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Hmmm. But what do they say is the cause of the problem?Quote:
Originally Posted by Woogler
It does seem strange that we are the only market that has 225/45/17 fitted to the various 7" Honda rims sold for the CL9/CL7. Even th Euro R has 215s.Quote:
Originally Posted by Monda
They're hoping by dragging their feet long enough(in changing all 4 tyres)that you'll get sick of complaining and go away!!!DON'T.PS.i bet they gave you RE 040s as replacements.How frustrating.:thumbdwn:Quote:
Originally Posted by Woogler
They admitted it was the tyres. And yes, they replaced the front two..with the same oem type :(
Have you thought about trading in your 3 new Bridgestone tyres now (inc spare in boot) for something different? Or buying 1 more and selling the set on ebay as effectively "new"? The oldest tyre can be your spare.Quote:
Originally Posted by Woogler
Something to think about.
Good idea.You'll get a reasonable changover price on a new set of tyres from a good tyre shop.Go to a few and get some quotes,you've got nothing to lose!!Quote:
Originally Posted by yfin
Thanks guys, but my tyres were changed a couple months ago.
Hello, new here, first post on OzHonda.
I’ve been reading this thread with some interest, and FWIW thought I’d chime in with some thoughts.
Be warned, this is a long meandering post (so long I had to post it in two installments!), probably containing errors, omissions, and in need of a thorough editing. I certainly didn’t intend to write so much, but the TV is boring tonight and I have nothing to read! I hope some find it at least interesting and maybe of some use. I make no claims to always being correct, and all statements are only ‘IMO’!
I’m no expert, but I have some experience with not dissimilar issues, though with racing karts more than cars. At any rate the principles are more or less the same, but keep in mind that karts have no rear geometry adjustments so when I discuss rear end settings I’m speculating to some degree.
With 30 pages (!!!) of posts on this topic I’m surprised nobody has provided full details of their wheel alignments (seems a lot of wheel alignment going on out there!). Someone posted their front camber angles but neglected to specify whether they were negative or positive, so I’m afraid the info is useless beyond telling me that (IMO) there is enough front camber difference on this car to probably cause a pulling problem, one way or the other.
Please post full alignment settings (at least: toe, camber, caster, front and rear where applicable) to see if there might be any alignment anomalies common in these cases.
IMO it would be highly unlikely that all these problems (apparently instances of the same problem) under discussion could be caused by faulty tyres, or tyres of a certain design over another, although it’s quite possible that an underlying problem could be more manifest (i.e. exaggerated) with tyre brand X than tyre brand Y, due to differences in case design (sidewall casing stiffness, tread pattern / depth etc).
Two identical (and properly fitted with reference to the coloured circumferential lines) tyres on the same axle line ought to perform the same regardless of their design, i.e. I can’t see how they could create a pull on their own account (though I’ve been wrong before!).
A clue may lie in the apparent common denominator that most of these problems seem to be strongest with somewhat worn tyres, not discounting that some have had the problem even with new ones.
Ever notice how new tyres tend to make the steering lighter (and less responsive!) than older more worn ones do? This is because the tread blocks distort (‘squirm’) more the taller they are, and as a result a newer tyre will more easily generate a greater slip angle than an identical but more worn tyre (this relates to tyres with tread blocks, not racing slicks).
What I’m suggesting is that there may be an underlying alignment problem(s) that might be somewhat masked by newer tyres, but becomes increasingly apparent as the tyres wear down and become more ‘directional’ (i.e. tend to operate at relatively lower slip angles). I’ve had this problem with a couple of cars I’ve owned, i.e. ‘pulling’ car, fit new tyres, pull (almost) gone, only to return strongly later as tread wears down.
What causes a ‘pull’? The most likely causes are I think:
Unequal camber.
Unequal caster (front).
Unequal (rear) toe.
Tyres (on an axle line) being worn in substantially different amounts / ways, or with significantly different pressures, or tyres of different design or differences in construction (i.e. poor quality control).
