Chassis Modifications for Brake Roughness Improvement

In an effort to reduce the number of brake roughness warranty claims, changes to the vehicle's front suspension were proposed by the Chassis Design Engineering Team. A series of vehicle evaluations were conducted by the Vehicle Engineering Team, and it was determined that the proposed part changes would improve brake roughness response in the vehicle by 0.5 Vehicle Evaluation Rating (VER) points, which would provide a significant improvement in the vehicle's brake roughness response, perceivable by the typical customer. There was also, however, a significant degradation in the impact harshness response in the vehicle of about 0.5 VERs, and a degradation in the steering/handling response of the vehicle. Further development work resulted in a package which regained the loss in impact harshness and steering and handling, while retaining the brake roughness improvement. The final changes were found to be acceptable for all vehicle attributes, and provided more improvement in the brake roughness response.