Odd one this but wondered if anyone has had similar? (I nicked my post of Evo forum for lunch break time save)
Over the Christmas period Mario Kart was running fine and dandy, but I started to notice that a little bit of the steering feedback was gone when pushing on in the bendy bits. At first I put it down to damp roads, leaves and winter weather causing the tires to not work as well as normal and thought nothing more of it.
However, it got worse over about two weeks, greater lack of steering feel and (I’m no Ninja driver so bear with me on this) that sort of “bite†you get when you turn in had gone. It would still go where I pointed it, but something just didn’t feel right. Checked the tires, dampers and as much as my untrained eye could see and nothing looked wrong so I popped into Renault one lunchtime and explained the situation. Mechanic and service man came out and kicked the tires for a bit, told me not to worry and said it would be the damp weather and to make sure the traction control was on all the time in the conditions (boo hiss!) Fair enough so off I went.
The next day going into work the fidgety steering was worse than ever and I had a really odd moment where the car seemed to suddenly find a load of grip mid corner, only not in a good way. It was like a "hop", felt like the back lifted up and tightened the line all on its own - not so good as it felt totally out of my control and the car coming the other way was not to impressed judging by the flashing lights and hand signals I received.
The same thing happened on the way home resulting in a totally unexpected massive slide that I caught with my Buntaesq skills (Reality: it went a tiny bit sideways out of a very slow roundabout and as I screamed everything sorted itself out) Also, any speed above 60 mph made a nasty sound from the whole of the car and the steering would go completely potty and unresponsive, causing the wheel to shake wildly in my hands. Limp home mode was initiated.
So I took it to Renault in Hexham that weekend, explained the whole thing and begged them to take the car out to experience it themselves to confirm it wasn’t just me going crazy. Serious, after having the tires and car looked at twice and been told it was “just me†I was starting to get more than a little worried. Kindly they offered to look at it right away and the mechanic took the car out only to return a few minutes later looking pale faced and a little worried. “It’s buggered mate, that car is trying to kill you†was his reply ….[LIFTED] [LIFTED] bugger…
Odd thing was that the mechanic could find nothing wrong with the car at all, he had serviced a Trophy only the week before with half the mileage and that mine was in the same, if not better condition.
Then he put the car on the ramp and let me have a look underneath and explained a few things to look out for with the dampers - at this point it was becoming clear that I would have to book the car in for an extended session to find the problem as everything was fine under the car…until he had a closer look at the wheels. After a second or two he started to laugh and then grabbed a huge bucket and a chisel which he put against the inside bit of the alloy and then tapped it with a hammer, sending the biggest explosion of caked up mud you have ever seen onto the floor. The entire wheel, all four of them, had nearly five inches of mud stuck to them on the inside all the way around the rims, I never even noticed it as it was so hard and smooth that it looked like part of the wheel - DOH!!!!!!
So after a little clean up on each wheel, a lesson about keeping the insides of alloys clean as well as the outside and never to trust the drive in car washes that claim to clean underneath the car followed by a good old laugh at my expense, Mario Kart was back to very rude health. Better than ever in fact and I now have a weekly regime of getting the mud off the wheels to stop it happening again. (I live on a very muddy farm track so will be getting hold of a pressure washer and foot jack to lift the car up quickly to speed thing up)
No charge either which for half an hour of head scratching and fixing the front splitter with a new bolt was more than kind - I’ll be going back there from now on and am sending the chap a pack of beers for the help, least I can do really.
I did feel very stupid for a few days after mind and will be paying more attention to the underside of the car from now on!
Over the Christmas period Mario Kart was running fine and dandy, but I started to notice that a little bit of the steering feedback was gone when pushing on in the bendy bits. At first I put it down to damp roads, leaves and winter weather causing the tires to not work as well as normal and thought nothing more of it.
However, it got worse over about two weeks, greater lack of steering feel and (I’m no Ninja driver so bear with me on this) that sort of “bite†you get when you turn in had gone. It would still go where I pointed it, but something just didn’t feel right. Checked the tires, dampers and as much as my untrained eye could see and nothing looked wrong so I popped into Renault one lunchtime and explained the situation. Mechanic and service man came out and kicked the tires for a bit, told me not to worry and said it would be the damp weather and to make sure the traction control was on all the time in the conditions (boo hiss!) Fair enough so off I went.
The next day going into work the fidgety steering was worse than ever and I had a really odd moment where the car seemed to suddenly find a load of grip mid corner, only not in a good way. It was like a "hop", felt like the back lifted up and tightened the line all on its own - not so good as it felt totally out of my control and the car coming the other way was not to impressed judging by the flashing lights and hand signals I received.
The same thing happened on the way home resulting in a totally unexpected massive slide that I caught with my Buntaesq skills (Reality: it went a tiny bit sideways out of a very slow roundabout and as I screamed everything sorted itself out) Also, any speed above 60 mph made a nasty sound from the whole of the car and the steering would go completely potty and unresponsive, causing the wheel to shake wildly in my hands. Limp home mode was initiated.
So I took it to Renault in Hexham that weekend, explained the whole thing and begged them to take the car out to experience it themselves to confirm it wasn’t just me going crazy. Serious, after having the tires and car looked at twice and been told it was “just me†I was starting to get more than a little worried. Kindly they offered to look at it right away and the mechanic took the car out only to return a few minutes later looking pale faced and a little worried. “It’s buggered mate, that car is trying to kill you†was his reply ….[LIFTED] [LIFTED] bugger…
Odd thing was that the mechanic could find nothing wrong with the car at all, he had serviced a Trophy only the week before with half the mileage and that mine was in the same, if not better condition.
Then he put the car on the ramp and let me have a look underneath and explained a few things to look out for with the dampers - at this point it was becoming clear that I would have to book the car in for an extended session to find the problem as everything was fine under the car…until he had a closer look at the wheels. After a second or two he started to laugh and then grabbed a huge bucket and a chisel which he put against the inside bit of the alloy and then tapped it with a hammer, sending the biggest explosion of caked up mud you have ever seen onto the floor. The entire wheel, all four of them, had nearly five inches of mud stuck to them on the inside all the way around the rims, I never even noticed it as it was so hard and smooth that it looked like part of the wheel - DOH!!!!!!
So after a little clean up on each wheel, a lesson about keeping the insides of alloys clean as well as the outside and never to trust the drive in car washes that claim to clean underneath the car followed by a good old laugh at my expense, Mario Kart was back to very rude health. Better than ever in fact and I now have a weekly regime of getting the mud off the wheels to stop it happening again. (I live on a very muddy farm track so will be getting hold of a pressure washer and foot jack to lift the car up quickly to speed thing up)
No charge either which for half an hour of head scratching and fixing the front splitter with a new bolt was more than kind - I’ll be going back there from now on and am sending the chap a pack of beers for the help, least I can do really.
I did feel very stupid for a few days after mind and will be paying more attention to the underside of the car from now on!