Sagged spring, or anything causing a significantly uneven side to side or diagonal weight distribution.
If there is a camber alignment issue that causes a tyre (left to its own devices) to ‘want’ to roll in a curved rather than a straight line then it will do so while creating no slip angle (i.e. camber causes a wheel to ‘steer’ without creating a slip angle), then to steer it straight means you must create a slip angle by ‘forcing’ the wheel away from the direction it ‘wants’ to travel in.
This may be acceptable (if not ideal, i.e. a compromise to an end) if the affect is equal side to side, but not a good thing if unequal. Beyond the annoyance and possible ill handling and directional stability affects, it can contribute to overheating (more of a consideration in a racing application) and to tyre wear (i.e. the tyre is in effect always ‘cornering’ slightly even when the car is travelling in a straight line).
This could conceivably be caused by differences between two apparently identical tyres, but IMO this is very unlikely unless the treads are worn in significantly different ways (which could also be contributing to the problem becoming increasingly worse the older the tyre gets). Different wear could be either one tyre with a lot of tread and the other with less, or one worn ‘flat’ and the other worn ‘tapered’ across the tread.
If faulty tyres (internal differences caused by indifferent quality control) were the culprit (as has been suggested as a possibility with the B/Stones) then it would be logical to assume that we would find the pulling problem divided equally (more or less) between pulls to the left AND to the right, but we seem to have a very, very strong statistical bias here (in an anecdotal sort of way) with pulling to the right. I suspect this alone most probably rules out tyres as the source.
If we assume the tyres are identical on a given car then this leaves only alignment problems, and these include:
Front:
unequal camber, unequal caster (rearward lean of the steering axis), unequal KPI (king pin inclination – the inward lean of steering axis, also known as SAI or steering axis inclination), unequal front ride height.
Note that that when I refer to the ‘steering axis’ that I mean two angles (caster and KPI, being 2 dimensional views of the steering axis from particular perspectives, side and front on) combined as a single line in 3D space.
Rear:
Unequal camber, unequal toe, unequal rear ride height.
Wheelbase shorter / longer side to side may be a problem, but I suspect it would have to be a quite substantial difference.
Toe:
Toe can only cause a pull if the toe problem is at the rear. Even though some wheel alignment sheets will give individual figures for left and right front toe, it’s not actually possible to have unequal front toe as front toe always equalises (relative to the chassis) when travelling in a straight line. This assumes that there is no problem causing a pull, in which case front toe may become unequal as the driver ‘corrects’ it.
What I mean is that because both front wheels can be steered and are connected through the steering linkage, front toe is only relative to the angle between both front wheels and not directly relative to the chassis. On its own front toe cannot cause a pull, but rear toe is a different story. The rear wheels are not free to articulate in a ‘steered’ manner (i.e. rear toe cannot ‘equalise’ relative to the chassis as the toes are fixed) and the toe angle of each rear wheel is thus directly relative to the chassis as much as it is relative to the other rear wheel. Unequal rear toe can probably cause a pull, and can definitely cause the car to ‘crab’ (probably cause a pull because it causes crabbing).
It’s possible that front toe setting might to some degree mask the affect of another problem, just as good tread depth may mask another problem, without eliminating it.
Camber:
Camber creates a condition known as ‘camber thrust’, being the tendency of a cambered wheel to follow a path that is curved in the direction of the camber lean rather than the direction in which it is actually pointing. This is easy to see if you watch a rolling coin, i.e. if the coin is leaning (cambered) it will roll in the direction of the lean.
A cambered wheel will only follow a straight path if subjected to an outside force, e.g. an equal but opposite camber thrust force from the other tyre on its axle line. In this case the wheel will (‘unwillingly’) roll in a straight path, but will generate a slip angle even when the car isn’t cornering.
This is because the axis of rotation (of a cambered wheel) is slanted and intersects the ground at some point to one side of the wheel, and means the wheel is in effect part of a rolling cone (roll a tapered glass and see what happens). If no camber is present then the rolling axis is parallel to the ground and doesn’t intersect with the ground at any point, so the wheel is in effect part of a rolling cylinder, and will naturally roll straight.
