Over the past few months I've noticed that my car doesn't hold its line as tightly as I think it used to. At 60-80mph in windless conditions, I can feel the front end float a bit, pulling left-right in a wavy manner. Maybe it's just the road, but it feels more like the boat-motion of a Buick than imperfect road. When I bought the car at 46k it was _tight_.

Any ideas? Is there some portion of the power steering system that's worth a look?

97SE 5sp, all options, 87k. New Tokico blues, Suspension Techniques springs, alignment, balancing, and Dunlop SP Sport 5000s on stock alloy rims. Basically, I take care of maintenance.

Dave

 

Make sure your tire pressure is correct and the same side-to-side. Also, get your alignment re-done. Make sure they give you a before and after printout of the settings.

 

The tire pressures are all exactly the same (+/- .5 psi by my best gauge), and the alignment is only 1000mi old. I don't have the alignment numbers in front of me, but I read them over when I had it done in August and they were barely out of spec before (due to the suspension switch) and are now dead-nuts on numbers chosen by the shop. Is there any particular alignment setting (toe-in, camber, etc) that might affect the tightness of the fine handling?

Not only that, but the car has displayed this looseness both before and after a new set of tires, shocks, alignment, etc.

Dave

 

Toe in better on center control - plow feeling on curves
Toe out loose on center feel - better on curves.

 

if i have 18x7.5 rims.. and 225/40/18 tires.. how do i know what my tire pressure needs to be?