Hello
I own a 16v corado and about a year ago I mounted a kurb at sufficient speed and angle to bend the steering arm on the passenger side of the car.
SInce I have had this replaced I experience a vibratiion through the steering wheel at 70 mph, steadies itself out towards 80mph. If i let go of the steering wheel (at any speed, obviously on a deserted road) the steering wheel noticeably moves from left to right. (only fractionally, it moves maybe 1mm in each direction. (I have had it balanced but to no avail)
The car responds normally under braking and has passsed 2 mot's since the accident. I have had it tracked at kwik fit a couple of times, but theproblem still remains. Should i get it tracked properly, i have read on this newsgroup about pit mounted tracking that do all the camber etc, if so where can you get this sort of tracking done?
Or could it be a suspension component, if so, any suggestions on which component it could be?
I should also mention that there does not appear to be any irregualar tyre wear.
Thanks in advance
Ross
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Tracking and wheel balancing
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Thanks Andy.
However as I said in the post. I have tried both without success. Is alignment different to tracking?
Ross
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Ross
What happened to the road wheel? - and what did you do with it?
Ian
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Ian
Am not sure if I understand what you mean. when ou say 'what happend to the road wheel' So I apologise if the following is not relevant.
What happend in the accident was really silly on my part. Pulled into a retail park, car park. that was deserted as it was late at night. instead of following the indicated path around the bays to where i wanted to park i decided to cut across the empty bays. saw the lampost didnt see the sapling tree which came complete with protective concrete curbing. So I hit the curb at full lock with the passenger side wheel at about 5-10mph.
So the other wheel remained on the ground.
I hope this is the info that you where after
Cheer
Ross
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Ross
Sorry, but I am asking what happened to the nearside road wheel - the one attached to the damaged suspension arm. Was the wheel itself damaged? Did you replace it, even though it looked undamaged? It might be slightly bent.
Rgds
Ian
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Ross,
Ian is on the right track. It is possible, and a frequent mistake they make, for the tyre people to balance a wheel that has a physical flat spot which will only show when actually on the road.
David
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Thanks for the advice everyone.
Indeed I have left the original wheel on the car. Is there any way that I can check to see if the wheel is flat spotted. Or is it a case of getting a new wheel.
I am unsure where to get a new wheel from as I don't think it's a standard VW one. any ideas? can i find out who o made via serial number etc?
Cheers
Ross
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I've managed to do the same thing on a MK2 Golf GTI. You'll need to go and get it laser aligned at a specialist place me thinks! Something to do with the way that VW set the suspension up....
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Why not swap the wheels back to front and see if anyhting changes
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Sounds like a good idea. Would i need to get the wheels re balanced?
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Bung the spare on see what happens.
No need to balance if the spare is already balanced.
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Isn't the spare a spacesaver ?
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Check the suspension and steering over. Possible culprits to check are the top-mounts, ball-joints, and the steering rack itself. If the top mounts are gone replace them with mk.3 VR6 mounts and bearings. If all is ok get the wheels balanced and have a full four wheel alignment carried out on the car where they will check and reset camber, caster, and toe as required. Having this carried out will also let you know whether the car is actualy striaght.
Ben
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It may be a damaged tyre on a good wheel?
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Ross,dear me this sounds far too time consuming. Take the car to a specialist with 4 wheel tracking. See an earlier thread, which should give you one or two URL's. This sort of situation could have one faffing about for a month of sundays. Sorry I haven't been much help. Mike
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You could swap the front wheels to the back and try it. However the front and back tyres wear slightly differently sometimes and it can lead to problems. Try it anyway to see if all smoothes out.
Any decent tyre fitter can remove your tyre and rotate the bare wheel slowly on their balancer - it may be possible to see if the wheel is buckled this way.
Also check the new steering arm is properly fixed to the rack at its inboard end. If there is any descernable play pull back the gaiter and see if you can tighten up the joint.
It may be that the socket on the end of the rack had some wear where the old arm fitted and the new arm does not replicate this and so a tiny amount of play is introduced. If so, nothing you can do short of replacing the complete steering rack.
I once did a similar thing to this on a rally car and found that the rack itself was bent - it was almost imperceptible but enough to upset the steering. To check this you would need to dissassemble the steering rack assy from the car and dismantle it. Roll the rack on a sheet of glass, or have an engineering shop check it with a DTI.
BTW - what i refer to as the rack is the big chunky bar that runs across the car with the track rod connected to each end.
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I had this problem on my saab 9000. After having the tracking checked, two new front tyres etc to no avail I took to a saab specialist who diagnosed a brake pad sticking in its slider causing the disc to overheat, fixed it in no time
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Thanks folks.
I changed my wheels back to front which seems to have cured the problem.
(or at least shifted it to another part of the car!!) Need to find out where to get a new alloy from, dont think it's a VW one. so am not exactly relishing the task!
Thanks again
Ross
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