Omega Owners Forum
Omega Help Area => Omega General Help => Topic started by: Badger on 11 February 2008, 19:35:03
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It's a bit of a long story but here goes.
Bought my Omega in November last year, knew it had 'issues' but thought it would make a nice motor with a bit of work.
Front wheels were toeing out by miles, camber was way out, car didn't drive too well. Rear suspension banging and crashing all over the road. Wishbone bushes shot, rear shocks shot.
Car had 2 brand new front tyres, rears ready for replacing.
First job was to replace the wishbones, correct the camber on the drivers side and replace rear shocks. Wishbones from buypartsbuy.
Car then was undrivable, impossible to steer, bump steered all over the road, veered off into the kerb or uncoming traffic, no self centering on the steering at all, turn the wheel and it just kept going in the same direction, downright dangerous.
Took the car to a tyre centre, very slowly, they did a full alignment check. Front wheels toed out by miles, camber wrong, caster completely off the gauge, one rear wheel slightly toed out.They corrected the front toe out and said the rest wasn't detrimental to the driving of the car....they couldn't be arsed basically.
Car drove reasonably o.k, but still not right. Corrected the camber myself, wasn't bad now, drove straight and true on the motorway, liveable with on b roads.
While I was under the car I noticed brand new rear springs had been fitted and brand new front springs and shocks, still shiny paint with tags on.
Decided to renew rear tyres and fitted 2 pirelli P7, moved the new front budget radials to the rear and the pirellis on the front. Car drove terrible, like being on ice, veering all the road dangerously. took the car back and swapped the budgets back the front and the pirellis on to the back, car reasonably o.k again...strange.
The budget tyres on the front got on my nerves as they were very noisy so I took the car to have 2 more pirelli p7 fitted. Bad move. Car now drives worse than it ever did. Tramlining badly, veering off first one side then the other, pulling heavily to the left and awfully twitchy steering, a nightmare over rough roads, and dangerously twitchy at high speed on the motorway.
What on earth do I do now?
All steering joints are perfect, idler arm is perfect (looks like a new one), rear axle bushes perfect, wishbones new, 4 new springs and shocks, new droplinks, new tyres, front alignment spot on, rear minutely toed out on one side but I have had omegas with worse alignment that have drove lovely.
Just wondering about those cheap wishbones, the bushes seem awfully soft, the wheels move backwards and forwards in the arches by heck of an amount and could this be why the caster readout from my alignment check is off the scale? It does feel like the wheels are following every undulation and fault in the road sometimes nearly wrenching the steering wheel out of my hand, it's driving me nuts!!!
Can anybody help please?
I
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Start with the basic basics....
Ensure the movement thats present is within limits and not simply due to slack nuts and bolts and that tyre sizes and pressures are correct!!
Would advise full geometry getting done at somewhere that actually knows what they are about. Its not enough to simply get the front alignment done and leaving the rest alone. Bear in mind that the rear can also be adjusted.
The place thats recommended here by numerous members is Wheels in Motion. check out http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/ for further info. They are based around Hemel Hempsted but also have knowledge of a few other centres that meet their strict criteria/standards.
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if the new wishbones are not from vx/opel this may cause problem
(I faced before)
And it seems you need a full balance in a good shop..
Also new tyres will change the balance weights position..
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There have been a few posts about Different makes of tyres causing Tramlining.
I will have a look too see if I can find a thread then paste it to this post :y
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Wheels in Motion very, very good, but maybe a little far, try John Sykes at Fleetfit, Loughborough, john looked after a few MV6 Omega's, sorted my car last Friday, charged £36 for full check and adjust, 01509266160, give him call, see what he has to say.
regards
richard
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Thanks guys. Can't seem to find a good alignment shop around here, i have heard good things about Wheels in Motion but I really don't want to drive that far with the car being as it is, changing lanes on the motorway neccesitates great sphincter control!
A bit of tramlining I can put up with, most modern cars do it especially on the roads around here, but this is far worse than that.
The tyre fitter that fiited my tyres took the car out for a run today and described the driving experience as 'bloody awful'.
I have checked and double checked all nuts and bolts for tightness with a torque wrench, I should add that I am a fully qualified engineer and know what tight is.
