Steering wobble

Our 2001 Topaz has developed a significant steering wheel wobble when moving.
This has developed over the past fortnight (1500 miles around Scotland ) - prior to that it was fine.
It happens at very low speeds (e.g. crawling along in first), and increases with the road speed.
I would expect that if it was simply a wheel out of balance it would only show up at significant speed (e.g. above 20 mph).
Perhaps one of the tyres has developed a fault, but I can't see anything obviously wrong.
We have had the van just over a year now, and the only change during that time has been that new brake pads were fitted 2 months ago.
Any suggestions ?

First thing I would do would be to check that all your wheel nuts are tight. Then look for bulges or other defects in the tyres and rims.
After that, missing balance weights?
Then you start getting to serious stuff like collapsed wheel bearings, bent driveshafts etc...

Frank

boxerman wrote:First thing I would do would be to check that all your wheel nuts are tight. Then look for bulges or other defects in the tyres and rims.
After that, missing balance weights?
Then you start getting to serious stuff like collapsed wheel bearings, bent driveshafts etc...

Frank

Oh how I agree with Frank (and I have highlighted the first tip he gave). 

Look for the obvious before even considering a road trip!!

If you have a trolley jack you may consider chocking the rear wheels and lifting the front wheels off the ground, giving them a "shuggle" to see if either of them are loose and then a spin to hear if the bearings are grating.

Also, remember that although the symptoms come from the front that is your "contact" with the road and the problem may actually be a rear wheel problem!

Hope this helps. 

Best regards,
 
Ian

As Frank says, first port of call would be wheel nuts as the wheels have been off recently.
May be worth getting the wheels balanced and tyres checked before any 'serious' investigations.

PB

Thanks Frank, Ian, and PB.

The wheel nuts was the first thing I checked (as the wheelbrace was one of the few tools I had whilst in the north of Scotland).

However, I've just been out with the faithful trolley jack, and I can see a definite bulge in part of the tread of the left front tyre, so that looks like the culprit.

Now to research tyre choices ...

Glad you spotted something before 'something' happened   

PB

If the bulge is the problem (as seems more than likely) then "Good Result"!  

With regard to tyres we use Continental (Vango 2) because they had a deal on at the time we needed them.  We do high mileage (12,000 miles a year) and so far they look as if we will get about 40,000 miles out of them. 

Tyres definitely come into the "buy cheap - buy dear" category so my advice would be to go for a really good make; and then get the tracking checked when you have them fitted so that you get the best possible wear from them.

Hope this helps. 

Best regards,

just for the record, I was driving a transit works van once, when it started to wobble, when we inspected the tyre, the whole of the tread had twisted like a lazy s shape, never seen it since but a manufacturing default.
Pete

In the 70's I had a 3.5l V8 Rover coupe, & had 4 brand-new Goodyear G800 tyres fitted, apparently they'd just come out, anyway, from the day I drove away from the tyre depot, the car pulled to one side, took it back & got the tracking checked, all ok, so I took it to a garage & had it checked again, still spot-on.

Hmm, so I put up with it & drove for some time, gently applying pressure to one side of the wheel!!!
A bit later, the wheels were off to do some brake maintenance & the front wheels the inadvertently 'reversed', GUESS WHAT??  It now pulled in the opposite direction!!!

Went back to the tyre depot & this time they fitted two more new G800's ( I had to pay for them ) & they sent them back to Goodyear for inspection, it turned out that somehow the carcass, not the tread was 'twisted' & causing the wheel to veer of course, & the result was that I was re-reimbursed, the upshot being that even if the tyres LOOK perfect, there's still a possibility of an internal fault.