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Old 08-12-2019, 09:12 AM   #51
wdc330i
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Originally Posted by kognito View Post
Wow. What a jumbled mess of gibberish that story is.
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Old 08-12-2019, 11:37 AM   #52
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I've talked quite a bit with engineers who work at various car manufacturers about prototype cars. It seems like in many cases they are, to put it lightly, kind of a mess in terms of their driving dynamics. Suspension calibrations are often well short of production levels, ABS and stability control are often not active / not calibrated, etc. Obviously we don't know exactly what happened here but it seems awfully foolhardy to take a preproduction car out and thrash it on public roads.
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Old 08-12-2019, 12:04 PM   #53
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I've talked quite a bit with engineers who work at various car manufacturers about prototype cars. It seems like in many cases they are, to put it lightly, kind of a mess in terms of their driving dynamics. Suspension calibrations are often well short of production levels, ABS and stability control are often not active / not calibrated, etc. Obviously we don't know exactly what happened here but it seems awfully foolhardy to take a preproduction car out and thrash it on public roads.
Not a lot of info available from that video, though it's worth noting that the Equinox doesn't have any front end damage. I guess it must have overcooked the corner and tagged the Equinox in the left rear side?

Also we don't know who was driving. The car is close enough to launch now that it might have been a journalist.
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Old 08-12-2019, 07:48 PM   #54
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Originally Posted by John V View Post
I've talked quite a bit with engineers who work at various car manufacturers about prototype cars. It seems like in many cases they are, to put it lightly, kind of a mess in terms of their driving dynamics. Suspension calibrations are often well short of production levels, ABS and stability control are often not active / not calibrated, etc. Obviously we don't know exactly what happened here but it seems awfully foolhardy to take a preproduction car out and thrash it on public roads.
I’ve been in a handful of preproduction cars — although they were very close to finish and well past the prototype stage. Toyota put a cardboard sleeve on the driver’s sun visor with text on it saying the car was preproduction and not all materials were up to production spec. I honestly couldn’t tell in that car. I was also in a Nissan that seemed to be production quality.... But a prototype at this stage? There could be all sorts of tuning not yet done to make it squirely...
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Old 08-13-2019, 06:52 AM   #55
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I’ve been in a handful of preproduction cars — although they were very close to finish and well past the prototype stage. Toyota put a cardboard sleeve on the driver’s sun visor with text on it saying the car was preproduction and not all materials were up to production spec. I honestly couldn’t tell in that car. I was also in a Nissan that seemed to be production quality.... But a prototype at this stage? There could be all sorts of tuning not yet done to make it squirely...
I am not an expert but I get the impression they tweak spring rates, shock tuning, alignments, ride heights etc very close to the final "go" for production.

Again all this is purely speculative.
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Old 08-13-2019, 08:08 AM   #56
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I come in a with a bias that they were blasting down a difficult road with unfamiliar sightlines. If it came down to tire psi's, and alignment tweaks, they were going too fast, period.

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Old 08-13-2019, 08:43 AM   #57
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I come in a with a bias that they were blasting down a difficult road with unfamiliar sightlines. If it came down to tire psi's, and alignment tweaks, they were going too fast, period.

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Uh, that's why I posted that already
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Old 08-13-2019, 08:46 AM   #58
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I am not an expert but I get the impression they tweak spring rates, shock tuning, alignments, ride heights etc very close to the final "go" for production.
Not an expert? Your RX8 thread proves otherwise (which is also pre production, as you are still tweaking it)
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