Nervous EP3 handling


ijwhiteman

ijwhiteman

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I know what your probably thinking got to be allignment but I am not sure.

A year ago 6-8k miles roughly we had a full alignment done on the car and had tyres which I believe had a softer sidewall.

Now since fitting new wheels the steering has been noticeable off slightly to the left (small amount) but with the state of our roads is exaggerated at times.

Now whilst it's fine in the corners in a straight line I am almost constantly fighting the car to maintainmy course. (Something my 9 doesn't suffer even with aggressive setup and R888's)

So is this a case of my allignment is now out from occasional interaction with pot holes? IIRC all toe set to 0 and Camber was -1 all round.

Is it a case of the wider track wheels causing the issue?

Is it just lower profile tyres causing the issue? Old ones where 205/40 17 now 215/45 17 different brands.

It's driving me insane now on my daily commute which I know the roads are a right state.

Could it just be the roads? On perfectly smooth Tarmac it seems fine. Can let go of the steering wheel and it will track straight if the Tarmac is perfect...

I have thought about doing a toe check myself which is something I should learn.. My problems with this are unsure of correct and accurate method, worried I will make it worse, don't have the space or perfectly flat environment.

Your thoughts please?

(Notice a similar issue in a different car recently with same wheel size and lower profiles tyres, wasn't as bad but noticeable non the less. He recently had tracking checked)

Thanks in advance.
 
Check
Tyre pressures
Bushes - lower arms upper strut mounts
Condition of struts
Play in rack

If all is well get tracking checked
 
b16 mini said:
Check
Tyre pressures
Bushes - lower arms upper strut mounts
Condition of struts
Play in rack

If all is well get tracking checked
Click to expand...

Check my tyre pressure religiously, the change was almost over night from fitting the wheels, trouble is we where only doing short distance so was much harder to notice before.

Recently change springs so condition of things was checked and all appeared ok. I also get my mate to rigorously check these things during MOT and he seemed happy.
 
Hmm were the tyres new?
 
Try driving the wrong side of the road when you can, see if it pulls the other way. Obviously down a side road or something lol
 
b16 mini said:
Hmm were the tyres new?
Click to expand...

No they where second hand off another a car.

jesse888 said:
Try driving the wrong side of the road when you can, see if it pulls the other way. Obviously down a side road or something lol
Click to expand...

It's not so much that it pulls, it does tramlines quite a bit and it's very bad on poor roads, particularly one stretch of road. It's more that it feels skitty and vague... It's very responsive and turns in lovely. Make me wonder if we have got some toe out... I am thinking it the tyres. Particularly sidewalls... I had similar issue years ago with lower profile tyres.

Tyre pressure where 34 34 now dropped to 32 30.

Thinking I might try 30 30, not sure if there is a lot of point setting up alignment with tyres that have cover approx over 10k.
 
Try swapping the wheels front to rear and see what happens
 
Any vibrations in the car? And what wheels do you have now?

Our EP3 had similar problems after fitting new wheels. Changed wheels front to back, aligned several times, even bought a new tire for one wheel. It got better but still not as good as with the original EP3 wheels. Tried aluminium hub centric rings instead of plastic ones and the problem was gone :angry2:
 
EK4Sure said:
Any vibrations in the car? And what wheels do you have now?

Our EP3 had similar problems after fitting new wheels. Changed wheels front to back, aligned several times, even bought a new tire for one wheel. It got better but still not as good as with the original EP3 wheels. Tried aluminium hub centric rings instead of plastic ones and the problem was gone :angry2:
Click to expand...

No vibrations at all, interesting you mention centric rings.... We aren't using any. :secret:

banzai_ek9 said:
Are the wheels balanced?
Click to expand...

No issues with balance.
 
What tyres? Have you jacked it up and checked the tread all the way round? Some leave them until they hit the legal limit, not great on the lead up to the cold stuff.
 
EP3 suffer from rear camber problems rear tyres wear making the tyre wear uneven . U can hear like a wheel bearing noise .
 
haitch said:
What tyres? Have you jacked it up and checked the tread all the way round? Some leave them until they hit the legal limit, not great on the lead up to the cold stuff.
Click to expand...

Falkens, the treads are fine I check them regularly. All probably about 5mm at the mo.

