed...

[Mead]

I just racked up 1500 miles on my 5 sp liftback. I started with 350 miles on the odometer, 36 psi front, 34 rear.

I avg 85 mph... I topped 95 mph, day and night time driving, even drove thru a heavy thunderstorm (slowed to 25mph, 1/4 mile visibiltiy)

Bad handling? I didn't notice any. The car rides steady and smooth. It was pretty noisy and rear visibility over my right shoulder was awful. There was also a blind spot over my left shoulder. Though I don't have side curtains, I think the b-pillar trim protects for it so the trim is quite bulky = bad visibility. Also the rear middle seat belt buckle eats up some rear view mirror visibility.

In 5th gear the Yaris feels 'settled in' between 85 - 90 mph JMHO

[ponieswhee]

There was an Automobile magazine article about the Ford Fiesta RS, a diesel Skoda and the Renault Clio Sport which put it this way: A car that feels light, nimble and tossable on small windy backroads often feels darty, nervous and unstable on the interstate.

I think this is part of the reason small cars never caught on in a big way in the US. Personally, I'll take nervous and darty any day over numb and overweight. I love the way my Yaris handles. I can toss it around tight corners at speeds that would scare the pants off me in my camry or old taurus. I can't wait for the day gas hits $5 a gallon and Ford et al finally wake up to the fact that some of us actually want to see these cars here in the US.

[Pars]

Originally Posted by gm830

I'm really hoping you're right about all of this because after reading all these posts I'm scared to buy my yaris liftback lol

Did I miss something? I don't recall anyone saying that the liftback was more susceptible to cross-wind then the Yaris sedan. btw, the original post was a sedan owner, not a liftback.

I drive a 5dr liftback and the only time my trance-like stupor is interrupted by cross-wind is when half of the other cars on the road are also getting tossed around in their lane. Usually when I'm wakened from the cross-wind, I'll jack up the speed since the car seems to cut through the wind better at higher speeds (but not too high, like above 90mph).

I recently changed my tires from the stock potenza to Toyo Spectrum. The new Spectrum are more quiet (but old tires tend to get noisy), seem to be a bit more stable at extreme speeds (above 90mph) and does a better job at handling the g-force. Hopefully it's just as good as the Potenza in the braking department. If so, win-win.

Anyways, the tires are going to play a significant factor in the cross-wind. My old car (which was also a hatchback and weighted as much as the Yaris) were running on Toyo Proxies FZ4 (I hope to get these tires when I finally move up in wheel size) and the Proxies have an amazing centred feel and I suspect would be significantly better against the cross-wind. The only problem, is that they're directional tires and tend to need frequent rotating (to keep them from getting noisy).

[YAR1S]

wondering if anyone else has experienced this before.

I usually drive mostly highway miles. (65 mph - 70mph)
Lately I'll get into patches where the yaris will quite literally pull from side to side like its rocking back and forth. Would it be a mechanical problem.
Or does anyone experience this as a normal thing.

My best bet is that lately its been getting colder and dreery and the wind is picking up a bit. Maybe the winds hit the yaris just right to give it a weird rocking back and forth sensation.

I thought the yaris was pretty aerodynamic???

[bobby]

Trade it in for a Phit...it's safer!

[33OH]

My Yaris has picked up alot of wind resistance side-to-side. Other than that it doesn't rock on the highway at all. And I drive on the highway about 100 miles every day to work.

It has been better since I've lowered it too. I used DF210's.

[lita_g]

Mine does that sometimes on I-4 when I'm going 75-80, it does it also sometimes on my way home going 70, but usually when it happens I think it is when it's somewhat windy, it's not happening all the time, so I'm not worried.

[Bob_VT]

About 50% of that is road surface which changes constantly when heavy trucks travel on them and the other half could be wind.

Road surfaces have alot of effect.

[Mikeb Yaris]

Try ridge riding...