The veering and diving all over the road really only started after i renewed the wishbones, thinking back.
Cem, what problem did you have with your el cheapo wishbones?
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Cheers for that Richard A, I could probably manage Loughborough O.K, and that price is cheaper than what I paid for #### tyres to do naff all!
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Thanks guys. Can't seem to find a good alignment shop around here, i have heard good things about Wheels in Motion but I really don't want to drive that far with the car being as it is, changing lanes on the motorway neccesitates great sphincter control!
A bit of tramlining I can put up with, most modern cars do it especially on the roads around here, but this is far worse than that.
The tyre fitter that fiited my tyres took the car out for a run today and described the driving experience as 'bloody awful'.
I have checked and double checked all nuts and bolts for tightness with a torque wrench, I should add that I am a fully qualified engineer and know what tight is.
The veering and diving all over the road really only started after i renewed the wishbones, thinking back.
Cem, what problem did you have with your el cheapo wishbones?
Shaky steering...Over 80 km /h car becomes hard to control..
But that was not from balance at that time..visited several shops..
Finally solved with geniune wishbones..
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Thanks guys. Can't seem to find a good alignment shop around here, i have heard good things about Wheels in Motion but I really don't want to drive that far with the car being as it is, changing lanes on the motorway neccesitates great sphincter control!
A bit of tramlining I can put up with, most modern cars do it especially on the roads around here, but this is far worse than that.
The tyre fitter that fiited my tyres took the car out for a run today and described the driving experience as 'bloody awful'.
I have checked and double checked all nuts and bolts for tightness with a torque wrench, I should add that I am a fully qualified engineer and know what tight is.
The veering and diving all over the road really only started after i renewed the wishbones, thinking back. Cem, what problem did you have with your el cheapo wishbones?
did you torque it tight with the wheel swinging in the air or with the car on the ground? If the former, it will give incorrect strain on the bushings, leading to strange handling and early failure.
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Torqued them up on the ground, bounced the car up and down to settle the suspension first. I don't think the bushes have failed, there seems to be an awful lot of movement in them though. I pulled into the yard at work then reversed into my parking space, my workmate observed the front wheels moving backwards and forwards on the bushes a scary amount. Doesn't seem right to me that the bushes should have that much 'give' in them.
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the bushes movements may be scary but will deceive you..
As they include oil inside if they are finito they leak oil..
I think before playing with them again try full geometry on a known
good shop..
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I've got the buypartsby wishbones fitted and they're fine. The geometry is spot on and the car drives fine. The tyres are wearing evenly.
I think you just need to get the geometry sorted - you really notice it when it's not right.
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HI jason, yeah it seems quite a few folks are happy with the buypartsbuy wishbones, I think it must be an alignment problem. I have found an alignment centre close-ish to me at Lincoln, they use the American Hunter system and correct the settings not just give you a readout and tell you to correct it yourself like the last useless place i visited. I will give them a call tomorrow and see if they can fit me in soon, got a trip to Bristol coming up and there is no way I'm driving all that way with the car as it is.
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The front camber settings on the omega are to be set at about 1'10 as the figures that vx say are correct are only good when the car is new. if the garage sets them to within spec and say they are fine now ask what degree he has set then to. As i say 1'10 is what they should be. :y
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When you say the steering is very twitchy is sounds very much like the toe in is way over.
I tried something like this on an old carlton (for fun!) ,nearly turned the ruddy car over.
eddie
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Hi
You say it was reasonable with the cheapy tyres on the front and then much worse when you changed to the P7's. Seems straight forward to me, P7's do not suit your car. Change the front tyres, keep the P7's in storage for use on the rear at a later date. I use P6000 on the front and they seem fine. On Hancooks my car was all over the road.
A full geometry check is also strongly recommended. You have not said what size tyres you are using, the bigger the wheel, the wider the tyre and the lower the aspect ratio the worse the tram lining is.
Alan
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I had horrific tramlining when I bought my car, 3 different, very worn tyres.
Swapped for 4 Continental sport contact 2's, instant perfection!
I have just had some buypartsby wishbones fitted, they are fine for me.
Have you got the printout from your geometry checks? if so post it up for more advice
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Also remember the car will handle differently than previous when you swap part worn tyres around on the car until they adapt to their new location.
