Well I had the tC up to about 120mph the other day on the highway for about 10 miles or so (I know, pretty stupid, but wanted to know what she'd do)... anyway the handling is TERRIBLE at any speed above 80mph it seems when not on a perfectly straight road. My tC is stock with the 17" wheels and tires and I'm wondering how much it would benefit the handling to lower or upgrade wheels and springs.

Although I'm not going to go driving at 120mph everyday it would be nice to know I could with no problems...

Any feedback?

 

Shrugs....I drive 85-90 when going up the interstate to the mountains here (limit is 70) and my tC handles great.

 

same here..

 

Just did 105 MPH tonight and it handled great! Turns at high speeds: that's another story. The other day I tried to take an off-ramp at about 60 MPH and I almost lost the backend of the car. The front stayed planted and the rear wheels slipped out of place. Luckily I corrected it and stayed on the road. Needless to say I took a crap!

On my to do list:

Lowering springs
Better shocks
!!!REAR!!!! Sway bar
Strut bar

High speed turns feel awful in the tC.

 

Yup that's what I'm saying... the front end seems fine but the rear end wants to come around... maybe that's why I read that the tC was bad on the skid pad in one of the tests. They rated it poorly in one of the mags...

 

Any idea how many G's it pulled? I would like to see a comparison between stock and modded with some extra bracing.

 

Sport Compact Car said the tC got 0.82's with a slalom speed of 66.1 mph.

 

I just came back from Las Vegas driving my tC it did fine on high speed up to 100+ but you are right once I hit 80mph it starts to sway a bit on the back end (it made me thinking about getting sway bar and lowering springs). I think the car is soft but not too soft. I just love it when I am driving within speed limit but sometimes I cant help it, tC make me drives faster.

 

the other day i took my tC about 80-85mph on a straight line on the highway, and the rear tires seemed to start shaking side to side. what the hell is wrong with my car. this isn't normal is it? i have the TRD springs by the way.

i checked to see if the nuts on the wheels were screwed in all the way and they were, i also checked the tire pressure and they all seemed fine.

what's wrong?

 

I can't say I've had any real problems with the tC's handling even at the highest speeds posted here, but I will say that the addition of the TRD springs helped the car at very high speeds and took away some of the floaty feeling you would get over dips in the highway. If you guys are having problems with oversteer, stay away from the TRD sway bar. Maybe take a pound or two of air out of your rear tires and add a pound or two to the front.

(Maybe you guys just shouldn't be driving that fast. I'm not saying it to be mean, but I have to say it. What kind of experience level do you have? I can't think of a kind of road vehicle I haven't driven short of a semi, in all kinds of conditions with wildly varying power and handling levels. For a smallish sporty hatchback I think the tC handles great.)

 

I had the same shady oversteer experience with my tc when I first got it
after getting TRD springs it is so much better and handles good I have no problems at any speed up to 100

 

I have the suspension mods listed in my sig below and I have no problems. if you're driving an unmodded tC around corners at 80 mph it's not so hot. but I regularly (as I've said before, I drive on unpopulated roads home at around 1 am) take sweeping turns at 70-80mph and have, "on occaision," driven on straight stretches of highway at 100+ and have not felt at all uncertain with the handling of my tC.

if you want to go fast and take corners quickly then get the springs and the sway bar.

 

well you might want to take a grease pencil (white) and mark the tire and wheel (straight line between them) and see if the tire is moving on the wheel! dealership has "roughed up the wheel lip" and added tire sealant to the lip of the tire, didn't work.. tire continues to move on the wheel.. i have pirelli pzero nero m&s and there is a shaking also at highway speed, for me it wasn't the tires but the wheels are bad. Since originally the tires were very smooth, but lost balance once the tire began to move of the wheel.. The dealer and scion have agreed that a new set of wheels are going to be put on my tC..

Am not driving aggressively at all.. and no matter how i drive, easy or hard, tires are still moving.. it's something you should investigate.. i figured there would be something replaced since it's first year production, yes even toyota has these issues..

also get to a dealer who can do a road-force balance on those tires to see what's going on.. but i'd strongly suggest you make a line mark with the grease pencil and see if they are moving.. this could definitely cause the shake you're talking about.. you either feel a shake at 60mph or 80mph.. usually a balancing issue.. at 100 most tires don't hit that same harmonic that can cause vibration like 60 or 80mph..

 

My tC handles like a rock, even at 100+ with trd springs. Cant wait until I get rid of these wimpy stock tires.

 

Hey - another question - does this wheel problem mean that the problems you had with your first set of tires weren't tire problems, but wheel problems all along? Honestly I'd feel better if they were as I'm probably gonna get those tires and I don't like the idea that they can so easily be "bad". I don't especially like the idea of bad wheels either, but hopefully that doesn't happen that often.

 

Not problems at 80+mph, no swaying. That's the flow of traffic (most of the time) in the morning when I commute. I did try a short curvy off-ramp at 55mph and while it was scary, the rear held.

 

yeah that's exactly what both discount tire and the scion dealer are thinking is that the tires might not have been bad at all, since this new set was good and then all of a sudden it went bad and started vibrating. Tires usually are bad more often than wheels, but I thought I'd let everyone know what is happening with mine. I don't think I can blame the Pirelli's as much anymore now that I have observed the wheels not holding the tires in place, even with everything the dealer has done. I did have a tire/wheel slippage with my 96 civic, dealer roughed up the wheel lip which prevented the tire bead from sliding on the lip.. no more problems. They did the same thing on the tC and it still was moving. I had one wheel replaced already due to some material missing out of an area on one of the wheels.. That tire is NOT moving at all.. that's how they knew to replace the other three.. Enkei supplied those aluminum alloy wheels to honda on the civic.. Does enkei make the stock tC wheels?

It would be great if any scion dealer on this board could find out.. Does Enkei make the stock 17" tC wheels?

 

I purposly did did an oversteer drift when test driving it -- and bought the lowering springs for my car when it arrived. World of difference. I will be getting the rear-sway bar ASAP though, because that should correct the remainder of the handling issues.

 

hope no insurance people read these posts

 

All this is pretty interesting to read about. My guess is the handling characteristics is a combination of a few things when at speeds 80+. It's very surprising that if the car does truly have a tendancy for the rear to kick out (on a 60/40 wt balance) that TRD released a rear sway bar. That would make things worse. While the springs will help cornering resistance, shocks will help just as much if not more.

Here is the thing though. A suspension should typcially handle close to the same at most speeds (shy from the extremely slow and fast). What is everyones experience on a tight 40mph corner that you take at 50-60? If the car is tending to push while you accelerate through the last part of the corner, then maybe everything is related to the very soft tires. The side walls on these tires are mush compared to the Dunlop SP9000's on my MR2.

Let's not also forget that at 70mph the aerodynamics of a car come into effect big time. I noticed the air deflectors in front of the wheels, so hopefully that is helping to minimize aerydynamic wheel lift. As for car lift, I've no idea. Maybe the car really does need a wing out back.

Honestly I think once the suspension mods have happened and it tends to do the same, it's primarily the tires. The real question is, will the limit of adhesion simply be raised or will it be corrected with new tires.

Something to note, the conditions that cause each -
OVERSTEER
Too large rear vs front sway bar
Raised rear end
Undersized tires or narrow rims
Low rear tire pressure
Large rear overhang
Too stiff rear springs

REAR BREAK-AWAY
Stiff springs and/or shocks on rough corners
Excessive rear overhang
No rear sway bar to equal road shock between rear wheels
High tire pressure

-Richard