Defective steering offence
Discussion
On with the overalls.
Spanner and hammer(Large)at the ready.
The lets begin:
http://tinyurl.com/kgere
,,,,,, more on the enxt page.
......yellow paged..... Garage?
dvd
Spanner and hammer(Large)at the ready.
The lets begin:
http://tinyurl.com/kgere
,,,,,, more on the enxt page.
......yellow paged..... Garage?
dvd
splatspeed said:
so the fact the car dosn't drive in a straight line without pull on on the wheel to the right is not prosecutable for the offence of defective steering and carries 3 points????
I'd say that may be evidence of a fault in the steering/suspension (depending on the degree - a slight bias is inevitable), but unless it pevented you from retaining control of the car it would not make the car unroadworthy.
splatspeed said:
so the fact the car dosn't drive in a straight line without pull on on the wheel to the right is not prosecutable for the offence of defective steering and carries 3 points????
Daft question time.....Have you checked the steering wheel and is it centred when the car is travelling straight?
reason I ask is because if it's off-centre the natural response is to centre it and that then results in the wheels steering to the left or right accordinlgly.
It appears to the driver as if the car is pulling when in fact it's the driver steering the car in that direction, even though he's unaware of his actions?
XMG5 said:
splatspeed said:
so the fact the car dosn't drive in a straight line without pull on on the wheel to the right is not prosecutable for the offence of defective steering and carries 3 points????
Daft question time.....Have you checked the steering wheel and is it centred when the car is travelling straight?
reason I ask is because if it's off-centre the natural response is to centre it and that then results in the wheels steering to the left or right accordinlgly.
It appears to the driver as if the car is pulling when in fact it's the driver steering the car in that direction, even though he's unaware of his actions?
let go it goes left
the wheel aint straight and it pulls / drifts left
dealership claims this is normal
deeps said:
Have you checked the tyre pressures and conditions? Perhaps you have rotated the tyres recently?
If you've scrubbed a tyre through poorly adjusted tracking or wrong camber, the vehicle will usually pull off true.
If you've scrubbed a tyre through poorly adjusted tracking or wrong camber, the vehicle will usually pull off true.
brand new tyres as previous set destroyed
pressures checked
dealer re aligned nemourous times
When you say the tyres were 'destroyed' can you be a bit more specific about what sort of wear you experienced?
Most roads these days have enough camber (resurfacing build up and so on) to cause any car to drift left. I suspect you have already tried this on the flatest stretch you can find but if not seek one out. A runway is good but not always available.
Sadly VX dealers tend not to dig too deep in my experience with an Omega. I doubt if they get the right diagnosis for a problem more than 50% of the time. I may have added a nought too many there.
The Omega had very odd tyre wear in the first 10,000 miles I owned though it seemed to steer and handle well enough. A computerised 4 wheel alignment check highlighter some problems that a couple of normal steering checks had not (in fact they had made a developing problem worse.) The fronts were aligned but the rears not. Not sure if the Monaro has adjustable rear - probably not - but there could still be a problem.
Getting it properly set up improved many things including ride comfort and reduced noise. Also more than doubled tyre life.
If the car is not new you might want to check for accident involvement.
Most roads these days have enough camber (resurfacing build up and so on) to cause any car to drift left. I suspect you have already tried this on the flatest stretch you can find but if not seek one out. A runway is good but not always available.
Sadly VX dealers tend not to dig too deep in my experience with an Omega. I doubt if they get the right diagnosis for a problem more than 50% of the time. I may have added a nought too many there.
The Omega had very odd tyre wear in the first 10,000 miles I owned though it seemed to steer and handle well enough. A computerised 4 wheel alignment check highlighter some problems that a couple of normal steering checks had not (in fact they had made a developing problem worse.) The fronts were aligned but the rears not. Not sure if the Monaro has adjustable rear - probably not - but there could still be a problem.
Getting it properly set up improved many things including ride comfort and reduced noise. Also more than doubled tyre life.
If the car is not new you might want to check for accident involvement.
LongQ said:
When you say the tyres were 'destroyed' can you be a bit more specific about what sort of wear you experienced?
Most roads these days have enough camber (resurfacing build up and so on) to cause any car to drift left. I suspect you have already tried this on the flatest stretch you can find but if not seek one out. A runway is good but not always available.
Sadly VX dealers tend not to dig too deep in my experience with an Omega. I doubt if they get the right diagnosis for a problem more than 50% of the time. I may have added a nought too many there.
The Omega had very odd tyre wear in the first 10,000 miles I owned though it seemed to steer and handle well enough. A computerised 4 wheel alignment check highlighter some problems that a couple of normal steering checks had not (in fact they had made a developing problem worse.) The fronts were aligned but the rears not. Not sure if the Monaro has adjustable rear - probably not - but there could still be a problem.
