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[Filth_Mobile_Jim]

Ive recently bought a 2001 Facelift 3.0 estate ex police car.

On driving it, i was suprised by how much the steering wheel pulled left or right with bumps or depressions in the road. I put this down to the cheap bald old tyres it had, so i replaced all 4 with Michellin tyres. It tracks straight on the road, and drives perfectly on any flat smooth surface, but as soon as you hit a pot hole, manhole cover, or bump, the steering wheel turns against your wishes. This is worse than any car ive had before apart from dodgy kit cars with badly designed steering rack and wishbone geometries. Do omegas all suffer from bump steer? Can this be combated?

When it was up in the air having the tyres changed, i had a good lever on all joints around the front, but couldnt find any play. Its also had new lower wishbones both sides. Ive been running 34psi in all tyres. This is a bit high on the front, but even with 28 as in the old tyres it still did this.

[Andy H]

What make of wishbone / bushes? and how many miles since they were fitted?

You should find the answer here Suspension, handling, tram lining & tyre wear

Mine was tramlining, popping in and out of the lorry ruts on the motorway, but it I seem to have cured it by fitting Lemforder wishbones and setting the front camber to -1deg10". (I'm not sure which was most significant  :-/)

[Filth_Mobile_Jim]

Not sure of brand of wishbones. They were fitted by the previous owners.

Ive read that article, and some others i found on here. V useful.

Im going to check the geometry at work next week to see if anything is wildly wrong, but just wondered if this is a common thing.

[Kneepad]

Not sure of brand of wishbones. They were fitted by the previous owners.

Ive read that article, and some others i found on here. V useful.

Im going to check the geometry at work next week to see if anything is wildly wrong, but just wondered if this is a common thing.

I have never experienced it.  If you are sure there is no excessive play or soft or worn bushes, I suggest a geometry check at Wheels in Motion they have got the Omega setup down to a fine art.

[feeutfo]

Sadly it is common, but a well set up car with new tyres and relevant suspension components can sort things out, to an acceptable level.

See other post re Polly bushes though, there are moves afoot to try and sort a bulk buy deal on the forum so keep an eye out for that if your improvements don't help sufficiently.

Depends where your coming from with the feel of the car your driving IMO. If your used to a small sports car then drive an omega then the feel may well be very different.

But given you have new tyres, try to get it sorted asap before they ware too much to the current set up or they will be worn unevenly for the new correct set up. Omega is quite sensitive to tyre ware and set up. See wheels in motion web site also.

Hth

[Abiton]

Have only experienced this once, immediately after someone fitted some new wishbones (and droplinks and front discs) to ours.  Said person told me it would all need setting up after this work, so I'd booked it in to Tony at WIM. 

When I got there and he'd done his stuff he asked me if I'd been suffering bump-steer, 'cos the tracking was a loooong way out.  Felt so much better on the way home.   

[davethediver]

Just had mine set up properly and it feels like a different car, its lovely

[2woody]

I'm sure it's tramlining and not bump-steer.

don't think Omegas suffer from bump steer at all

[fergy]

Get it to WiM ASAP, don't bother with anyone else. My estate was exactly as you describe. Then I parked it in town and left it on full lock for some half blind truck driver to clout the o/s tyre so hard that the tyre fouled the back of the wheel arch. ( My own fault, of course) Following replacement wishbone and complete track arm it was back to it's  "normal behaviour" No he did not leave a note!
Took it to WiM and it is now wonderful to drive. They even moved the front sub frame within the slack of the bolt fixings to get it right.
When you consider a budget tyre for one of these is about £60, the same amount (for OOF) invested in alignment is good value.

[Entwood]

When we changed both my front outer trackrod ends at Newent, we "guessed" the settings by counting the turns as best we could. Once reassembled the car was almost undriveable ...   Bump steer/tramlining ... whatever .. the car went where IT wanted .. not where the driver wanted !!!  A "visual" check showed we had got things wrong .. and some very coarse visual adjustments were made in order to drive home. The car then went for a quick local tracking  before going to WIM for a "proper" set up .. afetr a little more work.

The point here is that if the "setup" is badly wrong ... you will get many problems. Omegas are VERY sensitive to setup, both from a handling and a tyre wear point of view.

[feeutfo]

I'm sure it's tramlining and not bump-steer.

don't think Omegas suffer from bump steer at all

Is that because you have an mv6? Or because we don't understand bump steer...?

The symptom I apply the term to on mine is, hit a b ump while cornering and it kicks the steering wheel in hands, can feel it twist...?

There are a couple of these bumps on my commute, fast sweepers taken at speed with a bad road works repair running across the road mid way round, it amounts to a mini speed bump in effect.

[mark.adams]

When you consider a budget tyre for one of these is about £60, the same amount (for OOF) invested in alignment is good value.

Does OOF get a discount on WIM? Does this apply to all the branches that have syndicated WIM?

[feeutfo]

When you consider a budget tyre for one of these is about £60, the same amount (for OOF) invested in alignment is good value.

Does OOF get a discount on WIM? Does this apply to all the branches that have syndicated WIM?

Yes but only at wim in chesham, you need to mention the forum though

[fiend61]

is there a wim anywhere in yorkshire that people know of?

[feeutfo]

is there a wim anywhere in yorkshire that people know of?

Visit wim web site, they have franchises around the country...