I saw an old Top Gear episode, and I think it was Jeremy who said something along the lines of
The torque steer is terrible
What is torque steer though?
Is it a bad thing?
Why does it happen?
Why do some cars have worse torque steer than others? They were testing a Ford Fiesta ST...
Torque steer is where a front wheel drive car pulls to the left or right under hard acceleration. This is relatively common in older front wheel drive cars, but as it is negligible in low powered cars it was not an issue. The problem comes when you have a high powered engine and all of a sudden torque steer can be rather spectacular.
It is caused by one half shaft being shorter, and at a different angle to the other, on a transverse-engined car. The fix is to ensure the half shafts are identical. See these two pictures from aa1car.com.
Torque steer is a piece of automotive lingo that gets thrown around a lot, particularly with petrolheads who are discussing the many intricacies of car performance.
Like many other car terms, torque steer is ultimately a negativity with regards to performance, similar to that of
understeer or oversteer. It can potentially lead to the driver losing control, so it is vital to understand what torque steer is and whether you can do anything to reduce the chances of it while behind the wheel.
