About a decade ago, I was following the news reports of crashes around Vancouver over the winter, and noticed that more than half of the fatal accidents were Honda Civics in single-vehicle accidents. Often with multiple fatalities.
Parents are unintentionally killing their children with Hondas!
How is that? They give the kids a hand-me-down car that is 10 to 15 years old. It has had oil changes, brake changes, and has decent tires. What it doesn’t have is good shocks. This is not a design issue. It is a maintenance issue.
When a small, light FWD is unladen, the rear springs are stiff enough that you won’t really notice worn out rear shocks. However, when you throw five teenagers into an old compact car (with three of them in the back seat) the dynamics change, and you have a very dangerous situation.
When the new driver drives too fast, and comes upon a corner, what do they do?
They turn the wheel and back-off on the gas. Everyone with any amount of high-speed driving experience knows that when you do that with a FWD it will tend to over-steer. How much it over-steers depends on how much weight is in the back. And when it starts to skid and you correct it, it will spin the other direction.
With good shocks on the car, this maneuver can be handled by the suspension safely. But with worn-out rear shocks, the rocking from one side to the other leads to a flipped car, at high speed, sliding into whichever light-standard / sign post / power-pole / tree is in its path. And if it hits roof-first, with five kids inside, you will have multiple fatalities.
PARENTS: Before giving your teenager that old Civic / Corolla / Golf / Accent / Rio-5 / Protege / etc. have the rear shocks replaced. (Better yet, all 4 shocks or struts replaced). Preferably with a performance shock, like the KYB gas-adjust or similar. It could save their life, and that of their friends!