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I would say your geometry setup is wrong and you certainly cant guess the front camber as there is quite a bit of adjustment possible on the strut mounts.
The required camber angle is going to be dependent on ride height (hub center to bottom of wing) as the springs will affect the dynamics as they age and the ride height falls (hence why the camber increases with age)
I have not looked at the toe fully myself yet but, I would guess that the front toe is probably going to need to be close to zero (when the car is static) so that when driving the friction creates a little toe out to give straight line stability (I would guess the opposite would be required on FWD cars as they are the driven wheels).
The rears I would think would need to be very slightly toe out as when driven they are going to move out slightly which would lower the toe angle when moving.
It would be interesting to hear Tony Bones comments on this, to see if I am finally getting my head around some of the intricacies of geometry!
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Hi all, thanks for all the replies today. You are a very helpful bunch of people!
I was wondering myself if I had made the wrong choice of tyres but in 25 years of motoring I have never had this problem with any car I've owned, and I have had a considerable number of motors with all combinations of tyres on, surely the car can't be that sensitive? I have spent 400quid on tyres now, and fitted the P7s on reccomendation from a another Omega owner who was also having P7 fitted at the same tyre shop, he said they were superb on his car. My old 97 Omega ran on BF Goodridge Lifesavers, it never tramlimed,or veered off and ran straight and true for five years, never had to visit a fancy alignment shop and never replaced a single bush or steering component in over 40,000 miles......god i miss that car :'(
My local garage and myself think we have found the problem. It will be fixed tomorrow. I shall say no more about it at the moment just in case we are wrong but I will post my results tomorrow evening. I have had several interesting phone conversations today and all have reached the same conclusions, watch this space!
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I would like to see the Geo report to be sure but i feel the problem is the wishbones for these reasons....
1. If the front bushing was to fluid then each wheel can steer randomly making the car extremely nervous.
2. Why is the Castor off the scale? This is a fixed angle on the Omega but it's position is controlled by the front bushing.
3. If the front bushing is incorrect then this will also drastically affect the Toe position.
All three point toward the wishbones unless the Cambers are \ / but seemingly the positions are ok?
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Have just asked a question about my wandering Omega on General help. I think my problems only started when I fitted a set of P7s. maybe this is the cause? Has anyone else experienced this on the Pirellis
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Have just asked a question about my wandering Omega on General help. I think my problems only started when I fitted a set of P7s. maybe this is the cause? Has anyone else experienced this on the Pirellis
I had P6000's on my company Vectra-C, when I went to Kwik-Fit they fitted P7's, the Vectra was all over the road and the noise was terrible.
Put up with it for a week, went back and complained so they ordered in P6000's and the problems disappeared.
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Hi all, thanks for all the replies today. You are a very helpful bunch of people!
I was wondering myself if I had made the wrong choice of tyres but in 25 years of motoring I have never had this problem with any car I've owned, and I have had a considerable number of motors with all combinations of tyres on, surely the car can't be that sensitive? I have spent 400quid on tyres now, and fitted the P7s on reccomendation from a another Omega owner who was also having P7 fitted at the same tyre shop, he said they were superb on his car. My old 97 Omega ran on BF Goodridge Lifesavers, it never tramlimed,or veered off and ran straight and true for five years, never had to visit a fancy alignment shop and never replaced a single bush or steering component in over 40,000 miles......god i miss that car :'(
My local garage and myself think we have found the problem. It will be fixed tomorrow. I shall say no more about it at the moment just in case we are wrong but I will post my results tomorrow evening. I have had several interesting phone conversations today and all have reached the same conclusions, watch this space!
Any news?
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Hi all, thanks for the responses once again.
Hi Wheels in Motion, the steering has never self centered properly since I fitted the wishbones, am i right in assuming that the caster angle is responsible for this? I agree that the only component on the car that can alter the caster is the wishbones themselves. I can feel the front wheels moving on the bushes through the steering wheel, when braking at low speeds the steering wheel will pull to one side or the other and stay there until I correct it. Over rough repaired road surfaces the steering wheel will pull left and right and shake side to side in my hand, sometimes it's a job to keep hold of it. At high speeds over undulating roads the steering wheel will sometimes pull one way or the other suddenly and is quite dangerous , it's as though the whole front of the car is loose, it will suddenly veer off on a motorway if I go over a rut or change lanes.
