As many of you know, I have been experiencing some handling problems with my R lately. The bodyshop that fixed my car after my accident told me that it wouldn't align, blah blah, I need a new LCA, etc. However, my home body shop got the car to align fine, but the handling problems are still there, although less serious than before the alignment.

The car still likes to pull to the left, although only sometimes. sometimes it is under acceleration, sometimes under lift, sometimes under braking. I also have a big squeak coming from my left front...this could be my brakes, or as Warren mentioned, could be the ATE squeaking in the MC. And at high speeds, the car doesn't wander anymore, but I can still feel the tires squirming, and the steering wheel makes small movements from side to side. And in turns, I don't have the same confidence I used to, I'm just not sensing the bite that the car used to have while the wheel was turned.

One point of note...before the accident I was rolling on OEM 195/55/15 RE010s. Now I rotate between 205/50/15 Dunlop SP5000 all-season and 205/50/15 Falken Azenis. What are the chances that any of these tires are defective? My mechanic at my home dealership said that almost 40% of the tires he sees are defective in some way. I have pretty much ruled out a bent LCA as the cause of these problems since the car aligned OK, but anything is possible. Warren suggested a bent tie rod. Any other possibilities?

 

Seems that something may be loose? If the tires are new and opnly been on that car then I would suspect suspension....

BUT!!!

After I rotated the stock tires on my Civic, it pulled hard to the left.. New tires solved that... (they had 35K miles on them.)

 

Why don't you slap on some "good" tires from a friend (George? etc...) and see if you still have any problems with the alignment. Rule out anything that you don't need to worry about. If it's not the tires, then your car's structure is probably still problematic and maybe you have a frame damage. <shrug>

 

shoot man! i hope this isn't the case for you ross...peeps always talk about how *your car will never drive the same after an accident* ish that i hope you can figure this out..good luck

 

well ****, I knew there was frame damage. The shop was supposed to fix that, but I guess I don't know for sure if they did or not. Maybe they just took the $$ and thought I wouldn't notice.

Sean, about the tires, I do have a "good" set - the Falkens. When I get back to DC I will slap them on again and see how the car feels. That would suck if I had somehow gotten 2 sets of "bad" tires.

 

Pops, what pressures were you using? Provide F/R if possible.

 

Ross, what I meant by a "good" set was to put some tires that you know for sure handle straight (sounds funny). As in, George (or others) knows that his tires on his car at this moment handle straight... borrow his and see if your car handles straight. Don't put new Azenis tires... you never know if new tires will drive straight or not (it sometimes takes time to "break 'em" in). $hit, sorry, not really making sense with my language at this hour... hope you kinda get what I'm saying.

 

Sean, I get what you're saying, no worries.

Anyone else have any ideas?

 

its a long shot but you can check the camber of the tires...seems that after my accident my rear wheels had a negative camber and it had many of the same performance problems you had

 

Ross,

I would try and make sure the tires are cool first! Sounds like a good idea to me.

Dayum....but IF there's still body damage I wouldn't want to go out and spend a grip of money on an LCA and then find this out later!

Good luck though!


[Modified by ITRbroham, 10:27 PM 3/22/2002]

 

I thought maybe that was it too...but everything showed up good on the alignment rack, including camber.

 

if the problem is intermitant it is prolly not tires...
if your tires were defective, i.e. radial pull, it would happen all the time...
that is easy to check for though... switch the left and right wheels/tires, if you have a radial pull problem the pull will change directions, or go away

if that is the problem, the store you purchased them from will replace at least the bad one...

 

Bridgestone RE-010's are directional, you can't just change switch left and right wheel/tire combo.

 

yes you can
the directional tread helps to improve wet traction
that is the only way to check for a radial pull
it will not harm the tires in any way, and when you are done, you just put them back where they go

anyway, he now has sp5000, and azenis which are both asymetrical, not directional



[Modified by Phoenix GSR, 3:46 PM 3/23/2002]

 

Ross is driving on 3 wheels and a donut

geez

 

well, I just got back from diddling around with tire pressures. Results are mixed...jacking up the pressures fixed the problems the car had with turning in and made it feel as nimble as it did before the crash...but it also exacerbated the car's tendency to go left. So WTF do I do now? My fronts are at 40 and rears are 36, as per George's advice that the SPs need to be quite a bit higher than stock in order to cure tire squirm.

 

Ross, how old/new are the sp500? when i first got my sp900 the car pulled hard..don't remember which direction..but it went away after the tires were broken in. just a thought..you are prob. way past this, but thought i should mention my experience.

 

I have put quite a few miles on them. I drove down to VIR on them, and from DC to CT on them as well. the same thing happens on my Azenis.

 

as mentioned earlier, try swapping the fronts left/right and see if the pull happens in the other direction. if it pulls in the opposite direction, tires are the problem. if not, keep looking. at least you will have eliminated one suspected cause if the car still pulls in the same direction.

 

Hi Ross,

Move the tires around and see what happens. Even if you just move them front to back. I had the experience of a replacement tire, same brand and size, but a different production batch cause a severe pull. I solved the problem by moving it to the rear and moving the rear to the front. Problem solved.

Now a couple questions:

How much damage was done to car in the accident?

When the body shop aligned the car was it a full four wheel alignment and did they give you the specs to which it was aligned? Does the steering wheel point straight ahead?

Were the sway bars bent, which could cause pre-load to the suspension and all sorts of problems?

If any of the rubber suspension bushings were damaged, that could cause weird handling problems. You could align properly and still have corner weights way off, something to consider checking if nothing else works.

Good luck. btw it is possible to make your car better than ever with the proper shop working on it. You might want to consider a race car shop who has scales and accurate alignment equipment. Do you know anyone who can string the car to check alignment?

John

 

About 9K worth of damage to the car (concentrated in the right rear).

The body shop didn't align the car, they claimed they couldn't align it due to bent suspension parts. My guy at my home dealer aligned it, he would never lie or deceive me about anything, trust me on this one.

Don't know about the sway bars, or the bushings. The body shop never mentioned anything but they are proving themselves to know not much about anything. Thanks for all your advice.

 

IF THE CAR WAS HIT IN THE WHEEL IN THE ACCIDENT, THE WHEEL BEARING IS PROBABLY SHOT; IT WOULD SQUEEL...AND THE ALLIGNMENT COULD BE HALF-ASSED, MOST PLACES ARE ****** ABOUT ALLIGNING LOWERED CARS.