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[alank46]

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

[Jimbob]

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

[hotel21]

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.

[Marks DTM Calib]

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!

[Badger]

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!

[wheels-inmotion]

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?

[chrisr]

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

[jules]

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.

[ians]

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?

[Badger]

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    

[wheels-inmotion]

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?

[Marks DTM Calib]

Tony

Do you set the camber dependent on ride height?

[Badger]

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.

[Entwood]

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

[Badger]

Thanks mate. Will try that tomorrow. I'm off to my bed now. It's been a very long day. Goodnight peeps.