Help please! Steering issues and hot wheels (in a bad way)

[hkwc104]

I've been trying to track down the cause of an intermittent steering wobble/vibration I keep getting at motorway speeds 70mph+. After reading various posts and having various parts replaced I still haven't been able to get rid of it and it's starting to really bug me (not to mention severly denting my bank balance).

So far (and in order)I've:

- had a four wheel laser alignment
- had the wheels balanced
- replaced the steering rack boots
- replaced front brake pads
- fitted new spigot rings
- replaced front ball joints
- had the car fully polybushed
- ensured that the wheel nuts are torqued to the correct specification

My next thing to look at are the brakes, in particular the rears, as after a 15 - 20 mile drive (mixture of town and motorway) I felt the wheels and the rears where much warmer than the fronts. Is this an indication of sticking rear calipers and can the rear calipers cause the steering to vibrate intermittently at motorway speeds or would that only be caused by the front calipers sticking?

If anyone can help on this I'd be really grateful.

Cheers,

Henry

[Quigonjay]

the hot wheels would indeed usually indicate a sticky caliper, doubt it is related to your wobble though
there seems to be a lot of things with these cars that can cause a wobble but considering what you have done already have you thought about checking your wheel bearings and top mounts?

[hkwc104]

Cheers Quigonjay.

Do you know how I check whether my top mounts are on their way out?

Also, is checking the wheel bearings just a case of jacking the car up and giving the wheels a good shake to see if there's any excessive play?

[Driftlimits Performance]

Hey Henry

There's defo no play in the bearings. Would certainly be worth taking a look at the rear calipers. Anythin grabbing the wheels slightly can give a weird sensation.

Double checked the balancing yet?

[cvega666]

sad to hear bushes didnt solve your problem, completely got rid of any vibrations after my car was poybushed along with balljoints etc..

The calipers, pain of the mr2 existence! I'd get them regreased at least or consider refurb ones..

[alan wheeldon]

Is this an indication of sticking rear calipers and can the rear calipers cause the steering to vibrate intermittently at motorway speeds or would that only be caused by the front calipers sticking?

If anyone can help on this I'd be really grateful.

Cheers,

Henry

Yes the rear calipers can cause that problem. i had the same issues, changed them for new and problem solved

[Marf]

Are the hub faces where the discs mount flat?

I had a wobble on my charade which was eventually traced to a warped hub.

[hkwc104]

Thanks for all the responses guys - very helpful.

Luke, thanks for the heads up about the wheel bearings as that's reassuring to know. Have got the car booked into to have the wheels balanced and laser aligned so if that doesn't sort it, I'll have a look at the rear calipers. P.S. Am loving the sound of the car at the moment with the new exhaust - great bassy tone without being intrusive so cheers for all your work on that!

Jan, if it is the calipers (which I suspect it is) then I'm either going to get them stripped down and rebuilt or replaced with refurbed items as you suggest. Do you happen to know where to get a good refurbed set from?

Marf, will take the wheels and discs off tonight and check whether there's any warping of the hub.

Will keep you all posted...

[Marf]

Marf, will take the wheels and discs off tonight and check whether there's any warping of the hub.

While you're there wirebrush the hub face to ensure theres no crud on there.

[cvega666]

Jan, if it is the calipers (which I suspect it is) then I'm either going to get them stripped down and rebuilt or replaced with refurbed items as you suggest. Do you happen to know where to get a good refurbed set from?

There's several providers, TCBparts.co.uk does them, fensport.co.uk does them (bought from there as they are local to me), and ebay of course.. I think it's worth getting reconditioned ones..

[Moo]

A mishaped tyre or buckled wheel will cause wheel wobble but they should be able to spot that when on the balancer.

[3sgtemechanic]

sounds like maybe a buckled wheel or possibly sticky caliper to me

[hkwc104]

I've now had all four wheels balanced by Kwik Fit but before I go on to the results I'd like to vent my anger a little at Kwik Fit!

Despite me warning the guy that my car was extremely low and that my sideskirts were lower at the rear end of the car (they're tom's sideskirts in case you're wondering), they still managed to damage and crack my nearside sideskirt. What happened was that they lowered the front of the car first and then lowered the rear end of the car (a tad too quickly), resulting in a nasty crunching sound as fibreglass met metal (Grrr !). What he should of done was the opposite and lowered the rear first before lowering the front! In fairness to the manager (the guy who was doing the wheel balancing) he apologised and said he'd do the balancing for free, offered to fix the chip in my windscreen for free, and offered me a set of tyres at the cost they would purchase them at when I next needed them. That said, I was still extremely annoyed about the damage to my sideskirt given that they've only been recently fitted.

Anyway, rant over and onto the results...

My front wheels required some rebalancing followed by the correct tyre pressures being applied to all four tyres. Unfortunately after this debacle at Kwik Fit I was stuck in rush hour traffic with hardly an opportunity to get up to motorway speeds on my way home to test the car. On the occassion I did, I was on a very rough patch of dual carriage way making it very difficult to tell whether the steering wobble had been fixed or not but it did feel like there was some improvement.

Tomorrow I've got the four wheel laser alignment (fingers crossed this goes a bit more smoothly), so after getting this done I will give the car another run out and if that doesn't work then it's onto the calipers.

Will keep you posted...

