Took a trip up to see some friends on the Wirral at the weekend and took the P38. Not long after setting off there was a request from the passenger seat to keep it below 60mph, as her seat was wobbling.

We've had this before with the offroad wheels/tyres fitted and I've always put it down to poor balancing of the tyres and the fact that the steel wheels aren't hub-centric, like the alloys are. With the offroad set fitted I can also feel the wobble in my seat and the steering wheel and it gets worse the faster you go - which hasn't been a problem as our offroad trips are reasonably local and on rural roads so high speeds aren't really encountered. However, it's always 100% gone upon refitting the road set.

This weekend, my girlfriend said that the wobble was really bad in her seat but I could barely feel a thing through the steering wheel or through my own seat - which I found odd. If the car was shaking I'd expect to feel through the whole car and if she hadn't mentioned it I'm not sure I'd have noticed anything at all. It also seemed to come and go, and came in at different speeds throughout the journey. Sometimes 70mph was fine and sometimes she'd report the wobble as low as 50mph.

When fitting the wheels before the trip I made sure that the directional treads were all pointing the right way and I set the tyre pressures according to the handbook (28psi front, 38psi rear). The wheels were torqued to 80lbs ft while still in the air and doing each nut in a star pattern. The only difference on one wheel was a missing locking wheel nut cover. They were re-checked on arrival and everything was as it should be.

The wheels are the OEM 18" wheels (Hurricane style, I think), powdercoated grey and wearing 255/55 R18 tyres of a brand I've never heard of before buying this car.

I don't think the missing wheel nut cover would cause such wobbling and I'm hesitant to suspect the tyres, even though they're an unknown brand, as they've previously been fine and have sat in the garage since they were last used.

Any suggestions?

In other news, I somehow managed to get 28mpg (and climbing) showing on the screen between Uppingham and Leicester before hitting Friday afternoon traffic all the way north :(

Factoring in the traffic and including a period of 20 minutes sat not moving at all, we reached our destination showing 20.0 - which I was pleasantly surprised by.

If it is just wobbling the suspect should be tyres. When I have them balanced I Always look over the mechanic's shoulder. Not that I don't trust him but I want to know if the outer diameter of the tyre stays steady and is not wobbling. You can balance a tyre with a lot of weight on a certain spot on the rim so the figures become 0.0, it is not saying the tyre is round. With steel rims I want to see them spinning without tyre so I can see them turning without any out of round moving. Years ago my wife's Sierra had such a wobble and balancing was fine until it showed a broken carcas.

Wobbling through the seat of the pants at around 60mph is almost always down to poorly balanced rear wheels. You might have a distorted wheel or tyre that is no longer round.

Off for a wheel balancing then, see what that shows up.

Might as well get the tracking/steering alignment done at the same time - it's been knocked about a bit in my ownership.

What kind of adjustability is there in the P38 steering/suspension alignment?

Wow...apparently it's been a month since I was one here!

New steering damper showed up on Friday and was fitted this morning. The wobble is completely gone now!

I had it over a pit at work and checked out the wheel bearings, propshaft UJ's, ball joints etc and everything was fine. Saw that the steering damper was leaking slightly so ordered one of those. It appears to have cured it!

The new felt a bit stiffer to operate by hand than the one that came off and the steering is no longer absurdly light. The vagueness in the steering is now gone too.

True to form though...fix one car, another one breaks. The girlfriends Corsa has sprung an oil leak that needs urgent attention. Smells like tarmac when driving it and has done for about two weeks. First I knew about it was when I drove it yesterday :(. Checked the oil and it's bone dry with a nice thick shiny coating of oil all over the underside of the engine and the suspension.

Hmmm, I wonder... my front end is quite wobbly (mainly noticed on surface changes and bumps) and nothing appears to be broken but Marty drove it and said the steering did feel light.

I swapped the front radius arm bushes recently and while it has done nothing for the horrible noises at 60mph it's made the old beast far less keen to leap the crash barriers every time there's a tarmac joint in the motorway - which is helpful, driving through the ten miles of disaster that is the M73/M74 "upgrade" right now.

