Recently picked up a '97 GS with 95K miles on it.

Handling is very tight on good road surfaces, cutting the wheels back and forth, zig-zagging down the road, there isn't any looseness.

When driving on a flat road, there is no sideways drift.

However when I hit broken road surfacers or minor potholes, the car feels like it has very little weight in the front, very light and loose. I feel the steering wheel jerking left and right a bit, occasionally a hard jerk.

The front tires are pretty worn, down to 3/32 and time for a change. But this doesn't feel like it would all be due to tires. The tires hold fine in turns at aggressive speeds on smooth road.

Is this due to the light weight / weight distribution of the Integra or is it symptomatic of a particular problem I should have serviced?

 

i'm sweating my *** off...it's 104 degrees outside...hmmm...i wonder why i'm sweating?

 

Get new tires and drive on better roads.

 

its an integra, not a truck. shouldnt be slamming your car through cracks and crevices and especially not potholes...

this is why the integra is so cheap in the aftermarket ...

 

with cars of that age and milage, you need to start checking for stuff like tie-rods, ball joint, and wheel bearings.

 

hold the steering wheel with 2 hands instead of 1 like a pimp

 

as far as i know.. trucks have steering dampeners whcih soften the steering wheel sensativity and keep the wheel straight. thats why you cna hit potholes and **** and ride comfortably. they also have huge tires.... integras are sport cars. so the steering is direct from the road wheels to the steering wheel. lowering a car, changing camber and toe also increases bump steer.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by cougar10ag &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">as far as i know.. trucks have steering dampeners whcih soften the steering wheel sensativity and keep the wheel straight. thats why you cna hit potholes and **** and ride comfortably. they also have huge tires.....</TD></TR></TABLE>

steering dampeners? how about because they have a recirculating-ball steering set-up, not rack and pinion. big tires, body-on-frame build all contribute to it also.

my integra can feel the same way on broken pavement(thanks to winter and old asphalt). just going the speed limit...i need new shocks and probably new bushings up front. check your front bushings and replace the tires. you'll feel a major improvement.

 

Need more info.

What size tires? Details on your suspension too.

It may be
- you have giant rubber band tires
- your tire pressure it to high (unlikely to be the sole cause)
- you have adjustale shocks set to stiff or they are just shot
- your springs are cut
- your car is to low so in cornering you are hitting your bumpstops
- everything that Mac8008 said

and of course any combination of the above things.

IntEGNYC: the resale value of Integras is a function of supply and demand, not how they are driven. The more there is of something, the less it costs and everything else has a minor influence.

 

yep, guess there's too many tegs out there these days.

ironically stock ones are worth more than modified... guess that's economics for ya.

 

Car is completely stock. I bought it off of a 30'ish woman who purchased it new and drove it back and forth to work (25 mile commute) every day. Maintained it all 7 years at her original dealer. Selling because she's having a child and needs a 4-dr to put the child seat in the back. Her hubby owns a 350Z and never drove the 'teg. It's in such good condition that when I showed it to a friend, he thought it was a brand new car.

Tires are 195/55-15, Bridgestone Potenza RE910

By broken pavement, I'm talking about roads that have almost any breaks in the pavement, not significant broken up sections, or deep potholes that I'm hitting at higher speeds. At 60-65 over any kind of uneven surface the handling gets a little skittish. At 75 it gets worse.

I'm not comparing this to how a truck handles, I've never driven a truck. As compared to a Mazda MX-6 with run-of-the-mill Michelin series 65 14" tires, the handling is more loose/skittish over a broken surface. But over a smooth surface, the GS is much tighter & better controlled than the MX-6.

Same goes for how it compares to a Toyota Corolla, which I've driven over the same roads at the same speeds.

Even thing is nice and tight until I hit a bad section of pavement and then I've got to fight the wheel a bit to keep it under control. Just wondered if this was a common characteristic of an Integra.

 

Hey, thanks for the term ... bump steer. I knew this reaction had to have a name. Didn't know what to search on. Very descriptive, this is exactly what happens, I hit a bump and the wheels decide to steer themselves for a moment.

Knowing this term helped me find pages like this one:

http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/longtech3.htm

 

Okay, I've been busy having this looked into.

My tie-rods and ball joints checked out fine. I put new tires on the front, Toyo Proxes 4 205/50-15. Set all air pressure to 32. Took it in for an alignment.

Bump steer has been significantly reduced, to perhaps a third of what it was. The car still pulls to the right every time it hits a bump/roll/seam in the road, but not nearly as violently. It was nearly jerking the steering wheel out of my hands.

The alignment guy told me that he thinks this is due to my camber. It's at -1.2 on one side, -0.8 on the other. Recommended factory settings say that it should be no worse than -1.2. Says it isn't adjustable and that if I want it closer to zero that I will need to take it into a body shop to have it straightened.

I read in many other threads that when people lower the car (mine is stock), that they want negative camber, up in the -2 to -3 range. And that with wide tires, especially with 17" 40-series type tires, that having some bump steer comes with the territory.

So my questions are:

A) Sounds like this is no big deal and if I can learn to live with it, it should be okay. At least now it isn't unsafe to approach 80. Fair assessment?

B) I'm concerned that running at this camber "setting" will wear my tires unevenly, which will ultimately make the problem worse. The Proxes 4 are directional so they cannot be swapped to the other side. Cause for long-term concern?

C) The alignment guy strongly encouraged me to have it fixed. Good advice or did he not really know what he was talking about?

 

the camber is your issue then. i would get it fixed up, nothing a tire/suspension shop can't take care of. and your tires will wearing unevenly with any camber, negative or positive. its just a thing with double-wishbone suspensions, there will always be some negative camber.