If the wheels (at an axle line) are both equally cambered then the camber thrust will be in balance side to side, and the car will track straight (assuming no road camber and no other problems), though it may tend to tramline more the more camber is present.
If one wheel is cambered more than the other then the car will pull in the direction of the strongest camber, e.g. if we have zero camber on the left and some degree of positive camber on the right then the car will pull to the right, or, if we have zero camber on the right and some degree of negative camber on the left then the car will also pull to the right. This may be an issue whether front or rear, but probably more problematic at the front.
Its possible for a car to pull due to unequal weight distribution affecting camber. Imagine a VERY heavy driver in a small softly sprung car; the car sags to the right under the load and gains negative camber on the right front wheel. Theory suggests that this car may now pull to the left because of the RF wheel camber thrust. The RF front may also ‘try’ to point toward the left due to an effect related to caster and scrub radius (see below). In such a situation we may have a pull to the left caused by two different problems created by a single cause (i.e. too much right side weight).
Its possible for a car to have the camber on both sides within spec but to still have a significant problem with unequal camber. For instance the front camber spec for a 90/94 Accord is 0° + or – 1°, so in theory we could have say 1° positive camber on one side and 1° negative on the other and still be within factory spec. However, any wheel alignment tech who thought 2° side to side camber difference was OK would be… not very smart.
End of part 1 (apparently the forum software won't accept anything over 15000 words)
Caster:
Caster has more than one effect. Firstly, by slanting the steering axis backwards it creates another geometry called ‘trail’ (i.e. ‘mechanical’ trail, as opposed to ‘pneumatic’ trail which is a product of tyre case distortion and only of concern with substantially unequal tyre pressures). This means the steering axis intersects the ground at a point that is in front of the centre of the contact patch. Trail can be created by other means allowing more trail with less caster, i.e. having the stub axle located behind the steering axis at stub height, but most cars have the stub located on the steering axis (as viewed from the side).
Trail is what causes shopping trolley ‘casters’ to track straight (yeah, I know… they don’t!), so ‘casters’ are misnamed (they have no caster angle whatsoever!), they should really be called ‘trails’! When we drive a car in reverse the trail is effectively negative, which is why the steering is so unstable when reversing, i.e. the contact patch is ‘in front’ of the steering axis, but ‘wants’ to be behind it.
If caster is unequal side to side then trail will also be unequal and the self centring effect will be unequal and most cars will pull toward the side with greater caster (this may be opposite with cars that have ‘negative scrub radius’).
However, this particular effect (pulling with unequal caster) occurs only in conjunction with ‘scrub radius’, SR being the degree to which the centre of the contact patch is laterally offset from the steering axis at ground level, i.e. extrapolated steering axis intersecting the ground to the front of (trail) and to the inside (SR) of contact patch centre, most commonly. Most cars have positive SR, which places the steering axis to the inside of the contact patch centre point.
Scrub radius is in effect a ‘lever arm’ through which longitudinal forces acting at the contact patch are fed into the steering through the steering axis and on up to the steering wheel (a torque force acting around the steering axis). The greater the scrub radius the more strongly the driver will feel the longitudinal forces generated at each contact patch (when unequal), i.e. the more strongly the driver will feel any difference in the longitudinal forces acting at each contact patch.
This is because the presence of SR effectively means that in order for the front wheels to turn they must also move backward or forward, which is not so much the case if SR is small or zero.
If there were zero scrub radius (not common) then the self aligning effect would still be stronger on one side (if caster etc were unequal) but the driver wouldn’t feel it as each side would ‘share’ all of its self aligning tendency with the other side (if that makes sense, hard to explain!). If a car has negative scrub radius (a few cars, e.g. Holden Camira), then the effect is opposite (neg SR is when the steering axis intersects the ground to the outside of the contact patch centre). Different cars with different scrub radius will react more or less strongly, and possibly in opposite ways to unequal caster angle.
