HBacura

If anyone has read the latest Car and Driver mag. I would like your take on the convertable comparison? Personnally, I haven't driven any of the other cars to make a judgement. Now the comments about the leg space and comfort of my right leg rubbing I can agree with. I would've said the handling on the boxster was excellent until tonight when I lost control of my car and wrecked it. But, outside of that C&D didn't seem to give the boxster a great review. I guess I'll just have to wait till the day I can get her back to enjoy driving her again.

KJM3SMG

that's horrible you wrecked your ride! I would be totally pissed...

I read that article and I have to say that it wasn't bad at all... and I had the exact conclusion.. Porsche Boxster is overall winner because of handling, looks..

--------------------
KJ

CARS FORUM - general car topics

Cars:
2002 BMW M3 SMG - 19", 8000k HIDs, Formula One tints, Naxxos fogs
2000 Porsche Boxster S - B&M short shifter, Naxxos xenons

HBacura

From the articale, they placed the boxster 3rd after the new 350z convertible and the honda 2000. It does suck for me, seeing that my baby is wrecked. I'm still waiting to hear from my insurance company for the damage cost. I'm hoping that they won't consider it as a total loss. All the damage is in the front, so I'm assuming replacing nothing but sheet metal won't run the cost up too much.

craigg

The Automobile Mag article said the Boxster was the overall winner, the C&D was much less favorable.

I found the C&D article to be a very subjective and opinionated (versus factual) review. I support the author's right to have these opinons - too bad they were WRONG!

Much of the negative towards the Boxster related to look and feel and as we all know, this is different for everyone. I suspect the author probably likes Edsels and AMC Gremlins too.

Control It

How'd you lose control of your car?

Did you have PSM?

I wish I had that option as while I find the Boxster an amazingly great handling car, when you lose it, you really can lose it due to the mid engine layout and 50/50 weight distribution...

Sorry for you!

Mark

EricT

Actually, according to the article in Automobile, the Boxster has 46.7/53.3 front/rear distribution. A little bit heavy in the rear. The BMW as usual comes closest to 50/50 with 50.3/49.7.

They didn't do an explicit ranking in the Automobile article, but based on their comments, it seems they put them as follows:
1. Boxster
2. Z4
3. S2000
4. 350Z

Quite a different lineup from the C&D review.

mariodz

The Boxster is better with the rear bias becuase the weight transfers from the rear to front when braking into a corner.

A car with a 50/50 when not braking winds up unbalanced with more weight being distributed to the front. You canget a better balance under braking and braking into a corner with the boxster becuase of the rear bias at first.

Mario.

EricT

That all depends, mainly on your tires. When you brake, you put more weight on the front tires, which in turn gives you more traction and therefore more braking power. That's why you usually see bigger brakes on the front than the rear. A classic example of this is on a sportbike. Usually they have two huge rotors up front and only one small one on the rear. That's because under extreme braking, the rear wheel will be practically floating above the pavement, and any braking there will only serve to lock the wheel.

The opposite is true of acceleration. I think the Boxster's weight balance gives it an advantage in acceleration rather than braking. When you accelerate, the weight goes to the back, and the traction increases. Since it already has a weight bias in the rear, it has a slight advantage there. Less wheelspin.

I think the 50/50 balance gives you the most advantage when cornering. With a 50/50 split, you will have equal traction on front and rear wheels if you are maintaining constant speed in the turn. That way, the car stays neutral, and if you do slide, the front and rear should slide equally, resulting in a drift rather than oversteer or understeer.

If you have a car with a front-end bias (as most cars do), you'll achieve the best cornering traction by accelerating slightly through the turn, which will add more weight to the rear of the car, getting you closer to that 50/50 balance.

On the Boxster, I imagine that the best cornering performance comes from trail-braking into the turn, which will add a bit of weight to the front of the car. I haven't tested this, since I've never driven one on the track, but that's the theory.

Has anyone here put this into practice?