Steering vagueness and wandering

[Black]

Hi Dave,

Switched over to Dunlop SP 9090s after reading good reviews about them on another forum. Car is running on 17" rims.

I had read about Eagle F1s being good as well. Didn't go for them because I had them on my Golf and didn't think they were that good but there again the Golf wasn't that sensitive to tyre choice.

The secret on the S60 may be to go for directional tyres with a V-tread type design.

Will see what the Dunlops wear rate is like. Will probably stick with them as they have truly transformed the car.

[wmg]

I have a S60 D5 which is just over a year old and I have had this problem since the car was delivered. Its a relief to find the problem may be associated with tyres although it may be difficult to replace one year old tyres at the moment.

I have suffered from wandering steering and tramlining on my '04 V70 for a year since I bought it secondhand from a Volvo dealer. The dealer checked tracking etc twice. Once to make it worse and again to make it no better. They said "They are all like that" I took the car to Micheldever Tyre Services for new front tyres. They recommended alignment checks because of uneven wear so we did that and fitted new front P6000 225/45R17 91V to match existing. Result: no tramlining and stable steering. Mitcheldever reported substantial negative toe on both front and one rear wheel before adjustment where no negative toe is allowed in the specification limits. They advertise accurate laser alignment facilities. Is this the answer?

[johnpenward]

I have read all the comments on Steering vagueness on the forum with interest. I recently purchased a 2005 185 D5 with 11K miles on clock. I found with my car (Pirelli 6000s) it tended to pull to the left slightly and was also susceptible to tramlining to some extent. Having previous experience, on a Volvo 940 2.0T, a Saab 900 2.3T and building a kit car, I went for a full Laser alignement check at my local tyre supplier in Christchurch, Dorset. The results that were relevant are as follows: Front Camber correctly negative and symetrical. Toe In Out of spec and negative. The latter should be between 0' 00'' and 0' 12'' and was in fact -0' 04''.
The tyre supplier recomends a differential setting for camber. The Nearside wheel being between 0'25''to 0'50'' more negative than the 0ffside wheel to compensate for road camber effects. I have found this to be effective on previous cars. Occasional european travel you live with! For general information I have listed the after adjustment figures plus the other figures for the whole car below.

Front Camber: Left -0'36'' Right -0'10''
Caster: Left 3'59'' Right 3'58''
Toe: Left 0'02'' Right 0'02'' Total Toe 0'04''

Rear Camber: Left -0'34'' Right -0'20''
Toe: Left 0'09'' Right 0'11' Total Toe 0'20''

I have yet to to fully check out the effects of the change as this was only done this week and from previous experience of Toe in changes the tyres seem to need to establish the new wear pattern first before you can fully assess the effects.

Johnpenward.

Previous Volvo's 145S, 140, 240GL, 360GLT
Current 2005 D5 185 and 940 2.0T Estate

[section8er]

Afteroon everyone - my first posting - I have followed this thread over past month - and have experienced the same problems - wandering over the road and the steering registering as if I was driving on black ice.
I have 17" Rims and had the standard Pirelli's on the front - with just legal tire depth and 9 month old Continental Conti-sports on the rear (plenty of tread)
As I only cover 7-8000 miles a year - and Xmas is coming as well as an MOT and service!- I opted for some budget tyres "Infinity" - and had standard laser tracking done - it cost me £113.00 all in - and the difference is unbelievable. The car now feels "planted" - no more wandering and the steering feels much better. It's how I imagined the car to respond and is a joy to drive.
So...it could well appear to be a tyre issue.
Safe and happy Volvo motoring!

[russb]

My last V70 D5 (MY04) had similar symptoms to described in the original forum post, a replacement steering rack fitted at 79k under the terms of the extended warranty cured the problem.

When working hard at small lock angle - motorway slip road typically - the steering wheel woud writhe gently in my hands - the actual car was planted and its course would not change. You could also get the same symptoms by putting on about 30 degrees of lock when stationary and then just holding the wheel, you would then feel it gently kicking from side to side.

There was no debris in the PAS reservoir and bleeding the PAS system made no difference.

The car was on Pirelli P6000 at the time and also displayed all the tramlining et al issues inherent with this tyre on the V70/ S60 but this was quite different from the symptoms described above. Incidently a change to Toyo Proxis T1-R completely eliminated the tramlining and wandering and increased wet and dry grip significantly to the point that flat out acceleration on a dry road no longer had the TRACS light flashing.

[devils-blood]

These strut links sound like they will solve the problem.

http://www.quickbrickmotorsports.com/prod_endlink.html

[sheerwater]

These oem links are becoming a real wear point on a lot of cars around here due to speed bumps. Ive replaced 3 on a V70 in a year plus a lot on other makes. Play is often very hard to detect due to the fact that they are under torsion or compression when you jack a car up.

Interesting thread, especially about Pirelli tyres, the following is part of a post from a VW/Audi forum.

I personally would never use, nor recommend Pirelli tyres to anybody. I have two very good reasons to support that statement. I used to be a wholly independent tyre fitter in one of the largest Government employers in the country, which ran very large fleets of identical spec vehicles, from motorcycles, through passenger cars, 4x4s, light commercials, heavy commercials, PSVs, agricultural, plant, and specific duty vehicles. I, as well as my own personal experience, also had access to "top level" information on all aspects of fleet operation, including things such as: warranty issues, maintenance, factory modifications, accident damage data, fuel economy, etc, etc, etc.

Firstly, the tyre carcass on Pirellis is so weak that the UK re-treadders/re-moulders refuse to take Pirellis. You might very quickly reply to that by saying something like "I'd never, ever put remoulds on my car" (which would be a perfectly reasonable comment to make). I would advise you that the tyre carcass is basically the first and most important aspect of a tyres' construction, and therefore relates directly to performance, safety, longevity, etc. Quite simply, would the best, most stylish Armani suit look better on a perfectly formed supermodel, or on a bent, mis-shaped wire coat hanger which deforms even further when you try to hang the suit. This relates to the fact that you could have the best tyre tread design, and the best tread rubber compound - you see where I am going. This is critical, in the event of a slow puncture for example.

Secondly, I (and all of my working collegues at the time) experimented on different makes of new tyres on identical spec cars, and found a huge difference in perfomance, handling, and comfort. I would qualify that we never used budget tyres, only premium, first line brands, such as Michelin, Dunlop, Goodyear, Continental, Uniroyal, Pirelli, Firestone & Avon. In all of our opinions, based on "blind" testing, Pirellis came out bottom in all areas, with handling and comfort being particularly poor. Michelin and Continental repeatedly came out tops, with Uniroyal also performing particulary well in very wet conditions. I must emphasise that this wasn't a scientific or statistical test, and costs were never included, but merely a "seat of your pants" real world feel for the tyres. They were also based on /70 and /60 series profile tyres, and not ultra high perfomance ultra low profile tyres as used on modern high performance cars, such as today's S4, RS6, R32 etc.

To comment on "quiet" tyres in the /60 series profile ranges, in my opinion, the Michelin Energy tyre range is the quietest tyre in all round performance, whereas, Continental EcoContact is quieter than Mich Energy at straight line high speed cruise (such as motorways), but is noiser than Michelin Energy under hard braking and hard cornering.

I hope it is of some interest.
Gaz.

You may find some interesting thoughts on the following forum,
I have some rather "exciting" moments with my V70R AWD, which is now much better after a whole lot of work by my local Volvo dealer

http://www.vpcuk.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14215