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Omega General Help / Handling / Steering - Not sure what's going on and tearing my hair out.
« on: 08 February 2014, 20:30:12 »
I'm really wanting to keep my trusty Omega estate going, but am really struggling with some alarming handling.
I can never work out if it's something the garage has done, or something else that has broken independently of their work.
The last work we had done on the car was for the tracking to be corrected from about 1 degree toe-in, which was wearing the tyres alarmingly. It felt quite different - the most noticeable thing was that sometimes we have to manually remove the lock when straightening out from maneuvering - it wouldn't automatically castor as normal.
However, about the same time we noticed that the car would seem to lurch alarmingly when:
1. Moderate cornering on a roundabout.
2. Easing the brakes e.g. at the top of a slip road.
3. Driving across bumps in the road - e.g. poorly repaired trenches.
It felt like the front of the car was suddenly jumping a few inches sideways - and I assumed that this was the "tramlining" that I've heard about.
I did some work today to change the tracking from toe-out to parallel/a little toe in. Adjusted it by eye, but am happy that my work is accurate enough.
I've visually inspected all the bushes and steering joints on the front, and the bushes and tracking bars on the rear - there's nothing obviously hanging off.
Went again on a test drive and it's still not right. When I'm cornering on a roundabout, the car suddenly lurches so as to turn a little sharper than I'm steering it.
Any help or suggestions greatfully received. I'm trying to keep this car going on a budget - it's up to 175,000 miles and I can't justify any great expense. It's just so frustrating being unable to diagnose the fault.
Many thanks,
Luke Turnbull
I can never work out if it's something the garage has done, or something else that has broken independently of their work.
The last work we had done on the car was for the tracking to be corrected from about 1 degree toe-in, which was wearing the tyres alarmingly. It felt quite different - the most noticeable thing was that sometimes we have to manually remove the lock when straightening out from maneuvering - it wouldn't automatically castor as normal.
However, about the same time we noticed that the car would seem to lurch alarmingly when:
1. Moderate cornering on a roundabout.
2. Easing the brakes e.g. at the top of a slip road.
3. Driving across bumps in the road - e.g. poorly repaired trenches.
It felt like the front of the car was suddenly jumping a few inches sideways - and I assumed that this was the "tramlining" that I've heard about.
I did some work today to change the tracking from toe-out to parallel/a little toe in. Adjusted it by eye, but am happy that my work is accurate enough.
I've visually inspected all the bushes and steering joints on the front, and the bushes and tracking bars on the rear - there's nothing obviously hanging off.
Went again on a test drive and it's still not right. When I'm cornering on a roundabout, the car suddenly lurches so as to turn a little sharper than I'm steering it.
Any help or suggestions greatfully received. I'm trying to keep this car going on a budget - it's up to 175,000 miles and I can't justify any great expense. It's just so frustrating being unable to diagnose the fault.
Many thanks,
Luke Turnbull