Steering vagueness and wandering

[simmo]

Good to hear that your car is back together now! I know how frustrating it is to replace the bushes on the front suspension. My old Saab 900 was a nightmare of a job!
Now that you have fitted the bushes and taken them for a test drive what is your opinion on the 'ride' quality, I know that after fitting them on the saab the suspension / steering was tighter but there was a trade off, in that the ride was a lot firmer with more bumps been felt in the car. Have you found this to be a problem in the S60?
Simmo

[sholtby]

No detectable trade off with the ride quality. Remember that only one bush was replaced on each wishbone ie the front one.
If you are fed up with poor steering fitting these bushes is a must do! For anyone that could feel more vibration the improvements would far outweigh them.

Simon

I have ordered the powerflex bushes for the strut brace (4 bushes). Will fit them early next week and let you know the results. I would check your car if it's done more then 50000 as my main bush is damage.

[Aardvark S60]

Our '54 plate S60 had the steering vagueness/wandering/tram-lining problem up until today ......when I replaced the rubbish Pirelli P6000's with a set of Goodyear Eagle F1's.

The car has been absolutely transformed. It now feels firmly planted on the road with far, far better steering feel and response and now it goes exactly where I steer it, as opposed to going where it wants to!

IMO the design of the P6000's is severely flawed with their opposite direction tread patterns causing the wander and vagueness. My reckoning is that differing rolling resistances for each front wheel will be greatly exagerated if/when same directional tread on each tyre meets similar road resistances and surfaces etc. This can be further exagerated by the pull of the FWD driving wheel, whereas the resistance of a pair of symmetrical V pattern tyres will be far more uniform.

[volvo2]

Originally Posted by sholtby

No detectable trade off with the ride quality. Remember that only one bush was replaced on each wishbone ie the front one.
If you are fed up with poor steering fitting these bushes is a must do! For anyone that could feel more vibration the improvements would far outweigh them.

Simon

Am I right in thinking this also applies to teh V70?

I would like to solve this problem of vague steering but don't wish to roughen what is already not the best of rides. Would you say there is any more vibration / road noise?

Melvyn

[S60-MBS]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3477955.stm

sounds quite interesting...

[Mike_Brace]

Originally Posted by jason

Hi Simon,
I just bought an S60T5 with 12k miles on it 03 ,the steering is very impresive in comparisn to the 850,it does wander very slightly over broken whites lines,but it is very very slight,the steering becomes heavier as the speed increases and lighter you slow ,maybe your friends problem is to do with the powersteering speed resistence system? If the 850 feels better than the s60 ,he does definately have a problem,has he checked the tracking and camber?

Jason

I have been driving a friend's S60 recently and found the same problem of wandering under braking. This car had recently been repaired after an accident and new o/s strut fitted with shock - the other side was not replaced and has done about 115k. My suspicions run around shocks and wishbone bushes being likely causes. We will be investigating soon and will certainly have the 4 wheel alignment checked as well as we noticed the car pulls slightly to the left except under hard braking when it pulls to the right!!

Mike

[agallo]

Hi.

This post is old 'April '05' but I felt I should post my experience - hoping it could help someone.
I recently had a similar experience. My steering wasn't very sensitive. Especially going over bumps in long turns. The car would reach outwards, although only slightly, when I would role over a bump. But then again, that wasn't the reason I brought the car into the garage. There was a knocking sound coming from the engine compartment whenever i would excelerate. Initially thought it was the engine mount - and had that replaced. The sound, unfortunately, wouldn't go away. Anyhoots, went back to the garage this week. The mechanic and I took the car for a long test drive. He was able to pinpoint the issue. Here's what was replaced:
left & right ball joints
left & right strut assemblies
left & right top plates

all said and told it ran me 1280$ Canadian or 911 Eur.

Well worth the cost - the steering is so smooth and tight - it's like night and day - really! It's funny how we get used to the way the car behaves over time. I didn't think the steering was really that bad. I'm also not an agressive driver - although, now with the new feel and sensation of the steering - the car really feels extraordinary!

BTW - I have a '02 S60 T5 with 130000KM's.

regards to all,
Angelo

[JK24T]

Sholtby - Simon,

Have read this with greate interest and consider the polyflex uppgrade.
Can you report on ride comfort and vibrations ?
Can the replacement be done by a slight swing out of the wishbone and mounted in car or do I need to dismount wishb. to rplace the bushing ?

Is work considered as DIY or stricktly garage work ?
If DIY is there any good writeup of the procedure ?

Sorry for all my questions.

Cheers from Sweden - Johan

Interesting stuff.

I've got an early 05 C70 and would say that I've noticed a lack of precision with the steering compared to our previous cars (Audi A4 and Ford Focus). Also a bit of minor swerve when applying the brakes.

I guess if I really want to sort this, I should go along to the dealer and if they say "oh, it's normal" then insist that I go for a test drive in one or two others. Don't suppose they'll be on for replacing all these bushes under warranty if they can possibly fob me off, so any precedents/objecttive measurements would be useful here.

I guess one thing to do might be to find somewhere flat where I can drive in a straight line, take my hands off the wheel and hit the brakes. Then one could perhaps measure the deviation from a line. A nice big car park might fit the bill.