- Joined
- Feb 3, 2019
- Messages
- 4
Hi
About 4 or so months ago we started to get some odd behaviour driving our 2016 Leaf, which now has 118,000km on it.
You can be driving down a straight road, little or no camber and a good smooth surface. The steering will tug (mostly to the left), then settle almost immediately back to straight ahead. There is no way to predict when this may happen. It may happen every 5-10 minutes, and is more pronounced at speeds above 50km/h
When taking a corner, sometimes the front turns in normally and then part way around the corner it tugs toward the kerb before again correcting. Or it can be the other way around, vague initial turn in and then tightens part way around the corner.
All of the above behaviour is with constant steering input before the tug happens.
I took the car to our mechanic who drove it home, and it scared him! He took a left corner with adverse camber and it sent him towards the ditch.
We both suspected tires, which had 65'000km on them with tread left from 4/32 to 7/32. I went back to our tire place where they rebalanced all 4 and swapped them front to back. Their balancing machine, plus visual inspection, indicated nothing. The car still behaved the same.
I got the front end aligned - still no change.
I went back and got the 2 most worn tires replaced and stuck on the front. Still no improvement.
Our mechanic has it back in and has checked the suspension, bushings, roll bar/tie-rod ends. Nothing untoward.
We did have both front lower control arms replaced (bushings failing) and the tie-rod ends (worn and noisy) about 7 months ago.
Has anybody experienced any similar behaviour or have any clues what might be causing this? It's at the point now where we will only drive it around town and avoid highways.
Cheers
Graham
About 4 or so months ago we started to get some odd behaviour driving our 2016 Leaf, which now has 118,000km on it.
You can be driving down a straight road, little or no camber and a good smooth surface. The steering will tug (mostly to the left), then settle almost immediately back to straight ahead. There is no way to predict when this may happen. It may happen every 5-10 minutes, and is more pronounced at speeds above 50km/h
When taking a corner, sometimes the front turns in normally and then part way around the corner it tugs toward the kerb before again correcting. Or it can be the other way around, vague initial turn in and then tightens part way around the corner.
All of the above behaviour is with constant steering input before the tug happens.
I took the car to our mechanic who drove it home, and it scared him! He took a left corner with adverse camber and it sent him towards the ditch.
We both suspected tires, which had 65'000km on them with tread left from 4/32 to 7/32. I went back to our tire place where they rebalanced all 4 and swapped them front to back. Their balancing machine, plus visual inspection, indicated nothing. The car still behaved the same.
I got the front end aligned - still no change.
I went back and got the 2 most worn tires replaced and stuck on the front. Still no improvement.
Our mechanic has it back in and has checked the suspension, bushings, roll bar/tie-rod ends. Nothing untoward.
We did have both front lower control arms replaced (bushings failing) and the tie-rod ends (worn and noisy) about 7 months ago.
Has anybody experienced any similar behaviour or have any clues what might be causing this? It's at the point now where we will only drive it around town and avoid highways.
Cheers
Graham