Hi all, this is my first post so i hope its in the right place to ask.
I bought a Honda Civic Sport (55 plate) end of Aug07 and ever since ive felt the handling is not quite right. Im finding the car is taking a lot of my attention to keep it on a straight path. Sometimes it can pull quite hard and very quickly to the left or right, which can be quite frightening and having two hands on the wheel is a must. It doesnt always do this and can be normal at times, the steering wheel is centered and doesnt constantly pull either way when behaving. I do think the road surface (camber..?) has something to do with it but ive never really noticed this with any other car ive had.
The car came with 17" Penta alloys (dealer option from new i believe) which ive read on some Honda Accord reviews as inducing tramlining. The tyres are 215/45/17 Yoko C-Drive all round, fronts having about 3mm left and rears 6-7mm. All tyres seem pretty level with the wearing, although they are losing pressure by about 2-3lbs per week ive noticed. They were kept at the right pressure though.
Its been annoying me so much, ive bought a set of secondhand standard wheels to see if it was the 17" Penta wheels/tramlining doing this but although the ride is softer now due to 205/55/16 fitted on 16" rims, the wandering feeling is still there albeit reduced. There are times im having to constantly adjust the steering left then right still. Im riding around on these standard ones now but doesnt look as good though. As you can imagine its tiring to drive like this, its like im hyper alert.
I dont fancy taking it back to where i bought it from as they dont seem the people to actually do anything about it. I do have a warranty left on it from Honda (until sept08), where i did ask them how much alignment would be, £160 the answer and not done on warranty. From reading what i have on this site, i havnt a clue what type of alignment/geo this would be.
I know its my fault for buying it really, I did notice slightly on the test drive it was a bit twitchy but thought it was the car being a bit sporty etc. but you live and learn..
Any ideas..?
Sorry for the long post btw.
Cheers nige.