The alignment results were as follows, sorry I can't post a piccie as I haven't got a scanner
Front left Front right
Caster 4deg 40' Caster 4deg 35'
Camber -1deg 28' Camber -2deg 44' (now corrected)
Toe 0 deg 05' Toe 0deg 03'
Rear left Rear right
Camber -1deg 36' Camber -1deg 49'
Toe 0deg 13' Toe -0deg 08'
The alignment shop says all these readings are within spec. I don't agree. The front camber has been corrected on the right but i don't know what to. I think the rear toe needs correcting also.
Interseting point about the P7s Jules, the car has been twenty times worse on these tyres than on the budget ( Runway Enduros) ones. My local tyre shop refuses to believe it's the tyres as he has fitted quite a few p7 on Omegas and never had a single complaint. I find it hard to believe that a premium tyre could cause this problem but
9 different mechanics/engineers have looked at the car, some have driven it and all say it's the wishbones. A parts supplier told me today that my wishbones are junk and supplied me with some supposedly OEM ones at not much greater cost. He assures me 100% that these will cure my problem. He also says that this is a big problem at the moment and he is getting dozens of phone calls every day about dodgy wishbones, especially on the Vauxhall Omegas/Astras/Vectras and Ford Mondeos/Fiestas and Focus.
I guess I could have got some from a duff batch as others have the same ones fitted and their cars are fine.
I hope to get this resolved soon as at the moment I feel like taking it to the scrappy and crushing the f#######g thing >:( >:(
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I'm not worried about the Castor or the rear toe now.... But i am concerned you don't know the final position of the OSF camber... Wasn't this on the printout?
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Tony
Do you set the camber dependent on ride height?
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Hi again Wheels in Motion. The firm I took the car to did the alignment check, corrected the front toe and wouldn't do the other work. They said had to correct it myself and then take the car back and have it checked again. If I had known this in the first place I wouldn't have taken it there. So the camber was set by someone else to same as the other side using a camber gauge. I haven't taken the car back to the original shop to pay another forty quid just for a readout.
I rang a company who advertise on the Align Your Car website which is an hours drive away from me. The receptionist who answered the phone was very rude and unhelpful. They wouldn't let me book the car in for an alignment without me first driving the car to them so their engineers could look at it first, then they would assess whether they could do it or not. i would then have to book the car in and take it back another time for them to do it, presuming of course they wanted to do the job anyway.
I am currently looking for an alignment shop that will do what they advertise and actually align my car. If you weren't so far away I would use yourselves without hesitation. Nobody around here is interested in doing the job. I also rang another company who said 'sorry mate we don't do Omegas'. Unbelievable.
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Don't know if you've thought of this approach ..
put - "4 wheel alignment" lincolnshire - into google , you get quite a few places that could be worth a phone call ......
OK .. you have to sort out the real ones from the crap .. but might help ??
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%224+wheel+alignment%22+lincolnshire&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB
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Thanks mate. Will try that tomorrow. I'm off to my bed now. It's been a very long day. Goodnight peeps.
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Tony
Do you set the camber dependent on ride height?
Kind of.... What i do is measure the static camber position then pull the car down to measure the dynamic gains. This is also done with the front wheels at a 10 degree lock to test the camber/ castor relationship during weight transfer.
Over the years i have concluded a camber table and the variants are surprisingly small... As some may know i am opening a new centre soon and the new machine offers much more information.... Once i have proved my findings on that then i will release the data to the club.
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Hi again Wheels in Motion. The firm I took the car to did the alignment check, corrected the front toe and wouldn't do the other work. They said had to correct it myself and then take the car back and have it checked again. If I had known this in the first place I wouldn't have taken it there. So the camber was set by someone else to same as the other side using a camber gauge. I haven't taken the car back to the original shop to pay another forty quid just for a readout.
