cousinavi Posted November 1, 2007 Report Share Posted November 1, 2007 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted November 1, 2007 Report Share Posted November 1, 2007 Hello, welcome to wim. First can i say historically the Civic sport does not have a problem chassis.... In view of this and the fact you haven't any adverse tyre wear then it's unlikely the problem is Geometrical. It is possible to control the symptoms you describe but this would not be without consequence, particularly to the tyres. I feel you need the EPS tested by plugging into the ECU.... Oddly enough we have another topic running about this in wim> http://www.wheels-inmotion.co.uk/forum/ind...ic=2246&hl= TDi south-North and wim south-central can do this for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cousinavi Posted November 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2007 Hi Tony, thanks for your welcome and quick reply. Interesting it could be EPS, i didnt think about that. Does a car with EPS `feel` different to driving a normal/older car without it. I do find this car feels slightly heavy in the steering dept. There is no EPS warning light on. Would it be worth a try with Honda, going by others experience with dealers it always seems a fight to get them to acknowledge something is wrong in the first place. Im quite happy to bring the car to wim at Hemel Hempstead, is this the south-central one? Cheers Tony, and sorry for all the questions! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted November 1, 2007 Report Share Posted November 1, 2007 Hi Tony, thanks for your welcome and quick reply. Interesting it could be EPS, i didnt think about that. Does a car with EPS `feel` different to driving a normal/older car without it. I do find this car feels slightly heavy in the steering dept. There is no EPS warning light on. Would it be worth a try with Honda, going by others experience with dealers it always seems a fight to get them to acknowledge something is wrong in the first place. Im quite happy to bring the car to wim at Hemel Hempstead, is this the south-central one? Cheers Tony, and sorry for all the questions! Please understand presenting a solution without even seeing any car is very difficult, but from the superb report you gave i cannot see why the Geometry is to blame. As you have read from the other thread the EPS has many functions including "centre weighting" and progressive stability control that adds resistance to the EPS as the cars speed increases. If for example the EPS module does not add resistance at speed then you the driver will need to compensate (constantly).... Kind of reads familiar to your complaint. Wim is south-central... If you pm me your index number i will check if the software can access your ECU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cousinavi Posted November 1, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 1, 2007 PM sent. Cheers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cousinavi Posted November 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 Dont know if it helps but I took some pics of the tyres just to show the wear. These are the 17" Penta Alloys. All tyres are orientated to show actual position on the car. i.e the top of the tyre is facing forward. O/S/F N/S/F O/S/R N/S/R Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 Having owned an 06 EP3 Civic type R I can say they're... lively to say the least. The car doesn't have a very complex ESP system so I'd not look at that to blame. Tony, would camber thrust not be an obvious cause? If the car is ok when on good roads, but having issues on the uneven then I'd have thought the geometry and tyres not working well together could cause exactly what he describes? Looks like the fronts were slightly over inflated at some point in their life but otherwise the tyres look great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted November 2, 2007 Report Share Posted November 2, 2007 Having owned an 06 EP3 Civic type R I can say they're... lively to say the least. The car doesn't have a very complex ESP system so I'd not look at that to blame. Tony, would camber thrust not be an obvious cause? If the car is ok when on good roads, but having issues on the uneven then I'd have thought the geometry and tyres not working well together could cause exactly what he describes? Looks like the fronts were slightly over inflated at some point in their life but otherwise the tyres look great. "Camber thrust" i'm not familiar with that term jon..... What situation does it describe. The problem i have with this car is..... 1> the Civic does have a good chassis 2> there is no real discernible tyre wear so i fail to see how the camber/castor is to blame. The Civic runs 0 toe, 0 camber and obviously a very low castor.... Geometry as a modifier wasn't needed with this chassis. In view of this is would like to plug-in the ECU and look outside of the box..... So to speak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cousinavi Posted November 4, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 4, 2007 Just out of interest these are the alignment figures out of the drivers handbook Why are there two sets of figures? Is this the tolorance allowed, say O` - O20` on the front camber? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Posted November 4, 2007 Report Share Posted November 4, 2007 The * suggests the footnote, standard suspension and type R suspension Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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