Well after 6 years I 'm pretty much accustomed to it so no big complaint. The cars I have previously owned were my benchmarks and the S2000 really doesn't compare that well. A Datsun 1600 two seater and a Triumph TR4a . Both of these cars were miles ahead in steering feel. My dads VW Beatle was also perfect in this respect.I also have fond memories of a Corvair Monza Spyder convertable and how well it handled. EPS should have been omitted from this car and since I'm not an engineer, I don't want to be fooling around with suspension geometry in a quest to duplicate the past. Other than this complaint, The S2000 is probably the best car I have ever owned.

 

Don't get so defensive of your S fellers, they're great, just not perfect.

I absolutely love mine. I love the beautiful gear box, I love it's brilliant turn in, it's high grip, the balanced handling, & that beautiful engine. The thing is a joy, but the steering feel is non existent. It is probably this, in a car with high grip, & sudden breakaway, that leads to so many ending their life by disappearing backwards into the scenery. I am not talking power slides around slow corners, I'm talking from about 70 MPH up.

I raced back in the day when you could still buy a current F1, & go race it. Where you could get away with feeling with your backside that the tail was going for a slide in the sports or sedan cars of the day, it doesn't work with really quick stuff. This is where steering feedback comes in.

A slight change in the feel of the pressure of the wheel will tell you the front or rear is loosing adhesion. If you didn't feel this, & apply a little correction it was all too late, the car is gone. Across the top of the mountain at Bathurst you would loose the front, & the rear 3 or 4 times each, correcting as you went. At no time would you actually get to opposite lock to make the correction. If you did, it was just before the crash. No these corrections were just a couple of degrees of turn of the wheels.

Some really good natural drivers don't even realise how they know what the car is going to do before it does it, but it's steering feed back they are using.

With my old Triumphs I can slide around corners, tail out, lots of opposite lock on, waving to the pretty girl on the side of the road. Try that with my S, & the pretty girl will be helping me out of my crashed S.

Yes for sure the S will be going 25% quicker than my Triumph, but it will not allow me to take liberties as it does so. It will not warn me with that light feel in the steering, that I am getting close to loosing it. If I am not concentrating, IT WILL BITE ME, & guess what, I'll deserve it.

So please don't get sensitive about your lovely car. Love it & respect it for the high performance thing it is, but do concentrate when driving it, it is not the most forgiving thing on the road, & the lack of steering feel is one of the reasons it's not.

 

 

i think we can all agree that S2K's steering feel is not the best and in the past there were driver's cars with better steering feel.
today i think you will need to search really hard to find those.

i know that original Miata felt really good. but perhaps narrow tires helped in this regard.
i know that current MX-5 is much worse. still not bad thought.
i know that my Mondeo steering feels quite communicative. i can feel when front tyres start to loose the grip.

back to the S - you can't talk generally about it as there are a lot of parameter that affect the feel.
just to name some:
- tyres size
- tyres model
- tyres pressure
- alingment settings
- suspension components
- suspension setup (if it's tunable)

and i'm sure there are more.

so with such a lot of variables - every car will feel different.

i can tell that with my current setup i'm getting quite a lot of comminication via the steering wheel.
i would say it's quite close to the current MX-5.

so things are not that bad as we all have been told for years....

 

I came from a Civic to the S... I feel like I own a Ferrari.

 

You've got that absolutely wrong Thateguhate.

I raced a few Ferraris, & none of them handled any where as well as my S

 

Nofearofdanger has got this spot on. Sorry chaps but drove an S2000 for two hours yesterday after last driving one 10 years ago and vaguely remembering I wasn't completely happy. Outside of the few degrees either side of straight ahead I have to say the steering feel (by which I mean communication through the steering wheel of what is happening at the front wheels with grip and cornering stresses) was very poor.

Don't get me wrong, the drive train in the S2K is a peach with an engine and gearbox to die for, but the lack of steering feel is unforgiveable. The DC2 Integra Type-R which is front wheel drive has the S2K licked on steering feel, so Honda can and have done much better on this front. In fact my boss' Audi A5 3.0 TDI 4wd coupe has more steering feel than the S2K which only goes to show how badly Honda misstepped with the S2K's helm.

 

While the s2k does not have any feedback, I feel the quick & responsive steering makes up for it. IE I'd rather have fast steering over a slow steering car with feedback. I dont have an issue knowing what the car is doing without the feedback. But having it would definitely be an added bonus.

 

Electric power steering systems generally have poor feel compared to hydraulic, and the S2K was a relatively early electric system

 

I love the feel of the steering in my 2000. I drove my friends 2002 and I didn't like it as much, AP1v2 steering felt too light. AP1v1 is just right to me.