Technical Suspension or steering or........?

[tessiedog]

Hi folks
The old Stilo recently seems to have developed a fairly noticeable lack of front end precision. Can't see anything immediately obvious and not sure if it's related to the steering (which does seem to be more vague than before, overly light and just generally lifeless), or the suspension (generally the car seems much less grippy than before, pitches and rolls about and overall feels unsettled on the move). Any ideas?
Cheers.

 

[portland_bill]

Need to check all steering and suspension joints and bushes.

Steering:
Find the track rod ends, usually behind the wheel (long time since steering rods were in front, except on some unusual vehicles). Get a helper to gently move the steering wheel a few degrees. By feel or sight, see if there is any play in the track rod ends. Also feel if there is any play at teh inner end of the track rods, inside the gaiters.

Suspension:
Check the anti-roll bar droplinks. Although these generally just knock, not cause vagueness in the steering.
Bottom arm mountings and ball joints. Try to lever at these to find any softness or play.
With engine running, in first gear, then reverse, get your assistant to gently bring the clutch up to the bite point and see if the road wheel moves relative to the wheelarch. Any softness in the bushes will allow the wheel to move. Check both sides.
Repeat for the rear, as play there will try to steer from the rear.

 

[Ralf S.]

Lack of clonking or noises makes me doubt it's wear and tear in the suspension "components". It sounds more like a broken spring to me.

Jack the beast up onto stands, take the wheels off and unbolt the dampers from the top... so that they drop into the wheel arch slightly under their own weight.

Have a look for a missing bit of spring (particularly at the spring pan/bottom) .. especially if you have the spring catchers fitted, which work well and keep the spring in place/out of the tyre when it's broken. The spring may appear bowed outwards, depending how much is missing and where from.

If the spring looks okay (the end of the spring fits against a hard stop welded into the damper spring pan) then it could have become deranged from the top mount. This is a precisely ****e affair.. .made entirely of rubber with a skinny little lip that is supposed to hold the spring straight. Under tension it really can't move (just assembling it is "interesting"... ) but it might have shifted. Again, the spring will look "bowed" and might be touching the damper on (usually) the inside.

Finally, it could be good old-fashioned "shagged damper". If it's gone AWOL all of a sudden that suggests quite a catastrophic fluid leak so most of it should be visible on the outside of the damper body.


Ralf S.

 

[Artermis]

Broken spring was what sprang to mind here too. You'd be surprised how frequently they break and people don't notice.

Check on the centre console just by your gear stick that you've not engaged city mode steering.

Steering on Stilo is pretty light as it is; putting it in city mode you hardly need to breath on the steering wheel to perform an about-turn.