Trying to get some ideas on things to resolve my steering wheel wobble problem. To bring everyone up to speed the car is a 1995 993 with 98k. I have owned the car since january, and the steering was fine then at any speed. I have only put 2000 miles on it since i bought it, driven about once a week for local trips to work and back about 20 minute trips on the highway.

Recently in the past 2 months, the car has a steering wheel wobble from 58 - 65 mph. My first thoughts were tires out of balance, so i had them rebalanced, the issue is still there.

Car is 100% stock suspension, what other non-expensive areas should i look at first. Trying not to break the bank here, as i have plans for pss10's in the future.

Thanks in advance for the suggestions.
Steve.

 

Similar problem, but mine is at about 10mph slower. I have been told tire balance from a couple, but the general consensus here seems to be the control arm bushings, as the cars are aging and getting higher mileage. That said, I am putting replacing the lower control arm bushings tomorrow (and will have the tire balance checked for good measure).

 

+1 on the bushings. Do a search on control arm bushings and you will come up with a few threads. It is just the rubber on the control arms that is old and worn out. I installed Chris Walrod's bushings on my '95 and it was a noticeable difference. Now the car is more stable at all speeds.

 

Probably the control arm bushings but check the front wheel bearings for excessive play. BTW, just because a tire/wheel assembly is in balance doesn't mean it can't have excessive lateral run-out or wheel hop. A Hunter "Road Force" balancer can sometimes cure tire issues.

 

For those of you who've just changed the bushings, is a new alignment required?

 

tire flat spot. does it go away after driving a while?

 

I have been told it could be flat spots since i dont drive the car that often. But it doesn't seem to go away after driving a while, so i am inclined to rule that out.

NC trackrat,
There is a shop down the road from my house that has a hunter "Road Force" balancer i will give that a shot first.

I have been looking around and many threads say to change out the control arms completely, because the bushings and ***** joints are not servicable, how accurate are those statements since there are also several posts that say otherwise.

 

When I replaced the bushings on my car (993) and my dad's (964) I marked the eccentric bolt before I took everything apart. We did not have them realigned and the cars track straight with good tire wear. Some will say to get an alignment but that is your choice. It seems we were successful on both installations.

As long as the tire is in good condition the flat areas from sitting go away. It usually takes 5 or 6 mile on the highway for me before the tire smooth out.

This is where I bought my bushings. To my knowledge, Porsche does not offer just the bushings; you need to buy the whole arm. The Walrod bushings are a good product and I would recommend them. There are others on this forum that might suggest a different vendor but in the end they can be changed.


Walrod bushings

 

Before you do ANYTHING, check the tire pressure. It can make the car feel like this.

Then bushings, would be my guess.

 

Yes it can, great suggestion!

 

I had the same problem with steering wobble. I installed new control arm bushings (Chris's) and it went away.

 

Well, my problem was badly worn tires... Raising the car up to ROW height from RS (the RS uprights weren't installed when it was dropped) and will help with bad tire-wear. Still getting the bushing installed too--just a matter of time at 105k miles.

 

Does touching the brakes make any difference? When I got my 96 coupe a couple years back the symtoms mimicked warped rotors, i.e. bad shimmy when hitting the brakes, new bushing and all was good, didn't need the rotors changing. On my 97 with only 46k miles the shimmy was there as you are describing with your car, new bushing and presto, smooth.

 

+1 for the Hummel.


Andreas

 

Do the Walrod bushings require maintenance that the OEM bushings do not, e.g, lubrication???