I rang a company who advertise on the Align Your Car website which is an hours drive away from me. The receptionist who answered the phone was very rude and unhelpful. They wouldn't let me book the car in for an alignment without me first driving the car to them so their engineers could look at it first, then they would assess whether they could do it or not. i would then have to book the car in and take it back another time for them to do it, presuming of course they wanted to do the job anyway.
I am currently looking for an alignment shop that will do what they advertise and actually align my car. If you weren't so far away I would use yourselves without hesitation. Nobody around here is interested in doing the job. I also rang another company who said 'sorry mate we don't do Omegas'. Unbelievable.
Their talking "pants"..... PM me your contact number so i can get your details and i will contact them for you!!
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Hi again Wheels in Motion. The firm I took the car to did the alignment check, corrected the front toe and wouldn't do the other work. They said had to correct it myself and then take the car back and have it checked again. If I had known this in the first place I wouldn't have taken it there. So the camber was set by someone else to same as the other side using a camber gauge. I haven't taken the car back to the original shop to pay another forty quid just for a readout.
I rang a company who advertise on the Align Your Car website which is an hours drive away from me. The receptionist who answered the phone was very rude and unhelpful. They wouldn't let me book the car in for an alignment without me first driving the car to them so their engineers could look at it first, then they would assess whether they could do it or not. i would then have to book the car in and take it back another time for them to do it, presuming of course they wanted to do the job anyway.
I am currently looking for an alignment shop that will do what they advertise and actually align my car. If you weren't so far away I would use yourselves without hesitation. Nobody around here is interested in doing the job. I also rang another company who said 'sorry mate we don't do Omegas'. Unbelievable.
Their talking "pants"..... PM me your contact number so i can get your details and i will contact them for you!!
I have had this kind of response before with the Westfield. Some centres can only be bothered to adjust the track arms. >:(
Which reminds me... I need to get that WIM'ed when the new centre is open. :y
Kevin
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O.K, todays update is this.
Fitted better quality wishbones (QH) which stopped the wobbling but still had severe tramlining.
Went to the alignment shop with my original readout and told them to correct what they should have done in the first place. They reluctantly agreed and spent two hours this morning putting all the pointers into the green. They now say every setting is correct and the printout looks good to me. I am happy with that. Car drives much better........but it still tramlines quite severely. I can't put up with this any longer, the roads around here are bad. No other car that I have owned or driven had been as bad as this one.
I have blown the best part of 600quid trying to sort this one problem out and several more quids fixing other problems that seem to afflict all Omegas, it's time to get rid I think. I'm sick to the back teeth of the bloody thing, you get one problem fixed and another one appears, if it was nice to drive I wouldn't mind so much but it isn't.
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Badger, i know that WIM are a long way from you and that time is of a essance to all of us but had you taken it to WIM at the start then you could have saved yourself a small fortune, 1-28 camber is still too far out of range to my thinking and just because they say they are all in the green as to settings does not mean that they are correct. I strongly reccomend that IF you can make it to WIM you will not be dissapointed, tony knows his stuff mate. he set mine up and i run p7's and suffer from a small amount of tramling but nothing compared to what it was like before tony got his hands on it. By the way i had primacy's on it when i got it and it did not tramline at all .
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Hi mate, i have no doubt at all that WIM would be able to sort it out, I just don't fancy driving all that way with car behaving like this, it feels unsafe. I just don't get how a car can be so sensitive to a degree or two, never had this problem with any car.
I'm chucking the Pirellis off tomorrow. It's the only sensible thing to do, car was fine on the elcheapo budget tyres, no tramlining at all but noisy on corners and what I thought was a harsh ride. The Pirellis are
even harsher and bloody noisy at high speed. I seem to be throwing money away trying to make the car drive good on the P7s when clearly they don't suit me or the car. Glad yours is o.k mate, some seem to like Pirellis, some don't.
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Mine tramlines and bump steers quite badly on some roads and it does seem to be a problem with some Omega's. It may be that I've got an underlying problem that I'm not yet aware of but I've spoken to Tony at WIM and he wants me to bring it in for another check as due to the non-standard wheels and tyres it might need a custom setup.
It wasn't too bad when the tyres were newly fitted (Falken FK452's) but seems to have got worse as they are wearing.
Wishbones did cross my mind but I'm sure my mechanic would have picked up on that during MOT or service. :-/