Cars with heavy steering are likely to have (all else being equal) a lot of caster angle / trail and / or a lot of scrub radius.
Note on scrub radius: SR is a nominal geometry, i.e. its value is X on the drawing board and on a perfectly flat road, but if the tyre encounters road camber or other irregularities it value effectively changes (x+ or X-) because the centre of loading on the contact patch moves laterally across the face of the patch as it traverses any irregularity other than a symmetrical bump. The value of SR (X) also changes with any change in camber angle caused by bumps or steering input (caster and KPI cause steered camber changes).
This is a bigger problem with wider treads simply because there is more tread width across which the centre of loading can move. Its this change in effective scrub radius that causes tramlining. Stiffer tyre casings also can make this problem more severe as the tread will conform less readily to the road irregularity.
In some cases the effective scrub radius at a given front wheel can readily change from a positive value to a negative, causing substantial steering problems on rough roads (e.g. Holden Camira’s do this so badly they can unexpectedly rip the steering wheel out of your hands, horrible!). SR is what causes the steering to ‘kickback’ over bumps etc, but does contribute to steering ‘feel’.
Caster also raises the inside front of the chassis with steering input, physically lifting the chassis higher on the side to the inside of the corner. This effect only occurs when there is also SR, and more so with more SR (and greater caster). This also contributes to a self aligning tendency as gravity tries to pull the chassis back to its lowest possible point, which is only possible with the steering at the straight ahead (KPI also does this, though the effect isn’t exactly the same because for a given steered wheel angle KPI lifts the chassis equally on both sides, not more on one side as with caster).
If the chassis is crabbing because of (e.g.) unequal rear toe, then to travel straight the steering must be at some angle, and this will lift the front of the chassis on one side, and this in turn might create a pull.
Front ride height:
Assuming equal lateral weight distribution, if front ride height is significantly different than all three other corners then we can assume that the higher side will be carrying a greater % of front weight, and that the diagonally opposite rear wheel will carry a greater % of rear weight (note: this effect will be stronger with stiffer springs). If we assume that the higher side is the left front, then this wheel will be the heaviest front wheel, and the right rear will be the heaviest rear wheel.
This may (in some degree) counteract unequal lateral front weight distribution caused by (e.g.) driver weight, but we need to keep in mind that it would amplify rear weight differences and may have unwanted affects on camber angles, which may cause problems of their own…
If we assume reasonably even weight distribution, and depending on the values of various geometries, the left front of the chassis being higher may create a tendency to pull to the right. With a positive scrub radius (typical of most cars) and some caster angle there will be a tendency for a weighted wheel (chassis weight) to turn inward around the caster angle of the steering axis as gravity attempts to pull the chassis toward its lowest possible average ride height on both sides. This effect would be strongest at the heavier wheel, thus a pull away from the heaviest front wheel toward the lighter.
Keep in mind that the caster angle is rearward leaning, and that the weight is carried (as an average) in the centre of the contact patch (assuming zero camber), but that the steering axis is offset to the inside of the centre of the contact patch. This creates a tendency for the wheel to ‘want’ to rise (relative to the chassis), and thus to ‘want’ to turn around the caster angle of the steering axis.
With equally weighted wheels this is balanced side to side, but if one wheel is significantly heavier then the effect will be unbalanced and could conceivably cause a noticeable pull. However, I would normally expect this effect to be quite minor unless the side to side weight difference and/or scrub radius and/or caster angle are quite large (e.g. it’s a very strong effect with karts as they use very substantial caster and scrub radius, so if the chassis is twisted they can pull to one side quite badly). Stiffer springs are likely to make this worse.
Some of you mention that the Euro does have a ‘weight jacking’ effect built into the front end, and I have no idea whether it does or doesn’t. It doesn’t seem a good idea to me (especially as millions of cars will track perfectly straight without this!), much better to align the car with driver in situ, like they (should) do with racing cars! If the Euro does have this weight jacking built in then it might be interesting to find what component is responsible (spring, strut mounting, tower height….), and modify it to make the car level and see what happens…?
