25 Car Terms You Need To Know

Cars have a language all their own. The terminology used to describe them can often be just as confusing as the engines that power them. You don’t necessarily need to know every auto word in the book to appreciate, and definitely not to operate, a car, but it definitely doesn't hurt. Plus, you want to know what we're talking about on the site, right? Come with us on a journey of knowledge as we break down 25 Car Terms You Need To Know.

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Meaning: British for "convertible," most commonly used by Rolls-Royce. You know, because "convertible" is apparently too common.

Meaning: The lower edge of wherever all the glass on your ride ends is what forms your car's beltline.

Meaning: The A pillars on your car hold either side of the windshield in place. B pillars start where the driver and passenger-side windows end as you look backward along the length of the car. C pillars hold the sides of your car's rear window in place. Well-designed pillars don't create huge blind spots for you as you drive your car. Longer body styles may also have a D pillar. Guess where that one is.

Meaning: If you've ever been braking and felt your tires start to skid, you've experienced lockup. Typically, the front and rear of your car don't achieve this state at the same time.

Meaning: If your car starts to turn in one direction or another whenever you give it some throttle, you're experiencing torque steer. It's a more common phenomenon in FWD cars, and can (but does not always) occur when drive shafts are of unequal length.

Meaning: Abbreviated as lb.-ft., this is how torque is measured. Horsepower is great, but you also want to know what kind of torque numbers you're getting to have a clearer picture of your car's power capabilities. A single pound of force applied to the end of a one-foot lever is one lb.-ft.

Meaning: The distribution of braking power across the front and back of your car.

Meaning: Also more properly referred to as "detonation," this happens when leftover fuel/air mixture in an engine's combustion chamber randomly explodes some time after the spark plug has fired. You should probably take your car to a mechanic if you notice knock, because it greatly increases wear and tear on your engine and can significantly reduce its life.

Meaning: A differential distributes torque in two different directions. A limited-slip differential modulates torque and speed differences between those two directions, so that neither is ever completely stuck without some power getting to it. You'll be thankful for this if you ever end up with just one wheel on a slippery surface.

Meaning: Your brake pads consist of a friction material that's held onto a metal backing plate with special adhesives. Unfortunately, those adhesives also make the friction material less effective when the pads are brand new. That's why you need to bed them in. Bedding in brake pads simply involves using them in normal situations to burn off the remnants of the adhesive. Once you do, you'll notice that your brakes grab a whole lot better than they did when you first put those pads on. Check the brake pad manufacturer's instructions for bedding in your pads.

Meaning: OBD stands for "on-board diagnostics". All modern road cars have some sort of engine computer in place. Wouldn't it be handy if those computers could tell you things about these cars, such as when something goes wrong? Luckily, they can. They speak in code, though, so you'll have to decipher it. In models since 1996, the standard used is OBDII. You can find out more about the specifics of individual codes here.

Meaning: A naturally aspirated engine takes in air to mix with fuel and create combustion on its own. Supercharged engines use some kind of compressor to force additional air into the engine. Turbochargers are technically a specific type of supercharger -- one that uses an exhaust-driven turbine to force more air into the engine. (Strictly speaking, when most people talk about superchargers, they're talking about mechanically-driven compressors.) Using super- and turbochargers on smaller engines allows you to extract greater performance from a smaller (and usually lighter) engine.

Meaning: When you look through a corner, the apex is where you come closest to the inner part of that corner. This is an important thing to identify and work with if you want to improve your cornering efficiency.

Meaning: Blipping the throttle is simply applying a short stab of throttle to whatever it is that you're doing. You do this to temporarily raise your engine revs, usually because you're downshifting by one method or another.

Meaning: If you follow Formula One or other types of formula car racing, you may come across reference to these suspensions -- something you won't see on road cars. These names come from the action that the suspension rods take against the rockers on the car. If they rise from the wheel up toward the rocker, they're called pushrods. If the rocker is placed low and the rod slopes downward from the wheel to the rocker, it's a pullrod -- the car's forward motion pulls the rocker up. Why does all this matter? Aerodynamics. There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems, but pullrod suspensions generally allow for a lower center of gravity in the car. Whether it's a race car or a road car, a lower center of gravity is almost always better. But as with everything, it's a compromise. In this case, pullrod suspensions sometimes make access to rockers more difficult for quick adjustments.

Meaning: Camber refers to front wheel tilt from side-to-side. If your wheels tilt inward, you have negative camber. If they tilt outward, you have positive camber. The proper camber setting for you may not be the same as it is for another driver, because anyone setting camber on your car should take your particular driving style into account -- otherwise, you may encounter uneven tire wear issues.

