Tracking Question

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boristhespie
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Tracking Question

Post by boristhespie »

Going on long journey andcar was steering to left and shuddering at 70 so booked in to get tracking and balance set.

Shuddering aint so bad but the car still steers quickly to the left.


Does tracking not address that or am I getting it wrong?

If it should have been addressed in adjusting the tracking I will nip in on the way home before I head off for France (can someone give me an idea asap). if not what should I look at? (it's annoyingly tiring steering to the right)
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Post by DickieG »

Try swapping the front tyres left to right, that often sorts it out due to the different wear characteristics.
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Post by myglaren »

C5s do appear to suffer from vibration on the front wheels and the UJ on the steering column often gets the blame, not always the cause though.
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Post by DickieG »

myglaren wrote:C5s do appear to suffer from vibration on the front wheels
If you've got alloys and they haven't got centre holes I'll bet they're out of balance, I've had a right old palaver getting similar wheels correctly balanced on my HDi
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Post by cachaciero »

Vibration covered by other suggestions.

Steering to left this appears to be a not uncommon fault on C5's including mine, which in my case also has severe LH tyre scrub when on RH full lock. Havn't fixed it yet due to inclement weather, christmas, SWBO etc. but strongly suspect lower wishbone rubber bushes or possibly lower ball joint or both!

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Post by Citroenmad »

Yes it can be a problem on C5s to get steering judder, as Richard mentions its because of the tiny centre holes in the alloys which a lot of tyre fitters do not have the equipment to balance them, or the equipment is badly set up.

I always use the same place for tyres now who always get the balance right with no vibrations at all.

Tracking might be to blame for your steering pulling one way, are your tyres wearing evenly?

I find C5s hard on tyre edges, edges seem to wear out well before the centres of the tread, even running at the correct pressures of course. The C5 does tuck its tyres under on full lock too, though this is how they are designed. If its excessive a worn suspension part maybe to blame though.

Richards idea is a good one, try swapping your front wheels left to right and see if this changes things. If your C5 has odd tyres on the front it will probably pull one way or the other. Another idea would be to swap your wheels front to back.
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Post by Peter.N. »

Tracking errors do not normally cause the car to pull to one side, they do cause excessive tyre wear and if badly out can make the steering unstable.
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Post by cachaciero »

It's also worth checking if there is any steering change from power off / power on / power off and braking.
Miine drives pretty straight with power on, however take power off and it will drift to the left becoming quite marked at low speed with brakes, under these conditions hands off the steering the wheel will go about 60 degrees left but straightens up as soon as power is applied.
To my mind there is obviously something moving but there is no untoward knocks and I havn't been able to detect any movement when on jacks but that doesn't mean to say that there isn't any with weight on.

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Post by deian »

I would instantly suspect the wishbones on any car first, I know this is C5 specific, but I had a case where the steering would pull to the right under load, and realign to center when off throttle, brake and it would jerk to the left, this was because a bush in the wish bone was popping in and out of place throwing the steering out.

Did you get the tracking done by laser tracking, that would show if something is out of line compared to the rear wheels rather than just lining them up as per spec.

Demon tweeks can do a full geometry check for you.

As for C5 specific problems, it's over my head!.
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Post by DickieG »

The reason I mentioned swap tyres left to right is that my Berlingo (which I'd had from new and never kerbed) started pulling to one side within 10,000 miles so I took it back to the dealer who checked the tracking and found it to be correct so they swapped the tyres left to right, job done.

I'm not so sure of the comments mentioned that tracking errors don't usually cause a car to pull to one side as I've had a number of cars that suffered that fault but were corrected by getting the tracking re-aligned :?
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Post by boristhespie »

The tracking was done using laser and they put something on the back wheels so I guess that was in terms of that.
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Post by cachaciero »

deian wrote:I would instantly suspect the wishbones on any car first, I know this is C5 specific, but I had a case where the steering would pull to the right under load, and realign to center when off throttle, brake and it would jerk to the left, this was because a bush in the wish bone was popping in and out of place throwing the steering out.

Did you get the tracking done by laser tracking, that would show if something is out of line compared to the rear wheels rather than just lining them up as per spec.

Demon tweeks can do a full geometry check for you.

As for C5 specific problems, it's over my head!.
Reading the original post the tracking was adjusted. Unfortunately what happens is that they put the laser on it find that the tracking is out which it will be if the lower arm bushes have a problem and then they adjust the track rods until the tracking is correct. First time the car is moved arm moves in bushes tracking is wrong again :-)
They never in my experience go looking for a reason as to why the tracking was wrong in the first place.

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