Cars can quickly understeer after an engine power upgrade in Forza Horizon 5. When a vehicle is in an understeer situation, the car will not follow the intended turning radius relative to your steering angle. In simpler terms, understeer is when you try to turn the wheel, but your car turns farther away from the corner instead.
We say understeer is a common post-engine upgrade behavior because less experienced drivers often fail to realize their car is pushing speeds much higher than when it was stock. Many racing game players will blame poor suspension settings when their poor driving technique is causing the understeer problem in the first place.
Why Do Cars Understeer?
Understeer can result from several factors. If we disregard tuning setups and focus on driving technique instead, then understeer tends to happen when going too fast around a corner. Slow down enough to get the front of the car pointed towards the inside of the turn with the right speed, and only then should you hit the throttle to exit the corner.
However, if you slow down too much to get the car’s nose to point inward towards the corner, or the car “pushes” out of the corner when getting on the gas, there might be a problem with the car’s suspension setup.
Different types of understeer
There are three different sections where an understeer situation can arise. These are:
- Corner Entry Understeer
- Mid-corner Understeer
- Corner Exit Understeer
Corner entry understeer refers to the inability of the car to turn into the middle of the corner. This might be caused by coming into the corner too hot and not slowing down properly before turning.
However, if you find you are slowing your car too much compared to your competitors, then your car probably needs a suspension setup to get the car to “rotate” into the turn at corner entry.
Mid-corner Understeer is a car’s inability to hold a consistent line in the middle of a turn. Cars are easier to turn when they are going at a slower rate of speed because the tires are given less load for accelerating and braking and more for turning.
Also, with the wheel turned at the same angle, a car going at 30MPH will make a larger turn radius than a car going at 10MPH.
With that in mind, mid-corner understeer indicates an improper front to rear suspension setting that can easily be changed in-game.
Lastly, Corner Exit Understeer refers to a car’s excessive “straightening-out” behavior during the corner exit. Do not get us wrong, though, because you want to understeer a little bit on the corner exit because you want to go as straight as possible to lay down all your car’s power to the ground. However, if your car has improperly tuned suspension settings, it will understeer too much and “push” itself out of line and go wide, forcing you to slow down and re-straighten the car.
FR or rear-wheel-drive cars tend to oversteer the most, and FF cars tend to understeer the most. Cars with the AWD layout tend to understeer as well.
How to Fix Understeer in Forza Horizon 4
Now that you know the different types of understeer situations on the different turn sections, here are some tuning setup guidelines to help you correct or fix your understeer problem in Forza Horizon 5.
Note: You need to have full-suspension adjustability to change these settings. Upgrade your car’s suspension to “Race” to unlock most, if not all, of these settings.
- Corner Entry Understeer
- Increase Front-Camber
- Increase Toe-out
- Reduce Anti-roll Bar Stiffness
- Increase Front Shock Stiffness
- Reduce Front Ride Height
- Mid-Corner Understeer
- Increase Front Anti-roll Bar Stiffness
- Increase Front Spring Stiffness
- Corner Exit Understeer
- Increase Rear Anti-roll bar Stiffness
- Stiffen Rear Spring
- Stiffen Rebound
- Raise Rear Ride Height
Adjust each parameter according to the type of understeer your car is experiencing. We advise you to change each parameter in small increments and then go for a test run after each change.
Worse Than Oversteer
Understeer is rarely a good thing. Sure, understeer situations give drivers a more controlled and safer feeling when driving a car, but an understeering car will be slower than an oversteering car.
An understeering car can not clear a turn at speed because it will not turn towards the direction the driver wants it to go. A car that tends to oversteer more can be erratic and wild, but it can rotate and point its nose towards the direction it wants to go to by using the throttle.
With that in mind, change your suspension settings using these guidelines to reduce understeer and instantly set faster lap times in Forza Horizon 5!
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