[veilside_mr2]

Have you changed the inner and outer track rod ends?

Im assuming you have.

But anyways, I had a nasty wobble on my car recently, it turned out to be my shock absorbers. I changed the front 2 and now the wobble has gone.

[Pidge]

Hope you get it sorted bud, I would bet money on the calipers

[Moo]

In my experience most of these tyre centres can't balance a wheel to save their lives. You'd think it would be a simple task as the machine does everything for them and all they have to do is stick the weight on where it tells them to but 9 times out of 10 you see them move the wheel from where the machine wants the weight to go and they end up sticking it on somewhere else. It may only be a little bit off but it's enough to give you a wheel wobble. I remember a few years ago I could not get my new wheels balanced for love nor money and lost count of the times I had them checked, re-checked and balanced multiple times by multiple garages. None of them could get it right. There was even one place who managed to give me a balance that made me feel like I was on square wheels from 40mph upward. It was so bad I could hardly hang onto the steering wheel at anything above 60mph but they insisted the wheels were balanced, even after taking them out for a test drive! A lot of the equipment these garages use for wheel balancing aren't calibrated properly and of those that are, the monkey doing the job doesn't do it right.

After many months of trying to get rid of this wheel wobble I took the car to Elite in Rainham and had a go on their road force balancing machine which applies a roller to the wheel when it's spinning to simulate what's happening on the road. It can also measure the runoff and tell you if the wheel is buckled or the tyre is out of shape. It can also detect heavy sports on the rim/tyre and tell you if the tyre needs rotating on the rim. It was quite pricey compared to a normal wheel balancer but it showed up that my wheels were horribly out of balance and that 3 tyres needed rotating on the rim. They did all this and balanced it up spot on. No more wheel wobble.

If you're sure your suspension components are ok then I do yourself a favour and get yourself up to Elite for a wheel balance and laser alignment. The money you keep chucking at the local monkeys would be better spent at a decent place who actually know what they are doing!

It's a bit of a trek for you but worth bearing in mind.

http://www.elitedirect.com/

If you do go to Elite get them to put Dino's settings in for your alignment

http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25719

[hkwc104]

Well I had my wheel alignment done at Regal Autosport in Southampton, who I must say treated me and my car with a lot more care than Kwik Fit did (they also had some sweet cars there including a tasty s2000 and raft of modded 911s). Whilst it was there, the guys made some minor tweaks to my alignment and also found that the my inner offside front disc was corroded - could this cause any problems with steering vibrations?

Having had the wheels rebalanced and the alignment sorted (and despite the corroded disc) I went for an extended drive and noticed that was definitely a signficant improvement at motorway speeds with only the faintest hint of any vibration/wobble when going over the rougher sections of the motorway.

That said, my rear wheels (particualry the offside one) were almost too hot to touch after the drive so I suspect something is sticking (whether it's the caliper or handbrake I'm not sure). Am going to jack up the car and check both the front disc and see how bad the corrosion is and see if I can find out what's causing the heat to build up in the rear wheels. Whilst it's up I'll also check everything that everyone has so kindly suggested.

The joys of MR2 ownership...

[hkwc104]

In my experience most of these tyre centres can't balance a wheel to save their lives. You'd think it would be a simple task as the machine does everything for them and all they have to do is stick the weight on where it tells them to but 9 times out of 10 you see them move the wheel from where the machine wants the weight to go and they end up sticking it on somewhere else. It may only be a little bit off but it's enough to give you a wheel wobble. I remember a few years ago I could not get my new wheels balanced for love nor money and lost count of the times I had them checked, re-checked and balanced multiple times by multiple garages. None of them could get it right. There was even one place who managed to give me a balance that made me feel like I was on square wheels from 40mph upward. It was so bad I could hardly hang onto the steering wheel at anything above 60mph but they insisted the wheels were balanced, even after taking them out for a test drive! A lot of the equipment these garages use for wheel balancing aren't calibrated properly and of those that are, the monkey doing the job doesn't do it right.

After many months of trying to get rid of this wheel wobble I took the car to Elite in Rainham and had a go on their road force balancing machine which applies a roller to the wheel when it's spinning to simulate what's happening on the road. It can also measure the runoff and tell you if the wheel is buckled or the tyre is out of shape. It can also detect heavy sports on the rim/tyre and tell you if the tyre needs rotating on the rim. It was quite pricey compared to a normal wheel balancer but it showed up that my wheels were horribly out of balance and that 3 tyres needed rotating on the rim. They did all this and balanced it up spot on. No more wheel wobble.

If you're sure your suspension components are ok then I do yourself a favour and get yourself up to Elite for a wheel balance and laser alignment. The money you keep chucking at the local monkeys would be better spent at a decent place who actually know what they are doing!

It's a bit of a trek for you but worth bearing in mind.

http://www.elitedirect.com/

If you do go to Elite get them to put Dino's settings in for your alignment

http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25719

Thanks Moo, good to know for future reference

Also got a sneak peak of your car when I was up at Luke's the other day. Can't wait to see what the finished car will look like!

[Moo]

Also got a sneak peak of your car when I was up at Luke's the other day. Can't wait to see what the finished car will look like!

It should look pretty good when it's done

Not sure when that will be though, but hopefully before the Duxford meet and JAE.

[Century Motorsport]

Have you checked for play in the steering rack?