Rear spoilers can harness any downforce, thus rendering it useless except for eye-candy purposes.

MODIFYING one’s ride is the “in” thing right now, as exemplified by the sale of body kits and side skirts that continue to hit record heights. Car spoilers fall into this same category and while, aesthetically, they add depth to a car’s look, do they really boost a car’s performance and handling?

It’s a commonly held theory that a car spoiler mounted on the car’s rear will help to jack up that vehicle’s handling and performance. Why is that so? Well, it boils down to performance racing circuits like Formula One and NASCAR where we see all these cars that have been fitted with auto spoilers and we drool over the grip and traction their tyres seem to have on the track.

Automatically, we credit that to be down to their car spoilers. And we think that by retrofitting them onto our own cars, we can somehow achieve those same levels of skill and precision. Does that sound too good to be true? Well, this only applies if you happen to be driving supercharged cars like a Bugatti or a Dodge Viper.

For the rest of us who have to be content with a Mitsubishi Lancer, Honda City or Toyota Vios, auto spoilers simply aren’t going to pump up the car’s performance. Your average family saloon won’t be traveling fast enough that its rear spoilers can harness any downforce thus rendering it useless except for eye-candy purposes.

As for auto spoilers making cars more fuel efficient, there doesn’t appear to be any hard facts available that can justify that claim.

One assumes that car spoilers add to the aero dynamism of a car but that’s just a marketing claim and in fact many car experts out there feel that they are yet another product on the market that’s aggressively sold to consumers when in fact it’s something they don’t need and serves little function.

All in all, auto spoilers might be worth taking a look at if most of the time you spend driving is on the highway. But the fact remains that their benefits are negligible and may even affect your car’s fuel efficiency in a negative way.