Floaty Under Hard Braking...

[wisey02]

Have a problem with the brakes on my 182. Have just fitted new discs and pads to see if it fixed the problem, it did to a certain extent,made it feel ALOT better but you can still feel it.

When you brake hard and holding the wheel straight from any speed 40+mph the car feels like it wondering across the road\floaty. And if you do the same thing when not holding the wheel, the wheel will pull to the left by about 1/8th of a turn, but will brake straight. And when you get back on the accelerator, the wheel will straighten up and you can feel it through the car/steering.

But under normal day to day driving the car is fine and you cant feel it, you only notice it when braking hard.

What could it be? Tracking or worn bushes? Had a look at all the bushes when doing the brakes today and didn't seem to be any excess play in any of them...

Cheers for any help.

 

[Lal B3N]

Mine used to do that when it was on s**t Apex springs. Tracking out could also cause that.

 

[wisey02]

The car is on standard cup springs in good condition.

Will get the tracking done when I get a chance, the car does drive straight but worth a go.

Anything else it could be?

 

[Sean6545]

Shock absorbers

 

[rollerdan]

+1 with shocks

 

[wisey02]

Any way of checking the shock? Done the brakes at the weekend, checked the whole front suspensions and it does then look like either of the front shocks have leaked or anything :S

And the car drives well in general and over bumps etc.

But I'll have a look at them as well.

Cheers

 

[Sean6545]

Check the rears also

 

[wisey02]

Guy that had it before me replaced one of the rear shocks to get it through it's MOT so am going to replace the other one anyway. But you can definitely feel that the braking problem is coming from the front....

 

[_WILL_]

Guy that had it before me replaced one of the rear shocks to get it through it's MOT so am going to replace the other one anyway. But you can definitely feel that the braking problem is coming from the front....

Be careful writing off the rear as the issue, it's easy to assume that it's the front that is causing the issue, especially when you think that it only happens when braking.

How new are your tyres and are they wearing evenly? How long has the issue been occurring? Does it pull one way or is of random?

I would get the old rear damper swapped. Best to change in pairs really anyway. Try the car then. If you have no luck I would be looking at the track rod ends and front front lower arm bushes. I think the wheel alignment would have to be out to an extreme level for this to be the cause but its a cheap thing to check. Take it to a garge you haven't had it done at before as the equipment can vary, just to rule the wheel alignment being set wrong as the issue. One thing worth doing is giving all the suspension bushes a visual once over and check none a loose, front and rear, including top mounts.

 

[lambpie]

I've just replaced both my rear shocks at 52k miles, they looked ok and didn't leak but I changed them anyway.

The car feels a lot better now, just goes to show that even if they appear to work ok they can still be a way past their best..

 

[wisey02]

Cheers for the replies.

Am going to replace the rear dampers anyway because they are miss matching... And the car doesn't really 'pull' its more the steering wheel that moves to the left, it brakes straight but the steering wheel isn't if you get what I mean? And if you hold the steering straight then the car feels a lot more floaty.

Only had the car 6-7weeks but on the test drive am 90% sure it didn't pull like this. But maybe that's because I didn't slam on the brakes...

Tyre ware looks even-ish maybe a wee bit of inner shoulder ware on the passengers side tyre and everything in the suspension seems to be tight :S