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I think what frank is saying is that for most cars the amount of lift generated is MINIMAL in its impact on the stability of cars. Now where I do disagree with frank is that this is universal. I have driven cars that got "light" in high winds. Not dangerous but I could SEE conditions existing where that WOULD become dangerous.
Think bridge high winds a gust of cross wind and as you hit the gust you hit a small slick of oil. the lift being JUST enough to break traction on that slick and your car turns sideways even just a few degrees. If your not on your toes this is going to get VERY ugly. ie you treat it like a spin and turn INTO it slightly so when those tires regrip they are at least somewhat pointed in the right direction :-)
Frank. have you ever used ONE FINGER to unstick a car in the snow? I have. get the wheels spinning on a level surface icy with snow and on a smaller car you can take one finger and PUSH the front or rear of that car (FWD or RWD dictates) I am not talkin mad spinning. 5mph just SPINNING on ice without moving the car ie stuck.
you can easily "push" that car sideways even with one finger under the right conditions.
so it really would not take much lift under the right conditions with the wrong car to cause some serious trouble.
NOW I do agree with frank that in all likelihood this is very unlikely to be an issue on modern cars unless the manufacturer was a moron :-)
so while no raw data I do have real actual observed data and thats enough for me. Reality trumps "existence of data" every time :-)
Does not appear to be a problem with my metro thankfully. I thought my metro was BAD in wind as it was all over the road (compared to normally) I was getting shoved around pretty good. but the front end never got light or loose or anything it was just physical shoving around.
then I got to the toll booth and had to open the door (window broken) and the 50-60mph gusts of wind nearly tore the damned door out of my hand!! I did not realize the wind was quite so high.
I was impressed with how well it handles in the wind once I realized what kind of wind I was dealing with and its a 94.
The winds were strong enough and CROSS WISE as well to tear down billboards :-)
now where I WOULD worry about aero lift is if you start to AERO MOD your car. There is not much we can do about it without wind tunnels and massive computer systems and engineers but it does mean BE ALERT and watch and feel for the warning signs of a potential problem.
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