[Anthony B]

Dear all

I was wondering if you can give me a few clues on this one. At relatively high speed, approx 70-80 mph, there appears to be a sort of looseness in the steering wheel feel. Car is a 1995 Aero which has just passed it's MOT with no problems so I assume that nothing is badly worn down there.There is no discernable play in the rack.

It feels at if there is a sort of "kick" on the steering wheel, especially on bumpy surfaces and a degree of wheel imbalance being transmitted to the steering wheel but tyres are only 4k old and balanced at the time.

My old CSE seemed to have very secure feel at the wheel but the Aero seems much more "edgy". My only suspicion would be worn butterfly bushes or worn sttering rack mounting bushes.

Any clues guys?

Thanks
Ant

 

[John Vaughan]

Does the car tend to track straight without a lot of minor corrections? I do know that a) if the car is lowered sometimes you will get the kick in the steering wheel because the steering rack needs to have spacers installed to bring it back up to stock height.(bump steer) and B) sometimes if there is negative camber in the front end, the car will tend to wander in a straight line and you will have vague steering. Not sure if this helps but you might want to get an alignment check.

 

[billj]

Originally posted by Anthony B:
[qb]My only suspicion would be worn butterfly bushes[/qb][/b]

The Aero's 16" low-profile tyres can give a little more "tramlining", but my bet would be on the butterfly bushes. If these are worn, an alignment check will be useless as the alignment will be changing constantly.

 

[Anthony B]

Thanks Guys.
Think I'll start with them!

Ant