The 2 biggest things I've done to mine that have made differences are 1) ball joints, and 2) radius arm bushes.

I still have a bit of a vibration in there somewhere - but it's markedly reduced with the new bushes in it.

Other than replacing the steering box, the biggest improvement was replacing the lower steering shaft. It was only apparent when I took the old one out, how loose the UJ was on it compared to the new one...

Marty - I've just replaced my steering box and shaft this weekend. Where did you get your new steering shaft from? I bought the Eurospares one from Island 4x4 but it seems poor quality compared to the original LR one, just wondered what you thought about yours.

I ended up getting a Britpart one - again from either Island or LR Direct. I didn't go Eurospare as they seem hit an miss if their parts are even available half the time!

Quality seemed OK - for a blue box item... the UJ's were all nice and tight, and well greased. The sliding part of the shaft was a bit different design, but actually easier to refit. From memory, the only issue was a couple of the bolts, I think i may have reused the old bolts with new shaft at the top/bottom joins.

In use in the vehicle, it does the job, and is a lot better feeling on the steering thatn before.

I didn't want to go blue box for it, but there were limited options, with one of the few being LR themselves and that was properly silly money!

Yes the bolts on this Eurospares one feel rubbish. I've torqued them up to 25nm which is what RAVE says but I'm getting some clunking going over bumps/braking so basically I've made it worse than it was before.

In other news, I somehow managed to get 28mpg (and climbing) showing on the screen between Uppingham and Leicester before hitting Friday afternoon traffic all the way north :(

Factoring in the traffic and including a period of 20 minutes sat not moving at all, we reached our destination showing 20.0 - which I was pleasantly surprised by.

28mpg , did you throw a rope round the bumper of the lorry in front,, lol
I normally average above 20 when on motorways, and I'm always 80 and above, think the highest I got mine was 26.4, but was at walking speed (50-55)

Is it downhill to Leicester? ;)

Morat wrote:

Is it downhill to Leicester? ;)

It is out of Uppingham. But then it goes back uphill. Then down. And then back up again. TBH, I thought the computer calculating it was making the numbers up as it went along lol.

Now that the wobble/vibration is gone and the steering has some feel, I'm not sure if I can feel something else. I don't know if I'm imagining it but sometimes it feels like there's a small pull or tug to one side. I don't know if this is just from the road surface though.

What are the symptoms of the worn steering boxes and shafts talked about above?

i suspect, the wobble is something loose, and your new damper has simply masked the issue.

The loose things still there, its just no longer able to setup a resonance and start wobbling.

I was worried that something was loose but it went through the MOT with nothing being highlighted and the steering system gets reasonably well inspected at scrutineering every time I take it an RTV trial, which has been at least once a month since we bought it.

If it is something loose, it must be hard to spot!

I'll have to take a closer look at the radius arm bushes mentioned by others above.

Quite often the bushes look okay until you realise the arms are turned through a slight angle, and you realise you can slide the arm from side to side on the inner sleeve.

** In other news, I somehow managed to get 28mpg (and climbing) showing on the screen.....>>

?? Where did you buy the sail/kite/rocket from ??
( Mine's a 4.0 and I get no-where near that, in fact about half of it....)
Wondering now if I put worn bushes on it will help my MPG !!

Also because of the weight on the ball joints, and how tight they are - it is hard to tell if they are actually OK or not.

Mine hadn't been picked up on ball joints at the MOT - but when I took the old ones out the change them, there was some definite play in the joints.

Likewise with the radius arm bushes - they've never come up on the MOT, but replacing them made such a difference to handling and stability

gordonjcp wrote:

Quite often the bushes look okay until you realise the arms are turned through a slight angle, and you realise you can slide the arm from side to side on the inner sleeve.

Next time I'm out that way again I'll see if I can replicate it :P

I have a hunch that I won't be able to lol.

Sounds like the bushes and ball joints definitely need some kind of advanced looking at. I might see if I can temporarily employ my favourite, most highly qualified tech from the workshop for half an or so.