By and large, speed bumps are necessary evils on the road. They keep us in check, especially if we’re traveling at speeds that we probably shouldn’t be traveling at. They’re there for safety reasons, which most of us will begrudgingly admit. But just because that’s the case, it doesn’t mean that speed bumps are good for our cars, especially if we don’t see one coming.
We typically just cringe and resign ourselves to the inevitable feeling of getting trashed around in our seats once our cars hit the bump. Then we move on, pretend like nothing happened, all while we start dying a little inside.
How much damage can a speed bump actually inflict?
Are speed bumps really that punishing to our cars, and if so, how bad could it get? This is where the folks over at Warped Perception come in. After doing previous tests on potholes and the effect they have on our cars, their focus shifts on speed bumps, specifically the three kinds of speed bumps that we often see on the road.
The first kind is the asphalt speed bump. It’s the most common one we encounter and it’s the one that we often don’t recognize until the last second. Part of it is because some of these bumps aren’t painted white or yellow to alert us of their presence. They blend in with the road surface and we don’t often see them until the last second.
Driving what is arguably the toughest — and most naked —
Mercedes E-Class in the world, Warped Perception’s Matt Mikka proceeds to drive the E-Class over an asphalt speed bump under a few conditions. First, he drives the E-Class at full speed and then hits the brakes just as he hits the asphalt speed bump. The result is what you’d expect. The E-Class went over the bump violently, bottomed out, and scraped the road after all the weight transferred to the front end of the sedan. The second time, Mikka goes full speed without hitting the brakes and, to our collective surprise, nothing happened to the suspension.
Moving on, Mikka tests the E-Class on the plastic speed bumps we typically see around shopping malls. Using the same methods, the results of these tests kind of undermined the hypothesis.
Unfortunately for us, the third type of speed bump — the one Mikka calls “the suspension killer” — lived up to its nickname. Not only are they thicker and wider, but they’re also higher than the plastic speed bumps from the second test. And as expected, going through this type of speed bump puts undue pressure on the E-Class’ suspension to the point that the tires completed the entire amount of upward suspension travel it had, hitting the wheel arches in the process. This isn’t normal for a suspension because it’s not supposed to go so much in that direction in the way it did.
Ultimately, the video reveals that nothing too dramatic happens when you hit a speed bump, whether at high speeds or under immediate braking. That’s especially true if it doesn’t happen to you a lot. Your car can bottom out, sure, but the suspension isn’t going to fall off completely.
Final Thoughts
The more you drive recklessly on the road and hit these speed bumps with abandon, the cumulative effects on the suspension, steering, exhaust, and even the tires will one day come back and bite you in the ass. Suspension damage is real if you’re not careful about speed bumps. You might even knock off your exhaust system or blow a tire if you’re not careful. Worst of all, if you puncture your car’s hydraulics and fluid leaks out, nothing’s going to protect you from absorbing the impact of these speed bump encounters.
The good news is that if you’re careful on the road, you shouldn’t have to worry about anything. Oh, and potholes are a lot worse than speed bumps, at least based on the previous episode of this Warped Perception series.