[Tommy]

Automan,
When I reread my last post this morning, I realized I had assumed knowledge that you or some others reading this may not have. It has to do with the weight on each tire of a car. The amount of force a tire can generate to help a car change its direction and velocity is determined by many things, but one of the most important is the downward force applied to the tire by the car. More downward force on the tire allows the tire to generate more grip up to a point. If the driver demands more grip that the tire can generate, it will start to slide and the ability of that tire to help control the car will diminish greatly. Here's an example. Suppose a driver has a car with 400 pounds being supported by the left front tire and 800 pounds being supported by the right front tire. As long as the driver doesn't demand too much from those tires, he may not notice the difference. But in a panic stop when he is trying to get every bit of grip from those tires to slow down the car, the left front tire (with its light load) will lock up before the right front. At that point, the driver is faced with two bad choices. He can let up on the brakes to regain traction from the left front, but not get all the braking action still available in the right front. Or he can stay on the brakes to get all he can from the right front while getting very little help from the left front. As the second option can easily lead to a spin, the first bad choice is usually better than the second, but neither is as good as having balanced the load on the front tires in the first place.

You may be wondering what a change in the spring tension on a wheel has to do with the weight pressing down on that wheel. It's a little difficult to describe in words alone, but think of it like a table with four equal length legs each supporting one fourth of the tables weight. If you were to shorten one of the legs just a little, the table would begin to rock slightly between the shortened leg and the one opposite it. That means the majority of the weight is being supported by the other two legs. The weight of the table is no longer distributed evenly over all four legs. ... Adjusting the spring on a wheel is like lengthening or shortening the leg on that corner. It affects the weight carried by that wheel AND all the other wheels.