Bigskank said:
EP3 suffer from rear camber problems rear tyres wear making the tyre wear uneven . U can hear like a wheel bearing noise .
Click to expand...

No issues with that, we had the allignment done when we fitted the springs. All toe and camber.
 
What Falkens do you have? It's known the FK452 isn't the best choice and it has had some issues in the past. We have the same ones and immediately thought there was something wrong with one of the tires, hence why we bought an extra one just to compare.

If our wheels didn't come with these tires already fitted I never would've bought them. If you do need hub centric rings, make sure you get aluminium ones. Plastic ones are utter crap.
 
Still unable to swap wheels, thought I try tyre pressures tonight after driving.

LR 30.5
RR 31
LF 33.5
RF 33.5

Set all to 30 all round see if that improve things in the short term.

Plan for weekend switch tyres front to back, put rings on and see what that does.
 
I have always thought ep3s had differnt handling characteristics compared to ek9, dc2. Personally i thought they where more prone to over steer. They seem to feel very light st the rear under heavy breaking
 
wider track will make anything more noticeable

with the M3 running rear wheels all round the front end is massively wide tracked and this causes the car to tramline on back roads and such even with the alignment accurate to within 0.5mm

my ep3 has had 4 wheel alignment and the rear lower wishbone bushes done on the front, it tracks very straight, although it can sometimes follow the cambers of the road a bit (oem wheels, oem tyre sizes)

i quite like the handling of the EP3, it's predictable - oversteer you can easily provoke by turning in off the throttle, if you hold a bit of throttle then it is OK, mine is on eibach springs and the rear end certainly doesn't feel light under braking

set the tyres to 32psi all round, 30 is too low

might just be that the alignment needs checked, it can easy go out in the space of a year due to road conditions

also depending on what car the wheels came off of, i can garuantee the wear on them is different to the wheels that came off your car. i usually have to check/adjust alignment on the M3 when i swap wheels front to rear due to the extreme camber on the front which wears the insides of the tyres a little more
 
My EK4 had what you describe when I ran Toyo T1Rs on the rear, always felt a bit wandery and never really very stable, I was often worried taking it over 60mph. At the time I had Goodyears on the front, swapped them front to back and the issue immediately went away.

Conclusion, Toyos are ****. I imagine this is because of their often slated soft widewalls. Your Falkens may well have the same issue, though really it should be less of an issue with the lower profile...
 
stevenEK9 said:
wider track will make anything more noticeable

with the M3 running rear wheels all round the front end is massively wide tracked and this causes the car to tramline on back roads and such even with the alignment accurate to within 0.5mm

my ep3 has had 4 wheel alignment and the rear lower wishbone bushes done on the front, it tracks very straight, although it can sometimes follow the cambers of the road a bit (oem wheels, oem tyre sizes)

i quite like the handling of the EP3, it's predictable - oversteer you can easily provoke by turning in off the throttle, if you hold a bit of throttle then it is OK, mine is on eibach springs and the rear end certainly doesn't feel light under braking

set the tyres to 32psi all round, 30 is too low

might just be that the alignment needs checked, it can easy go out in the space of a year due to road conditions

also depending on what car the wheels came off of, i can garuantee the wear on them is different to the wheels that came off your car. i usually have to check/adjust alignment on the M3 when i swap wheels front to rear due to the extreme camber on the front which wears the insides of the tyres a little more
Click to expand...

We have eibach springs also on ours. Going to switch tyres round tomorrow, when we picked the wheels up we put the rears off his car on the front of our to even wear. Maybe switching will help, if not will get allignment checked.

It's tramlines a lot on poor roads, and unfortunately 22 of the 23miles are poor roads. :angry:

Is there a way I can check my alignment easily at home?

Kozy said:
My EK4 had what you describe when I ran Toyo T1Rs on the rear, always felt a bit wandery and never really very stable, I was often worried taking it over 60mph. At the time I had Goodyears on the front, swapped them front to back and the issue immediately went away.

Conclusion, Toyos are ****. I imagine this is because of their often slated soft widewalls. Your Falkens may well have the same issue, though really it should be less of an issue with the lower profile...
Click to expand...

Toyo's and Kuhmos where fine. Just these combined with poor roads is giving me a right headache.

One thing to note, we have gone from 205/45 to 205/40 and now these 215/45....
 
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