Looking for some advise regarding the handling of my car, since owning it I've never been happy with it its always felt out it's hard to explain and I can't get to the bottom of it, it's had different wheels, changed to coilovers and whiteline droplinks and 2 geo set ups from reputable places but it's still not right defo feels steering related but visually there's nothing that stands out, car still feels like it crabs to the right and any bump in the road it want to pull left steering is very light at speed also, could it be bent steering rack from previous owner maybe kerbed it or something ??

It's doing my head in cars an 03 sti

 

Anyone any ideas??

 

Change tyre pressure , adjustment of the standard camber bolts help a lot , some negative camber helps which is adjusted by top bolt on the front shock , I'm just trying to find out how much to adjust it by , my tramlining has gone now

 

Lower profile tyres add to it, on you tube is a clip on how to adjust the bolts

 

Do you have the full geo print out with caster, set back, kpi ect?

Also what tyres fitted, tyre pressures, and wheel size, width, ofset?

 

No don't have the print out guy does it old school by taking the car out back in and adjusts various times but he's a reputation as one of the best with about 30 years experience with fast/track cars and he says the alignment and coilovers are spot on, wheels are pff7 with ultrac sessanta at 32 psi and all wheels were checked for buckles when changing tyres but it felt the same with 17's

 

Surely if he's going out driving it he must of noticed a problem.

 

Need to be driving it a while to feel it, I've let other people drive it and they think it's alright but that's someone literally driving to the end of the street and back you'd probably need to have the car for a day to get the feel of it

 

Doing a old school alignment is only going to tell you a rough toe/camber settings.

Uneven caster from a bent control arm for example can cause the car to pull off to one side.

 

Did you ever get this sorted? I appear to have the same issue & appears it's due to a broken front drop link. It actually feels dangerous to drive, getting it sorted next week (parked up at the moment as its my 2nd car)

 

Would like to reawaken this thread as my 02 STI gives me a same feeling while driving. I plan no replacing many moving parts in the hope to refresh and prolong my love of the car..

The question is to start - what to avoid..

 

To be fair I haven't got to the bottom of it totally fell outa luv with the car because of it so the thought of just throwing more money at it is just putting me off

 

Completely know that feeling - been there on and off over the years.

I've just had some OEM front drop links fitted (£40-ish) and or though this hasn't 100% please the gods - it has made the car feel more " in my control" rather than getting often feeling of vague neutral crabbing. The car is still wallowy at certain points so im looking at replacing the Front control arm bushes to see the out come.