tandy ass
02-06-02, 03:19 PM
As some of you may remember from the autospeed forum days I've been having some nasty self steering problems in the R31 Skyline. Often when the camber of part of the road changes, or I hit a bump the car will steer itself a bit in the direction it chooses.
After many wheel alignments and taking the car to about 5 different suspension specialists no change occured. Today I decided to repack the wheel bearings since it is about 50,000km since I did it last. I lifted the car up, put it on chassis stands and got under to do a close inspection of ball joints, tie rods, steering rack etc... Trying to see if a ball joint was rooted I grabbed the top and bottom of the wheel and tried to pivot it and bingo - there's the problem. But - I replaced both ball joints about a year ago in the vain hope it would fix this problem... It wasn't the ball joints... It was simply loose wheel bearings allowing the wheel to rock a tiny bit.
Goes to show you that workshops will evaluate your car (drive it), say they feel what the problem is, do something, charge you and then return your car with the original fault. You go back and complain and they drive the car again and say nothings wrong.
Also goes to show they often dont check the SIMPLEST of things. I've spent about $600 on useless grease monkeys over the years trying to get them to fix a simple problem that they couldn't identify.
Car drives like an absolute dream now, it handles like a brand new car.
After many wheel alignments and taking the car to about 5 different suspension specialists no change occured. Today I decided to repack the wheel bearings since it is about 50,000km since I did it last. I lifted the car up, put it on chassis stands and got under to do a close inspection of ball joints, tie rods, steering rack etc... Trying to see if a ball joint was rooted I grabbed the top and bottom of the wheel and tried to pivot it and bingo - there's the problem. But - I replaced both ball joints about a year ago in the vain hope it would fix this problem... It wasn't the ball joints... It was simply loose wheel bearings allowing the wheel to rock a tiny bit.
Goes to show you that workshops will evaluate your car (drive it), say they feel what the problem is, do something, charge you and then return your car with the original fault. You go back and complain and they drive the car again and say nothings wrong.
Also goes to show they often dont check the SIMPLEST of things. I've spent about $600 on useless grease monkeys over the years trying to get them to fix a simple problem that they couldn't identify.
Car drives like an absolute dream now, it handles like a brand new car.