Picked up my new car last week and I'm not impressed with the handling at all, had a 97 car a couple of years back so thought I knew what to expect. The new car feels very twitchy and light at the rear and tramlines terribly, is this normal or have I bought a lemon. Pushing along on some fairly quick A/B roads last night and scared myself a couple of times (baring in mind I'm still running in and keeping below 4k). Just does not inspire any confidence and feels like it might swap ends at any moment.

Anybody got any ideas?

 

Go get the geometry sorted, most scoobs out of the factory are not set up properly so hopefully this should sort your problem
Also check your tyre pressures to make sure they are correct, this has some influence on the handling of the car.

Tony

[Edited by TonyBurns - 10/30/2002 8:40:08 AM]

 

Bear in mind that new tyres often don't give their best for the first couple of hundred miles and that the standard tyres are not very good.

Geometry can make a huge difference so I would recommend getting this sorted soon. The Geom on both my MY00 and MY02's was way out from new and was sorted at Powerstation ASAP after getting the cars.

Matt

 

will the garage I got the car from (Mill Lane, Basingstoke) be able to sort the geometry out or will I need a specialist? How much? And I'm F88ked if I'm changing my tyres already !!!!

 

Me too - I jsut got mine last friday - went from MY99 to MY02 - it does tramline but I put that down to the tyres - I have done 500 miles now and and just starting to experiment with higher speeds round sharper bends.

My view is that mine seems better than the MY99 - but I take the point about tyre pressures - should definitely be your first port of call they make a hell of a difference.

T.

 

Mill Lane Basingstoke will be able to sort out the geomatry, they have all the equipment there, they can put the pro-drive settings on there for you too, costs about £50 . If you bought the care from them it begs the quistion why they did`nt set it up properly for you in the first place.
Adrian

 

Cheers for that I will ask them to sort it out, what do the Prodrive settings cover?

 

Have you checked your tyre pressures?

I know of several cars supplied by different dealers that all had the tyres set at 38psi all round
Suspect they must get shipped over from Japan with those pressures.
My Euro import also had 38psi and when I bought a spare set of brand new 02 wheels from a UK supplied car(owner fitted 18" from new) those tyres also had 38psi in them!

Changed to 33 front and 31 rear and its miles better.

Now got eibachs and TSL geometry done and its superb

Bob

 

That certainly appears to be the case the ride does seem a tad harsh, I will check them out tonight. Cheers