At any rate this is way too much waffling on and probably more confusing than enlightening. To finish up I’ll relate a little wheel alignment story:
Case study, my car:
A 91 Accord (owned for about a year) that used to pull to the left in a most irritating manner (more so on more worn tyres). Recent alignment showed:
Right caster =1.67°
Left caster =2.83°
Right camber = 1.14° negative
Left camber = 0.16° negative
Right wheelbase = 35mm shorter than left.
I could only conclude accident damage to the right front… bugger!
Not to be defeated, this was initially ‘adjusted’ by means of carefully shortening the right side radius rod by 11mm, which fixed the caster difference and most of the wheelbase difference. Pulling problem improved but still there.
Camber problem then addressed by ‘slotting’ the four inner mounting holes in the left upper wishbone by means of a rat tail file, in effect shortening the left wishbone by 10mm (this may be a bit dodgy in that its now theoretically possible for the wishbone to move on the slotted holes, but the bolts are tight, I’ve used big washers and the forces here are not great, so I’m not worried!).
Result; car now has (near equal) a bit over 1° neg camber and near equal caster both sides, has zero pull and steers / handles as well as can be expected with stock springs and dampers (too soft!!!).
PS Some of you have problems with steering wheel position. Some people don’t seem to mind this, but it drives me to distraction if the wheel isn’t pointing straight!!
Hope this helps:
Assuming the actual alignment is OK, to centralise the steering wheel you need to adjust each tie rod equally to centralise the steering column to the rack. E.g. assuming the steering rack is behind the front axle line, if the steering wheel points to the right then you need to lengthen the left tie rod and shorten the right tie rod by equal amounts (vice versa if the wheel points left, or if the steering rack is in front of the axle line).
If done carefully this won’t change the toe setting to any significant degree, though if the problem is large then it conceivably might (?). First try shortening / lengthening the tie rods by ¼ turn for a small steering wheel misalignment, or half a turn + for larger misalignment.
This is quick and easy to do, and you can access the tie rod adjustment through the wheel arch (at least on my old Accord) just by turning the steering to full lock (don’t even need ramps!). Make sure you mark the tie rods with paint or whatever (and maybe make notes) to keep track of what you’ve done! You probably won’t get it spot on first try, but two or maybe three goes ought to get you there.
I generally agree with the above.
I'm of the belief that the tyres are only the 2ndary problem which exaggerates the underlying problem as well. Well anyway, its because it is much more logical. Luckily someone could explain in more detail than I can.
When he mentioned that NEWER tyres are taller and thus won't have as directional a pull as a more worn tyre, if you compare a 17" tyre profile to a 16" tyre profile, the exact same connection can be made. 17" is lower profile, so it will try to steer the car more than a taller, 16" tyre. Secondly the 17" tyre is wider as well, which again manifests the problem more. For some reason someone disagreed with me before and said the biggest difference between the 16" and 17" inch tyres is the construction and pattern, without taking the 'size and dimensions' of things into perspective. :o
I'm sure there is a fair amount of truth in the last 2 posts but at the end of the day it's not up to the guys that have had the drifting/pulling problem to have to go to such lengths to get the problem fixed.Its Honda Aust.that must do this in depth analysis to sort out the problem not the customer.Its obvious the tyres do not suit the Euro front end setup or whatever you want ot call it so HA should just change the brand/type of tyre for the customers that are having these issues.I dont have the problem cause i changed my tyres from new.I get NO drifting/pulling at all.My car is also lowered,you would think that would make the problem worse.Bottom line HA should just change brand/type of tyre on these problem cars.
Good news! Honda agreed there was a problem with the tyres and replaced both front tyres.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by monda
they replaced with OEM tyres yea? good 4 u man..Quote:
Originally Posted by monda
anyway, is this problem found in 05 upgrade model only? how about 06 or before 05?