Hi all, it's been a while!! hope all is well in the omega world! I am after a bit of advice over my summer tyres tramling BADLY! why would they do this? the winter tyres were fine but the summer Michelin Premacy 16" are shockers i wouldn't dare go on the outside lane in a roadworks for instance, does anyone else have this problem i'm running irmscher springs with B4's and poly bushed and it certainly feels like the front pulling it all over the place although when i had bad shocks on the back this also created this sort of feeling, donut's seem to be fine, any ideas? there is a rumblöing when i back of , would this be something to do with it? i thought this is probably a universal joint or the like on the drive shaft any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Some thoughts on this.
The Omega is renowned for tramlining, they all do it!
In my experience tramlining on the Omega is proportionate to the degree of tyre wear. In other words less tread means more tramlining. New tyres with deeper tread make things much more tolerable, but never perfect. My car was bordering on being unsafe before I replacing the worn out Michelins this year. I was not at all comfortable letting my wife drive it. I have now had 4 new “Vredestein Sessantas” fitted, which seem pretty good, but I still suffer a degree of tramlining. This is even after having new wishbones fitted and 4 wheel alignment etc carried out at WIM.
Interestingly I run “Winter” tyres during the colder months, which totally transform the car. Tramlining is totally eliminated, and grip levels in frost and snow conditions are unbelievably good compared with the performance of ordinary Summer tyres in the same conditions. I put this down to the softer compound, more grooves in the tread meaning more flexibility, and softer side walls. Unfortunately the trade off is you cannot hustle through bends in the same way as with summer tyres. (Not too much of a problem in the Winter)
The original Omega suspension design would have include narrower/higher profile tyres with flex in the side walls which all worked harmoniously together to give good passenger comfort. Low profile tyres by their very nature have little or no flex in their side walls meaning they transmit more load directly to the soft bushes in the wishbones which become over stressed. As the bushes deflect; the steering geometry momentarily changes, inducing the wandering of the car that we are familiar with on all but perfect motorway conditions.
Of course fitting Polly bushes can help in theory, but as far as I am aware only the one axially orientated bush can be replaced, leaving the other to still deform.
Another contributing factor is the steering arrangement with its numerous joints. As these joints inevitably wear the steering / handling becomes “Flabby” due to all the additional movement in the mechanism. Maybe a good old Rack and Pinion set up would have been a better solution.
Now I don’t know if this is possible, but I have been pondering over an idea of a wishbone assembly with rose joints fitted in place of the rubber bushes. This would tighten up any movement, but again there would be the inevitable trade off where the vibration from the wheels would be transferred directly to the chassis due to the now none existent shock absorbing effect of the bushes.
