When you have decided to buy a new car to replace your older one, you have to think of several considerations. First, you have to determine the amount you’d like to spend on your vehicle, and secondly, you would have to think about the kind of make and model you want, whether you would like a sedan, coupe, sports car, hatchback, SUV, MPV, and so on. But once you start shopping around, you will most likely come across a few specifications that may sound foreign if you are not sure what they mean. Understanding these terms can help you on your car-buying quest, and when you know what specs to look for, you should be able to make a better decision. Here’s what you need to know about car specifications when buying a vehicle today.
- Torque and horsepower
You may have already heard of these terms, but what exactly do they mean? Horsepower refers to the power produced by the car’s engine once it converts fuel and air to energy. Meanwhile, torque is the force exerted by the engine so the vehicle can pull forward.
- Drivetrain
The drivetrain of the vehicle refers to the wheels driven by the transmission and engine. While you may not be entirely familiar with the term ‘drivetrain,’ you may already know the other terms that refer to the drivetrain, which are FWD or four-wheel drive, RWD, or rear-wheel drive, AWD or all-wheel drive, and 4WD or four-wheel drive.
Smaller vehicles will often come as FWD vehicles which align with their compact dimension. But high-performance vehicles and vehicles with larger bodies use the rear-wheel-drive for enhanced stability and handling. Crossover vehicles often have all-wheel-drive layouts. Both four-wheel drive and all-wheel drive layouts allow the vehicles to drive well on different surfaces since the torque and power are transferred to all four wheels, thus improving the wheels’ grip.
- Transmission
As new and used car dealers like Youngautomotive.com confirm, a vehicle’s transmission is the component responsible for distributing the power of the engine and the torque to the wheels so that the vehicle can move. These days, you can choose from various transmission types, including manual or automatic, automated manual, DCT or dual-clutch transmission, and CVT or continuously variable transmission.
With a manual transmission, you can have complete control of the changing of the car’s gears, while automatic transmission gives you more convenience and is more relaxed since you don’t have to deal with shifting the gears and clutch. With an automated manual transmission, you have almost the same layout as the manual transmission, but with the addition of a computer along with electronic controls so you can easily engage or disengage the vehicle’s clutch and control the gear shift.
The dual-clutch transmission acts like the manual transmission but with two clutches along with an electronic or mechanical actuation, allowing you to disengage the car’s clutch and go through the gears. The continuously variable transmission works similarly to the automatic transmission, although it provides a smoother drive because you don’t have to change the gears to decrease or increase your speed.
- Dimension
The dimension is the length and width of the body, along with the height. But the dimension also includes the ground clearance, the wheelbase, and capacity of the trunk, and the car’s maximum capacity for cargo.