Caster refers to an imaginary line drawn through the center of both your upper and lower steering pivot points (specifics vary based on your suspension type), and whether it slopes forward or backward when compared to a line that is perfectly perpendicular to the ground. Positive caster helps your front end seem like it wants to stay straight when you're driving in a straight line. It also helps you turn in when cornering. However, if you're driving an old-school car without power steering, it can also make it seem like the car is fighting you when you try to turn the wheel to make steering adjustments. Toe refers to how your wheels are directionally aligned when compared to your car's center line as viewed from above.

Toe settings generally help compensate for how an individual car's suspension bushings are set up, so tires wear more evenly. Like camber and caster, toe adjustments also affect your car's handling -- so only have them adjusted (or attempt adjusting them yourself, if you know what you're doing) with care.

Meaning: In the car world, this term refers to any car's resistance to turning. To figure out an individual car's polar moment, you need to know the individual weight of all components of the car separately -- as well as each component's distance from the car's center of gravity. Then you multiply the weight of each component by the square of its distance from the car's center of gravity.Therefore, larger polar moments of inertia occur when individual components of the car with heavier weight are further away from the car's center of gravity. If you're a racecar engineer, you already know this. If you're a car enthusiast who just wants to drive better on the street, you may not have the patience to do all that math. To explain it very simply: keep heavier car components as close to your car's center of gravity as possible in order to lower your car's polar moment issues. A mid-engined car will have a fairly low polar moment, assuming it isn't towing an elephant.

Meaning: In terms of your car, this term defines how much air resistance your car faces while moving. The lower the drag coefficient number, the less air resistance your car has. This has definite implications for fuel economy. Lower numbers are better for both your bank account and the environment.

Meaning: Downforce helps create better traction by taking advantage of aerodynamics to push your car more firmly onto the road. Better contact between tire rubber and road surface = better traction. One beautiful thing about it is that, by increasing downforce, you're not adding any weight to your car. In super-light cars such as those used in Formula One, downforce is also used to combat the lift generated by their highly sophisticated aerodynamic designs.

Meaning: When cornering, your slip angle is the difference between the direction in which you've steered and the direction in which the tires are actually going. Sensing this difference and learning how to control it makes you more at one with your car -- and will make you a better driver.

Meaning: When cornering, if your rear tires start to lose traction before your front tires do, your car will begin to experience oversteer. The back end will step out, and you'll start to go sideways. Learning to control this is essential both for safety and for learning to drive fast. Purposely oversteering and quickly going sideways through corners is a big part of drifting and rallying.

Meaning: When cornering, if your front tires start to lose traction before your rear tires do, your car will begin to experience understeer. That means the rear end of your car will still be gripping the road, while the front will stubbornly refuse to turn the way you're telling it to with the steering wheel. Don't panic. Instead, lift off the throttle slightly to regain some traction in your front tires and continue your turn.

Meaning: When you crank the steering wheel in the opposite direction of a turn, because you purposely want your car to scoot sideways through the turn to maintain your speed, you're using opposite lock -- also known as countersteering. This is a technique often used in both drifting and rallying.

Meaning: Also called "double clutch downshifting," it's a technique that allows you to downshift more smoothly while saving wear and tear on the syncros in your gearbox (assuming you're driving with a manual transmission; if you're driving auto, this doesn't apply to you). Old-school manual gearboxes didn't have syncros, so this was a technique borne of necessity -- without it, you'd grind gears while downshifting. In modern times, well-executed double clutching simply makes your driving smoother. While you really have to feel it in your car to make the most of this info, the basic steps in order are: clutch in, pop it into neutral, clutch out, blip the throttle, clutch in, downshift, clutch out. We can't stress this enough: don't overthink it. It becomes smoother the more frequently you do it, and you'll know when you've mastered it because it will a) be second nature, and b) you won't feel a thing because it will be so smooth.

Meaning: Short for "heel and toe downshift," this is a method of downshifting in a manual transmission car that a) makes you faster, b) reduces wear on your car's gearbox, and c) can actually make you a safer driver once you master it. Instead of simply braking as you enter a corner, you downshift as well. This keeps you in optimal rev range to get power to your wheels, thus driving more smoothly and accelerating more quickly out of the corner. The basic steps are as follows: brake with your right foot, keeping it closer to the left edge of the pedal so you can simply roll your right foot on your heel over to the throttle in an upcoming step; clutch in with your left foot; keep part of your right foot on the brake as you roll that foot over to also blip the throttle; downshift. Just how much should you blip the throttle? Actual amounts may vary, but around 1,000-2,000 RPM above where you already were should work if you're only shifting down one gear.