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The trailing arm rear suspension is compact and inexpensive. It was popular on French cars and some more recent italian cars but nowadays is losing preference to the twist_beam as a compact rear suspension for small to medium cars. Apart from the space efficiency of the trailing arm suspension, another advantage is that, like the twist_beam suspension, it can include anti-lift effects while braking. A disadvantage of the trailing arm suspension is that during roll in a turn, the rear wheels attain a positive camber angle equal to the roll angle of the car body, reducing slightly the rear axle cornering capacity. Another disadvantage that the trailing arm suspension shares with the twist beam is the tendency to exhibit compliance toe-out under lateral loads. This tends to promote oversteer. To reduce this tendency, trailing arm bushings need to be fairly stiff, which increases ride harshness. To address this problem, in some applications the trailing arms are mounted on a sub-frame. This solution can be seen in some recent applications from Fiat, Renault, and Peugeot/Citroen. |
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