Stance and why it is bad for your car #allroadnotlowroad

I’m seeing more and more people on CT thinking stancing a car is a good idea. From an engineering perspective, here’s why its not.

The job of the suspension is to keep all 4 tyres in contact with the road, at the correct angles. In a stanced car, which is lowered excessively, to prevent the car scraping the ground over elevation changes, suspension travel needs to be reduced, and the only way to do this is by making the suspension super stiff- stiff to the point that there’s no travel at all. This means over bumps, the car hops around over the smallest of bumps, which significantly reduces grip. And the car will still scrape the ground unless its completely flat (like a race track). The extra stiffness also puts an extra strain on engine and gearbox mounts, as well as structural stress points, which means the car will rattle a lot more, and will mean the car won’t last anywhere near as long without being rebuilt every year (depending on how often its driven, of course).

Another aspect of stance is having between 12 and 20 degrees of negative camber. Having this amount of camber means that only the inside edge of your tyre is on the ground, reducing your tyres contact patch to the sort of contact patch that a bicycle has, so you have far less grip.
Also, due to only the inside edge being used, tyre wear is directed at a very small area. Instead of tyre wear being distributed across the whole tyre, its directed at the inside edge of the tyre, meaning the tyre is worn out much quicker.

Another popular thing to do on stanced cars is stretched tyres. This is also stupid. It just means that, due to the rounded-off shape of the tyre edge, when combined with 13 degrees of negative camber, 50% of the (tiny) contact patch is made up of the bottom of the tyre, the other 50% is made up of the sidewall, where there is no tread, maximising your chances of aquaplaning over the smallest amount of standing water. Also, the sidewall isn’t designed to hold the weight of a car, which means hard acceleration, braking, or steering, could tear the tyre.

All of this means a much monger stopping distance, which is another way of saying that you will have to brake for longer. And we all know what that means. Increased chances of the brakes overheating.
You can’t argue with science. Stancing a car messes up a cars driving dynamics to the point that it’s dangerous. Where’s the fun in being unable to go faster than 40 mph?