In this article we are going to examine a issue that may prove to be dangerous. If you detect any handling or grip problems on your Mini Countryman , it is essential that you drive attentively and take care of it quickly. Our team has written and published this guideline to help you fix them. First, we’ll quickly look at the principal elements that assure effective road handling, then we’ll look at why your Mini Countryman doesn’t hold the road any more, and at last we’ll look at how to fix your grip complications.
What are the main elements that assure great road holding and handling on a Mini Countryman?
We commence this article by quickly describing the main elements that will assure good road holding for your Mini Countryman. It’s essential to know that a vehicle’s grip is a science in itself. It will therefore rely upon many elements, we will show you down below the main ones that can be influenced:
- Shock absorbers: The main elements of your road handling, they permanently assure the contact between the wheels and the road. They absorb all shocks and holes on the road.
- Tyres: They are the ones that will assure the grip of your Mini Countryman on the road, the softer they are, the more grip you have, but the faster they get broken, the harder they are, the less grip you have, but the more resistant they are. Temperature impacts their wear. Their size will as well play on grip, the wider they are the more contact with the ground will be significant.
- The center of gravity: The higher your car is going to be, the more it will lean in the corners and consequently lose handling, that’s why low profile sports cars grip better than very high 4×4’s
- Wheel Alignment: This adjustment enables you to control the vertical angle of your car’s wheels, it is consequently important for the grip of your motor vehicle and the wear of your tires. This adjustment is very precise and must be conducted by specialists.
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There are many other elements to take into consideration such as wheelbase, ground clearance, chassis rigidity, weight and aerodynamics…
Why is my Mini Countryman having complications with my car’s handling or grip?
We will now move on to the part that interests you the most, why my Mini Countryman has handling complications? As we described earlier, there are quite a lot of elements to take into consideration for your car to have a good grip, nevertheless there are few that can evolve with time, most of them are intrinsic to the construction of the car, we will see right away those that can affect your handling and road, and, why:
- As we revealed earlier, the rubber of the tyres has a primordial function in the good road holding of your motor vehicle, if your tyres are dead, you might have complications of road holding on wet road at first and when you reach the “cord” even on dry road.
- Dead shock absorbers: If your shock absorbers are dead, your motor vehicle will no longer be able to absorb the irregularities of the road properly and it will often “float”, which will end result in a bad distribution of the masses on the car and shift the centre of gravity of the car. You risk slipping in the bends.
- The risk with a misalignment is that your ground contact area is reduced as a result of a too open or too closed wheel angle, you will have grip complications.
- A steering issue: Last but not least, the last important element for good road handling is that all the elements of your steering must be in good state. The most traditional circumstance is that your stabilizer bar or the silent blocks of your steering triangles are dead. The outcome will be a delay in your changes of direction.
How do you fix the handling complications?
We now move on to the different solutions to resolve your road holding complications on your Mini Countryman .
- Tyres: Nothing could be less complicated, just replace your tyres, make sure to verify them attentively and replace them when you get to the visual indicator in the grooves of your tyres. It is generally necessary to count between 100 and 200 euros for a pair of tires.
- Shock absorbers: Ditto, dead shock absorbers have to be changed, if you want to know when to change the shock absorbers of a Mini Countryman, please have a look at our article on this theme. The price can vary quite a lot, but you will have to count at least 400€
- Wheel alignment: You will have to go to your garage to have it solved, it will cost you less than 100€?
- Steering: If you have complications with the handling on Mini Countryman as a result of your steering, there may be several elements concerned, in this case you will have to produce a whole check-up of these elements, the best is to call a specialist.
To find more tips on the Mini Countryman, take a look at the Mini Countryman category.