Getting it properly set up improved many things including ride comfort and reduced noise. Also more than doubled tyre life.
If the car is not new you might want to check for accident involvement.
Most roads these days have enough camber (resurfacing build up and so on) to cause any car to drift left. I suspect you have already tried this on the flatest stretch you can find but if not seek one out. A runway is good but not always available.
Sadly VX dealers tend not to dig too deep in my experience with an Omega. I doubt if they get the right diagnosis for a problem more than 50% of the time. I may have added a nought too many there.
The Omega had very odd tyre wear in the first 10,000 miles I owned though it seemed to steer and handle well enough. A computerised 4 wheel alignment check highlighter some problems that a couple of normal steering checks had not (in fact they had made a developing problem worse.) The fronts were aligned but the rears not. Not sure if the Monaro has adjustable rear - probably not - but there could still be a problem.
Getting it properly set up improved many things including ride comfort and reduced noise. Also more than doubled tyre life.
If the car is not new you might want to check for accident involvement.
1 inch band on the inside of the tyres destroyed
5 mm accross the rest of the tyre 3000 miles after a network q check
it has 4 4 wheel alignments done to my knowledge
comes back fine then starts to get progressivly worse
splatspeed said:
1 inch band on the inside of the tyres destroyed
5 mm accross the rest of the tyre 3000 miles after a network q check
it has 4 4 wheel alignments done to my knowledge
comes back fine then starts to get progressivly worse
Sounds like the problem I had with the Omega - though my inside wear, mostly on one tyre, was so high up the sidewall that it was impossible to see on a normal inspection with the car on the ground. Looked like there was tread everywhere in contact with the road. Actually it was through to the carcass on a very narrow band.
My rear tyres were wearing at an angle so one side still had the moulding marks on the outside of the tread but were heading to zero on the inside and the other side had good tread depth on the inside and heading to zero in the outside. Effectively the rear setup was steering the car right (iirc) and the steering had been adjusted to make it go straighter which resulted excessive wear and a very odd wear pattern on the front, especially the front nearside dealing with the road camber. (Think I got that right - it was a few years ago.)
I was used to odd tyre wear from the steering geometry of the Sierra I had had a couple of vehicles before so did not think much of it. Once the full comuputer alignment was done all tyre wear was completely even on all 4 corners other than the usual tendency to be a bit flatter in the middle at the rear.
I suspect that either the alignment has not been done or the people doing it don't know what they are doing and are looking for the wrong thing. The alignment check was one of the few things my local dealer got right. Costly though. £80 back then and had to have it done twice as one of the rear adjusters was siezed and they had to order one in, which added yet another £160 odd to the bill.
It was done again a couple of years later after some engine work (further misdiagnosis on misdiagnosis) which meant they decided to drop the front A-frame and then forgot that they would have to re-set the suspension. I only got about 2 miles before deciding that the strong steering pull was a problem ... So they did the alignment again at no cost - other than another £130 odd quid for a seized front track rod replacement
- and again got it right. Having their own body shop may have helped with the skill levels for the alignment work. Pity their engine people and electricians were not as capable. It could, or course, be something else, like suspension bushes, which might not show up on a static check. However after 4 alignment checks one would expect that they would have looked at that .... or maybe not, thinking about it. Could be too much to expect in these times.
My guess is they will tell you it's "Throttle Bodies" next. I spent many hours in the dealer service reception and whenever they seemed unable to pin down the cause of a reported problem (on other people's cars) the customer was always told it needed a new throttle body.
Not sure that the steering would be an offence, but the trashed tyres might be ...
Edited by LongQ on Friday 8th September 13:22
splatspeed said:
1 inch band on the inside of the tyres destroyed
5 mm accross the rest of the tyre 3000 miles after a network q check
it has 4 4 wheel alignments done to my knowledge
comes back fine then starts to get progressivly worse
Good info' from LongQ for you to investigate, and also...
If the steering wheel is not central as you drive straight, they have skipmed on the tracking adjustments, eg winding nearside track rod in 2mm instead of 1mm on both sides, hence the steering wheel will point slightly left when going straight. Sheer laziness on their part. This wont make the car veer to the left though, it's just annoying more than anything.
If both front tyres are wearing on the inside it sounds like your tracking is still toeing out too much.
When you say it comes back fine then gets progressively worse, it sounds like you must have changed the tyres at the time of having the tracking done, the new tyres allowing the car to go straight. When they become worn after a thousand miles or so the car starts to veer left again. Are they reading the correct figures for your car when they check the tracking? If you give me the car details and year I'll find out the correct figures tomorrow if you want?
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