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UPDATE: "railroad car motion" over rough road


joatmon

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Hello. I'm new here. I just bought a 95 Lumina LS and so far it's really nice, but it's got the odd behavior when travelling over rough road. Ocassionally it feels like the car is wandering or swaying - the best way to describe it is that it feels like the motion of a railroad car swaying back and forth. The front end feels tight. The rear feels tight. New rubber. I had the same problem with the old tires. I think it's coming from the rear suspension.

 

Any ideas?? I've searched the forums but I've come up with nothing so far.

 

Thanks...

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Welcome.

 

What brand of tires are you using? I think that the swaying would be happening because of the design of the rear suspension. If it sways in turns or on straight flat road I think you have a problem. Then it could be a swaybar being loose if the tires are good.

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when my struts were shot, and all 4 were VERY bad on my car.

 

the car rode more or less ok, but man bumps were terrible, i never knew how bad it rode till i replced them.

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Welcome.

 

What brand of tires are you using? I think that the swaying would be happening because of the design of the rear suspension. If it sways in turns or on straight flat road I think you have a problem. Then it could be a swaybar being loose if the tires are good.

 

Hankook mileage plus II. Previous tires were Michelin X1s.

 

It rides straight on flat road. I think perhaps it is coming from one of the rear wheels, if I hit a bump with both wheels nothing strange happens, but if the rough road only affects the right side, the car wants to sway or veer. It feels like rear wheel steering.

 

Sway bar is tight. The suspension arms all feel tight, there is no play when it is jacked up.

 

There is no vibration at all anywhere.

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If you mean your tires seem to want to wander and follow every imperfection in the road, that's usually caused by wider, flat tires.

The only solution would be to switch to narrower tires.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

UPDATE:

 

I just finished replacing the rear struts and went for test drive. The problem is *completely* cured. The RR strut was totally shot (zero dampening), and the LR was ok. I think, for the sake of the new tires that are on the car, that I should get the rear alignment checked because one bouncing wheel does not totally account for the rear of the car wanting to step out a wee bit when the RR tire went over bumps.

 

Thanks for the helpful suggestions.

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How did the job of replacing the rear struts go? I want to, and I have access to air and power tools to hopefully make the rusted parts not such a huge problem... however i'm still kinda worried about doin it and getting stuck.

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How did the job of replacing the rear struts go? I want to, and I have access to air and power tools to hopefully make the rusted parts not such a huge problem... however i'm still kinda worried about doin it and getting stuck.

 

It really wasn't that hard. Maybe a 5 out of 10.

 

Having power tools made it less work (for the coil spring compressor and the lack of room above the mounting plates). Not really required in my opinion. You might want an impact wrench to tighten/loosen the big nut, but again, can be done with hand tools too.

 

Buy new upper strut mounts. I thought mine were ok before taking it apart, because it didn't make any noise back there. Wrong.

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