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[TheBoy]

My 2.5 also used to tramline and I often had trouble keeping the rear at the rear in the wet.

The Omega does seem to be very sensitive to tyres when it comes to tram lining.  Price didn't seem to be a factor.

Whilst I've had other cars that were fussy on tyres, usually through performance or chronic wear, my Facelift Omegas have been by far the worse for the variance caused by tyres.  Worse than my PFLs, which I could never grasp.

[Nick W]

Just an over complicated system. My astra has done 70odd thousand miles over six years and has only had a rear spring. It still feels tight enough to me and, although I'm no boy racer, I've been driving long enough to know if it feels right or not.

At 70,000 miles, I would consider that at the nicely worn-in stage. New shocks would make a noticeable difference to most of us, but wouldn't be good value at this point.


Past 100k, and that metric starts to swing the other way. When Astra rears are £20 and a few minutes per side this is just a routine maintenance job. But I would also be considering the springs, as the commonly opinion that they don't wear is utter 'dangle berries'. This performance decrease is gradual, and is the reason why inspections are not done by the user or person normally responsible for the machine.


Mcpherson struts are a good all-round compromise for front suspensions, but one thing they're not good at is location: each of the three attachment points has to allow for movement in more than one direction, and that requires compliance. And that means the bushes wear out quickly, whether we're considering the weedy anti-rollbar based method that Ford started with the 100E, heftier twin arm designs(Triumph 2000, Avenger, BMW etc) or single wishbone with aligned or perpendicular bushes. The bigger and heavier the car and its wheels, the quicker these lower bushes wear. Polyurethane is one way of making them better, but all you're doing is changing the compromise: poly bush a Capri TCA(wishbone equivalent), anti-rollbar and steering rack, and you transfer the wear to the internal rack bushes. Upgrade those, and it's not unheard of to split the rack tube which is at least one step too far!


I've changed several sets of Omega wishbones, and haven't seen the reported massive difference in fabrication quality. But, I only use poly front bushes, and the cost difference between aftermarket and genuine replacements for the rears is so small as part of the job I would buy genuine when the supplied ones wear.

[Migv6 le Frog Fan]

My 2.5 also used to tramline and I often had trouble keeping the rear at the rear in the wet.

The Omega does seem to be very sensitive to tyres when it comes to tram lining.  Price didn't seem to be a factor.

Whilst I've had other cars that were fussy on tyres, usually through performance or chronic wear, my Facelift Omegas have been by far the worse for the variance caused by tyres.  Worse than my PFLs, which I could never grasp.

Bigger rims and lower profile tyres I would have thought.

[TheBoy]

My 2.5 also used to tramline and I often had trouble keeping the rear at the rear in the wet.

The Omega does seem to be very sensitive to tyres when it comes to tram lining.  Price didn't seem to be a factor.

Whilst I've had other cars that were fussy on tyres, usually through performance or chronic wear, my Facelift Omegas have been by far the worse for the variance caused by tyres.  Worse than my PFLs, which I could never grasp.

Bigger rims and lower profile tyres I would have thought.

Sadly not, as I frequently swapped wheels and tyres over.  That said, both my FL's were Elites and my longest lived PFL was a retail MV6, so all on 235/45/17