Things I Hate: Spoilers... Sometimes

The purpose of a spoiler is to improve a car's downforce. When a car is moving, air passes over the body. When the air reaches the spoiler, it pushes the rear end down onto the rear wheels. That means, that the rear wheels will be less likely to spin. This results in better traction and more grip.

That all sounds great, and it is. But only on a rear wheel drive car. See, when you have rear wheel drive, you want the back end of the car to be pushed down. This keeps the rear wheels from spinning, and causing the car to slide. An old 911 is the perfect example of a car that needed a spoiler to keep the rear end in check. Those things were always ending up in trees.

However, if you have a front wheel drive car, spoilers only make things worse. When the air pushes the spoiler and the rear end of a front wheel drive car down, the end where the power is being delivered, the front, will rise up. So, rather than giving the car more grip, the front wheels will end up spinning and the car will understeer.

In other words, when you reach a corner and turn the wheel, the front wheels won't have enough grip to navigate around the corner and you'll just keep going straight.

I really hate seeing those guys with their Plymouth Neons, Mitsubishi Eclipses, and Honda Civics driving around with huge plastic spoilers on their trunks thinking that it's actually improving their car's performance or making it look better.

It's like those stupid gear sticks with plastic diamonds in them. Don't people realize they're just wasting their money.

So, the next time you see some chump driving around in a crappy Civic, with a massive spoiler on the trunk, you can sit quietly in your tastefully spoilered car and know that his spoiler is only making his car worse.

Or, you could totally ignore it. That's probobly what normal people do...