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This paper focused on pedal feeling studies at most often longitudinal decelerations for the normal daily usage of customers. Such decelerations were defined in vehicle equipped with sensors in a specific itinerary near Resende/Penedo city (southeastern Brazil) with several clients using the same vehicles. Through the decelerations acquired, one could correlate, objectively and subjectively, the pedal effort and travel that delight the customers, reaching the so called ideal pedal feeling. The mapping provides the needed input data to develop, or adapt, a vehicle to the best condition expected by consumers.

Through the new Automotive Regulation recently deployed by ANFAVEA, vehicles selled in Brazil will have strong incentives to reduce fuel consumption. OEMs are being pushed to develop alternatives to achieve lower levels of fuel consumption either by new engines or reduce overall weight for the vehicles. Reducing the weight is being the logical and first choice by automakers, since it represents a cost reduction as well. The problem lies on the crash resistance (Latin NCAP) that forces the vehicle to have reinforcements, especially in the near future for the lateral crash standard, still to be deployed in the market. Thus, in the opposite direction, there is a natural tendency to increase sprung mass. In this way, the solution is to reduce non-sprung masses. The non-sprung parts likely to be reduced are normally components that impact the customer feeling the least, for example: dampers, stabilizer bars, tires, wheels, etc.