Twitchy Subaru Forester handling - is it just me?

I am encountering some handling issues and trying to figure out if its normal? Its a 2002 Sub Forester S, has abt 27M miles - running Geolanders - they appear to have worn fairly evenly. (I bought the car at about 22M miles). I had an alignment done last month and alignment was indeed out some(mainly toed out too much). After that, it seemed to handle fine - we had some winter storms couple of weeks ago and I swapped out the wheels/tired for some Kuhmo izens mounted on wheels (from tirerack) and it handled fine with those. But now since I have put the Geolanders back on its back to handling squirrely. The car will track straight on the highway for the most part but encountering any unevenness in the road (patches, ruts worn form studded tires etc) seems to want to pull the steering off to one side or the other. I have a suspicion that its toed out again too much - but maybe I am just being too sensitive, and this is normal? Can the process of swapping tires/wheels can throw alignment out?

Reply to
KookeeKaroakee
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To my knowledge, swapping tires/wheels shouldn't throw alignment off. May be wrong. May be possible.

How much air pressure are you running?

HW

Reply to
H. Whelply

Reply to
KookeeKaroakee

Tire type will defenitely affect handling. Have some Yokos on one vehicle which have a solid rubber strip down the middle, and this strip finds every little crack in the road, especially at lower speeds. Nothing serious, but noticeable. If your tires are worn, it could cause this as well. Switching tires doesn't affect alignment, but do check your rims to see if they are crooked or out of true.

Ed B.

Reply to
ed

My new '04 Forester XT has Geolanders, of course, and one of my first impressions of the car was being a bit twitchy on freeways that had been grooved to help avoid hydroplaning--it wanted to follow the grooves. I guess I'm just used to the car/tires now, because I don't notice it.

I'll have to look to check: do Geolanders have that "solid rubber strip down the middle"?

HW

Reply to
H. Whelply

From what I've read somewhere and speaking to a friend who builds super fast kit cars for road and track, the amount of toe-in is a factor in this situation. I'm told that adding a little extra helps overcome 'tram-lining' and can improve steering feel. This will be at the expense of tire wear regrettably. My Forester S was skittish on white lines, road seams etc with the correct alignment on Geolanders which I hated and wore out at 17K. My current WRX was also prone to the same problem on the factory-fitted Bridgestones (buggered at 10K!) but the new Michelin Sports have made a big improvement using the recommended alignment.

- Clive Norris Selectron (UK) Ltd Musical Equipment Distribution

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Reply to
Clive

Reply to
KookeeKaroakee

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