Steering Like A Dodgy Shopping Trolley

[MrBurns]

Anyone know why my car is steering like a dodgy shopping trolley?

It's really bad when changing lanes, driving along 'drains' in the road, slanting roads. It basically starts steering where it wants to go and not where i want it to go ie. straight.

FYI: I've got 17" 255's on the back, but everything else is stock. It's always done this, but lately its worse & is snaking about all over the road! There's craploads of 'feedback/bumpsteer' through the steering wheel too. My puny, girly arms cant control it.

The nissan mechanics reckon i need to get my camber adjusted as its too negative & to go and get better tyres - could this alone be it? Could my suspension be too stiff?

I thought it might be HICAS, but it does this even at slow speeds like 40kph and as far as i know, HICAS kicks in at 80 kph.

I've driven some dodgy cars with really crappy tires before, but they've never felt this out of control.

Where in melbourne can i get this checked out?

Cheers

[scathing]

Classic case of tramlining. Your tyres are picking up every rut on the road and deciding that wherever they're going is a great place to be.

Wide tyres (its not usually the quality of the rubber, but its width and profile) and too much negative camber are the biggest culprits. Stiff suspension can cause it too, but you said you're running stock everything else.

How much neg are you running?

Edited May 25, 2006 by scathing

[blind_elk]

Check the condition of the bushes in the castor rods. Also, when was the last wheel alignment done.

Go see Andrew and the boys at Traction Tyres in Rowville. Or Craig a Trackside Tyres in Bayswater.

[MrBurns]

Not sure what my camber is (how does one find out?) and i had the bushes replaced about 2 years ago. I'm guessing i'll need to get the whole lot checked out just to be sure.

The wheel alignment was done about 3 1/2 months ago during a service. Everytime it gets done they say it is way out of wack, so i'm thinking all the snaking about is doing this. The mechanic who did it last time mentioned there was lots of wear on the inside wall of the tire.

Thanks for ya help

[Husky33]

THis is really weird, i was just about to post up the same thing. I'm having the exct same problem with my R32. Newish tyres, (235 on front 255 on rear BF Goodrich), newish Koni suspension which is quite stiff and that's about it handling wise. But man if you are on a dodgey road it's a nightmare, the car has a mind of it's own.

[MrBurns]

Check the condition of the bushes in the castor rods. Also, when was the last wheel alignment done.

Go see Andrew and the boys at Traction Tyres in Rowville. Or Craig a Trackside Tyres in Bayswater.

Finally got around to doing this as its getting worse.

Went to Traction Tyres, where he took it for a spin and said "your car feels terrible" In about 5 minutes he pointed out what was wrong and what needed replacing. Awesome service.

Its booked in to get new adjustable koni shockers, caster rods and adjustable camber kit. Ahh yeah, and they're gonna lower it too. Will hopefully now handle like a skyline. Cant wait

[benm]

I've had this problem with my past 3 cars and at the time this problem was occurring I was using Falken tyres each time. Move a different brand or even put brand new tyres on the front and magically the tramlining disappeared.

[MrBurns]

I've had this problem with my past 3 cars and at the time this problem was occurring I was using Falken tyres each time. Move a different brand or even put brand new tyres on the front and magically the tramlining disappeared.

I tried this about a year ago and although it temporarily improved things a bit, it didn't get rid of the tramlining entirely and it only lasted for a few months.

Unfortunately my suspension is just nackered.

[J_Red33]

Wide tyres will always give you a bit of tramlining unfortunantely. Even after having a wheel alignment that was almost perfect on my 33 which has still got less than 50 k showing it still does it.

Others I've spoken to who have put wider wheels & tyres on their car have all said the same thing. Just 1 of those things that wide tyres does

[MrBurns]

Everything got installed today and my first impressions are... well, mainly relief but also total exstatic'ness!! Its done what i wanted + more.

I got king springs, koni struts, koni shocks, noltec upper control arms (camber adjustable), whiteline caster adjust kit and koni bump stops. This was all installed by Traction Tyres in Rowville (VIC), whom (so far) seem to have done an awesome job (cheers for the tip blind_elk).

The bump steering has almost gone, but not entirely. Definitely 80-90% improvement over what it was before. I've got pretty old tyres and, as u guys noted, they're fat, so they're probably causing the small amount that remains. The main thing i wanted was that it stayed on a straight line regardless of the road and thats what it's now doing, so this alone was worth the dollars.

As a bonus its been lowered too, so it looks more flat & square - very happy with this as i've always wanted it lower

It drives a hell of a lot firmer (even on the softess setting), as u can feel the bumps much more but importantly it still feels in control (especially around corners) as the car keeps hugging the road - its like its glued to it. This is something its never had before. Previously, when i hit big bumps the car felt like it was bouncing off the road which scared the living crap out of me sometimes.

Overall, I definitely recommend doing this to stop the tramlining & bump steering and it also looks f_n awesome once lowered. I should have done this years ago