OOSC, Part II, Item 9. Suspensions - Torque and Radius Rods

I am a member and current chair of the Canadian EQAT committee. During our past meetings in late October we had much discussion over the some of the terminology used in the CVSA OOS criterion. Much of the discussion centered on the interchangeability of the terms relating to torque and radius rods. Many manufacturers refer to these items interchangeably and there seems to be no hard and fast rule of thumb in itemizing some of these components. We would like a note added somewhere in the OOSC that states a manufacturer may choose to call a component either a torque rod or a radius rod and that regardless of it's name the part serves a common purpose. We suggest that both torque rods and radius rods be labeled as tracking rods.

There are pictures in the OOS criteria, pictures in the Part B manual and pictures in the pictorial of rods that either run parallel to the vehicle or perpendicular to the vehicle. In some cases the parallel rods are referred to as radius and some are referred to as torque. This causes confusion during training courses for no necessary reason. Looking at different manufacturer info does not clearly rectify the problem as they tend to utilize the two words for either rod.

Due to the criteria being the same for both types of tracking rods (either parallel or perpendicular to the vehicle) it would be better to simply title both rods as tracking rods. This would eliminate the confusion for new officers and the debate between officers as to who is utilizing the correct terminology when, in fact, there is no correct answer.