Removing rear 'spoiler'

audifan said:
Remember the Delorean also came with a cigar lighter and electric windows. A2 far more practical and useable.
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and that's it - I think the aluminium body, turning circle, fuel economy, sturdiness of the switches and controls, front view, comfort of the seats, nippiness, quirky bonnet, look of the front panel, the Webasto, rear leg room, hidden boot floor are all GREAT!!!

but the rear view window (for parking not gazing at the driver behind me) and not being able to open the windows are not great....
 
A reverse camera maybe? I for one never use the rear window to reverse on any car, thats what mirrors are for.

Ian
 
@Billy Smalls you seem to be getting a hard time for this. At the end of the day, its your car and it would be boring if we kept them all the same, but here's a photo of one with the spoiler removed. I think it looks quite ugly.

DSCF7974_zps33d79e74.jpg
 
it's there to give stability at speed and increase fuel efficiency. It's not just a toy.

Remember this is the era where the TT was retrofitted with ESP after a bunch of high-speed crashes on teh Autobahn, and that's also why it got the little spoiler. It's also why the 1.2 and FSI spoilers are larger and higher, to deal with the higher speeds possible (yes, seriously).
 
On a more positive note, how about a reversing camera/screen/mirror ?




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Well It really surprises me that Billy Smalls has this kind of a problem. From the first moment I sat in the car I never noticed the wing in the rear view mirror unles somebody asked me. Then it is like „Yes, it is there but I never look through this part of the window“. When I am driving I am always looking throught the upper part of the window because once there is reason to look through the bottom part of the window someone already crashed into you or really trying to and you can't do anything about it anyways... When parking I am looking on the bonnet of the car behind and it is through the bottom part anyways. Also even when you remove whe wing there will be still black stripe where the wing is/was and the difference will be complete zero, because standard spoiler doesn't overlap the stripe. Aerodynamic effects are other topic ;)
 
I must say I fail to understand what the issue is either, there’s plenty of rearward visibility for me too. The only time I find there’s a problem as such, is because the lower half of the window is dirty from motorway grime and I need to reverse up to something that’s low down - but last time this was the case I took this to mean that Audrey needed a good wash, and it certainly doesn’t get clogged up quickly.
 
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Billy Smalls said:
Hi - I want to improve the terrible rear view and thought about taking the 'spoiler' off, to at least gain a bit more. The spoiler stops rain cleaning the lower third of the glass....I know, spoiler's there to improve economy but this is hardly a Ferrari

Is it glued on? mild heatgun and a scraper?
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Just out of interest, I once had a Corrado VR6 with the rear spoiler that automatically raised at about 45mph (I think, can’t remember now). It packed up on me, turned out only to be the relay so it was an easy fix but it was astonishing how important the spoiler was to the handling. Without it the handling even at 50 mph was all over the place and it was quite unstable at speed.
 
RichardofYorks said:
Just out of interest, I once had a Corrado VR6 with the rear spoiler that automatically raised at about 45mph (I think, can’t remember now). It packed up on me, turned out only to be the relay so it was an easy fix but it was astonishing how important the spoiler was to the handling. Without it the handling even at 50 mph was all over the place and it was quite unstable at speed.
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Interestingly in the rado this was based on market. In the German market the rado spoiler went up at 73mph. In the uk market it was 45/56mph dependant on year and the US it was always 45mph. The reason is due to the speed limits in each country. As aero from it does nothing below 80mph


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I always thought that the idea of the spoiler was two fold:

1. Short cars are inherently unaerodynamic and the spoiler extends the top airflow to emulate a longer car.

2. Short cars are inherently less stable at high speed so, again, the spoiler extends the car.

Happy to be contradicted!

A couple of other observations.

A Smart ForTwo is dead easy to reverse park because you are very close to a vertical rear window. It is also very short and therefore unstable and needed ESP in order to not crash!

Every car I've owned with a sloping back window distorts the ability of the driver to know where the exact back end of the car is. So, not very unique to the A2. Although, since Tom (Timmus) fitted the colour DIS with its dipping left mirror feature, I have found reverse parking the A2 much less of a chore.

I agree with the comment that if the spoiler was removed, there would still be a seam which would be a blind spot and in the rain on the motorway no rear visibility at all!
 
Always found the A-pilar more in the way than the rear spoiler. And parking aid for the A2 is in my opinion pointless considering how small the car is; more likely that other cars bump into me than A2 does, so better with a towhitch to protect the bumper.
 
Providence said:
I always thought that the idea of the spoiler was two fold:

1. Short cars are inherently unaerodynamic and the spoiler extends the top airflow to emulate a longer car.

2. Short cars are inherently less stable at high speed so, again, the spoiler extends the car.
...
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It really depends on the overall aerodynamics of the specific car. But in overall you just want to be less as wing shaped as possible. So you need edge where you break the airflow away from the body to avoid too much lift force. Thats the main problem original TT had. Interestingly A6 C5 have simillarrear body shape and doesn't suffer with this effect (at least that much)...
 
there is actually a nice null point in the middle of the spoiler where snow won't be removed. The window itself under the spoiler will stay relatively clear, but the lights, plate and the rest will get covered completely if there's enough fluffy snow around.

The ridges on the lights also help with the aero by guiding the airflow. I don't remember the end effect but it was actually really hard to get the lights covered with snow - which I believe was the point. Few years ago I drove Hyvinkää to Hausjärvi in 10cm of fresh at speed and got a couple of pics. Might try to dig them out.....
 
Edwrai said:
Interestingly in the rado this was based on market. In the German market the rado spoiler went up at 73mph. In the uk market it was 45/56mph dependant on year and the US it was always 45mph. The reason is due to the speed limits in each country. As aero from it does nothing below 80mph


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As I recall it was on a track day that I really noticed the handling difference. I think someone there was able to help get it permanently raised until I could get the relay fixed. Seem to recall there’s a switch somewhere for use when valeting etc
 
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