OK, my curiosity has overcome my shame. I've worked on own cars for many years, but I've never been a REAL car guy. The word "driveability" is used frequently in autospeak. However, I have to admit that I have only a general feeling for the term - my defintion has been arrived at by deduction. Can someone put a concise accurate definition to this word?

I'm just a guy having a great time with everything MINI.

 

Driveability is most commonly used in the negative such as "The car has a driveability problem". The term can mean many different things to different people (sort of like the term "tune-up" some people used it to mean a routine service of the ignition system, other people use it to mean "the car won't run, fix it"). Generally, poor driveability means the car does not respond to driver inputs as expected. Things like:

You press the accelerator expecting the car to move or increase speed and instead the engine dies or hesitates.
You stop at an intersection and the car stalls.
Every time you make a sharp turn the engine stalls or hesitates.

Generally, when speaking with a mechanic it is better to tell them exactly what is happening rather than use "mechanic speak" which may be misunderstood. If the car is stalling whenever you stop at an intersection tell the mechanic just that, don't tell them that you have a "driveability problem". When I worked in a shop we had a customer come in and ask for a "tune-up". We replaced the spark plugs, adjusted the timing (this was the old days) replaced the air filter, and checked the belts, hoses and wires - all tune-up stuff. The customer came back the next day and was furious because "I had to start it three times this morning when it was cold, just like I did before spending the money for the tune up"! I tried to explain that, since they did not complain about a cold start problem, we did not check for a cold start problem. The car was warm when we got it and warm when the mechanic worked on it. We asked them to leave the car overnight so we could check it when it was cold. It turned out to have a choke problem, remember those?
Just tell your mechanic what the problem is as simply and clearly as possible and hopefully they will try to correct it.

 

haskindmh,
thanks for your response and the good advice on how to talk about problem solving with your mechanic. Good to hear from the mechanic's point of view. What I am still unclear about is when the term "driveability " is used here in NAM forums or in descriptions of vendor products (things like ECU upgrades), what exactly are they describing. As you point out, the word means different things to different people. Everything is blurry

 

Since its a person by person thing I'm taking an educated guess in saying they're referring to how well the car reacts. In other words, they hit the gas pedal and the car accelerates better than before the upgrade. Its a relative term, pinning down any specific definition is tough.

 

I've always taken "Drivablility" to mean "predictability and ease of driving" - A Focus RS (a hot Euro focus with lots of power) has poor drivablility, but it won't stall or hesitate. It has poor drivability because of a few major issues...

"Torque Steer" - when a front-drive car will react to irregularities in the road by unpredictably turning the car (not too dramatically, but enough to make you change lanes).

Spiky power delivery - the car accelerates hard, kind of hard, really hard, soft, hard again.... If you have smooth power that gets progressively harder instead of being spiky or bumpy then the car will be easier to drive and have better "drivability". Some engine mods will enhance certain spots and make putting the power down relatively unpredictable. A smooth power band is critical when you're turning so you don't get a sudden rush of power and lose grip.

Scary handling - if you've heard of TVR, they're famous for this. You can tune a car so that when you break the limits of its handling, instead of having the front end lose grip, the tail end can lose grip. This can look cool (watch a drifting video) but can put you in a ditch (or oncoming traffic) just as easily. You might see this on a MINI with people putting really radical rear-sway bars on to enhance oversteer (drifting).

With engine mods, drivability usually refers to the spikiness of power delivery. You'll get torque steer by putting too much power to the front wheels, but that won't be much of an issue until about 230hp.

Hope this helps! I used all lay speak, not as an insult, but just in case any one else has the same question later and doesn't know what "lift-off oversteer" is

 

It strikes me as similar to when people go see a movie and then say "the cinematography was outstanding!" but if you ask them what they mean by cintematography, they have no idea.

 

This is a term that I use quite often. My definition of drivability would be a car that comfortably responds exactly the way the driver intends it to under any circumstance. A car with a high degree of drivability should feel intuitive, as if it is an extension of the driver. It should be well tuned in the same way that one’s body must be healthy to maintain maximum performance. And like the human body, raw power cannot be fully realized without balance and coordination otherwise we might as well drive top-fuel dragsters to work in the morning!

 

A top fuel dragster would cut my commute time alot shorter.Except I'd have to do a rebuild every couple of miles
My idea of "drivability"is the car starts in all kinds of weather.The car will operate smooth from cold to normal operating temp.

The car will go when you throttle up,and go quicker if you throttle hard.If the car bucks,it should be driver error,not the car,hope MINI reads this for those that have this problem[I don't]
The car should handle and ride as it was designed to do.
And at -47F the heated seats better work

 

I second haskindmh's comment. Keep It Simple and Stupid. Driveability means too many things to too many people to be used diagnostically. Even when discussing the benefit of a performance improvement such as an ignition system upgrade, using the term driveability can lead to confusion. ...I got improved driveability.... What do you mean? Did you get quicker throttle response??? Did you get more low-end power??? Or???

 

Driveability= Ability-to-drive

 

For me it has less to do with accelleration and everything to do with handling. Let's say the act of driving implies an interface between a driver and a car. If a car (like a MINI) exhibits excellent drivability, then the inputs provided by the driver towards controlling the car are translated effortlessly into a response from the car. Also the driver receives from the car excellent feedback on it's handling of road conditions, allowing the driver to make adjustments as needed. The car/driver interface is seamless. So extremely responsive steering, superb road-holding characteristics, and excellent feedback from the car to the driver all make for great drivability. That's what I think anyway.... :smile:

 

drivability is how forgiving the car is.