Best cars for Davis-area roads?

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

My car is approaching end-of-life, and I'm wondering if there's a car made that actually feels comfortable to drive on the roads around here. I'm getting a -very- harsh ride on the roads in and out of Davis and its a little embarassing when picking somebody up to visit. Trying to avoid that with the next car.

The OB-Davis content: We all drive on the same unevenly patched roads in and out of Davis, so when somebody says they can drive Mass Ave or Boston Ave and not feel a thing, that's a strong recommendation.

Comments

[m00n.livejournal.com]

When it comes to car suspension, ride comfort and safety/handling are pretty much mutually exclusive. One achieves comfort on bumps primarily by equipping cars with softer shock absorbers and springs. The softer the spring, the longer (in milliseconds) it takes the wheel to return to full contact with the road after it has gone over a bump. The softer the shock, the more the car will roll when cornering. Cars that roll a lot when cornering will not be able to switch as rapidly from a hard turn in one direction to a hard turn in the other direction (e.g. when you have to swerve hard to avoid something on the road, and then have to swerve again to avoid going *off* the road).

Additionally, one thing that can make an expensive car (like a BMW or a Porsche) *feel* more expensive than a cheap car (like a Hyundai or Toyota) is how many things in the passenger compartment are held together with plastic clips instead of steel screws. This was probably the most annoying difference between my Dodge Neon and my Dad's BMW 540. When both cars were exactly the same age (about 5 years old with about 65,000 miles) my car was full of rattles and his still pretty much sounded like it did when it was brand new. I think that this, more than anything else, makes the biggest different to how "smooth" the ride feels.