GT4 Zed Posted August 18, 2013 Share Posted August 18, 2013 Your geo was a mess before alignment and that's has been rectified except for your left front caster which is .5deg off. That's a lot and would after the steer ahead and dynamic steering response as accentuated on uneven surface. My suspicion is you have a bush failure at the front and the play is what you are experiencing dynamically driving or clearly manifest on the corrected geo. Your wheels, tyres are all good and though its always good to get the tyre well balanced I don't think that's the issue. Look at the culprit compression arm bushing but also the translink arm bush and check both arm ball joint for excessive play. The UCA bush or ball joint are almost bullet proof and should not be at fault. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloutrou Posted August 18, 2013 Author Share Posted August 18, 2013 Thanks GT4 Zed I'm not much of a mechanic myself lol but could I do a visual check of any of those parts you listed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrRoper Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 (edited) Update... I took a colleague to work in the car on Thursday, a 75 mile-ish journey to Tonbridge Wells. It all feels fairly tight up to 70mph, then it feels like every few moments the car is driving on a cobbled road, it's feint but you can tell something's there. We both initially thought it was only a problem when the car's running at full-chat, but even with my foot off the throttle it was still there, I'm guessing this rules out a gearbox/clutch issue (it has a new clutch anyway). If you're thinking to yourself, "just get the b***dy wheels balanced", I'm waiting for a free day in the next couple of weeks I can take it up to Kaiser Motor Jez Is it like a slight wobble/ vibration that comes and goes at a certain speed? If so I had the same after some repair work and a new wheel at the rear which had been balanced etc. I was worried something else had been damaged but it turned out that the new wheel was out by about 20 grammes. Once it was re-balanced it was fine Edited August 19, 2013 by MrRoper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottyp Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 I've got exactly the same tyre/wheel setup as you on stock suspension, and apart from a little more steering weight at low speeds I can't really tell the difference from having the 18" rays on - car is still supremely stable at high speeds - and to be honest I think the 19's soak up a few more of the bumps. Definetly something wrong somewhere - I assume all the bushes and arms have been checked? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloutrou Posted August 19, 2013 Author Share Posted August 19, 2013 (edited) When the wheels turned up, one of the large (50gram I think) weights had come loose from one of the wheels, but I didn't know which one so left it off. The garage was adamant that there was no reason to balance the wheels after the alignment had been done, I was a bit skeptical but assumed the geo had sorted everything out, it feels like it's really unbalanced and not a comfortable ride at all above 70mph. I expected to feel more of the road on 19"s than 18"s but this is to the extreme. Meant to add I had a P3 service about 3 months ago and an MOT last week - nothing picked up with regard to bushes and arms. Edited August 19, 2013 by sloutrou Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottyp Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 hmm, doesn't sound like balancing - had a few weights missing from my Boxster wheels, and it did vibrate a bit at 70, but still didn't feel unsafe or affect the comfort. May be worth getting the tyres checked for flat spots? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloutrou Posted August 19, 2013 Author Share Posted August 19, 2013 It's times like this when I could do with knowing someone who knows how it should drive, it's one of those subjective things isn't it, and everything I feel now I think to myself "I'm sure that's how it's supposed to be on 19's", and then assure yourself everythings okay. I've read good things about Kaiser Motor up in medway direction, to be honest what I want is to get them to drive it to see how it feels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
370Ad Posted August 19, 2013 Share Posted August 19, 2013 100% wheel balancing! Get it done already Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick350z Posted August 21, 2013 Share Posted August 21, 2013 Sounds like balancing to me as well. Bit more food for thought - my old Clio 182 had very similar symptoms to your car - fine up to 60/70 then a slight, but noticeable, vibration could be felt. I had the wheel balanced 2 times and it had loads of weights on it by the time they'd finished - but no matter what they did it wasn't right. Fortunately I had a spare alloy so I got the tyre changed over and bingo - problem solved. Turns out the wheel was very slightly buckled and no amount of balancing was going to cure it. Hopefully yours will be a simple job though but I'd be looking at that next if a wheel balance doesn't fix things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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