Toe In / Toe Out: A2's at front? Odd handling!

I'm putting this on the thread that Rusty 911started because I may have the beginnings of the same problem.
I live in an area with bad roads and I've just had the wheel alignment checked by ATS. The mechanic told me toe-out had been excessive and that he'd corrected it. Driving on a straight A-road yesterday I found that the car was noticeably veering to the right on power being applied and less noticeably to the left when it was taken off. I have never noticed this behaviour before.

At the MOT 2000 miles ago there were no advisories and I was told that all was well. I can hear no rattles. It's a TDI75 with cast wishbones.

I'm assuming that ATS would only have had to adjust the track rods, and even if they'd got that wrong cannot see how it would have produced the power on/off effect. Before I start down the long road that Rusty911 trod I would be very grateful for any views on whether the problem could simply have arisen from something done or not done during the wheel re-alignment.
 
I had a Citroen ZX many moons ago that developed exactly those symptoms over time. It would also be difficult to settle into faster right-hand bends. For me it was a bush on one of the wishbones. That was basically where Rusty got to as well, I think, although in his case it wasn't done up far enough rather than being worn. Possibly the excessive toe on your car was disguising it?
 
Proghound said:
I had a Citroen ZX many moons ago that developed exactly those symptoms over time. It would also be difficult to settle into faster right-hand bends. For me it was a bush on one of the wishbones. That was basically where Rusty got to as well, I think, although in his case it wasn't done up far enough rather than being worn. Possibly the excessive toe on your car was disguising it?
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I’ve had very similar on a mk4 escort in the past and the answer to the problem was replacing all the worn suspension bushes.

This is far more likely to be the issue here
 
@longdog , They adjusted the tracking to toe in (instead of straight/slightly(minimum!) toe out on fwd cars) and therefore you have this behavior of going to one side on power and back in track off throttle.
 
This won't be tracking. During my adventure I tried a range of tracking settings, none of which did anything. It was amazingly tolerant of almost any setting actually (even if tyre wear might have increased). I think I settled on zero toe in the end.

The odds are that something's shifting under power one way, and shifting back again under engine or actual braking.

In my case (as on this thread) it was because the leading wishbone arm wasn't being correctly supported. It was very hard to spot, even using pry-bars. Even so, this is where I'd start: you're looking to be able to lever the wishbone arm around enough for it to shift, in turn this movement effectively lengthens / shortens the trackrod (which has actually stayed still) giving the pull in one direction or the other.

I have to say when I asked around in the trade, everyone said a similar thing: something's moving. Bushes, balljoints, flexing / cracking wishbones etc. Tyre pressures and tracking might give odd sensations, but not really a direct power on / power off steering lurch.
 
@Rusty911, yes there could be something wrong with bushing or ball joints.
I agree the A2 is very forgiving at tracking, but only at toe out, it has almost no influence on pulling to left or right (does wear out tyres).

I had an experience with an A2 giving the same symptoms; pull to the right on power, back in/slightly pull to left when power off/braking.
Was down to worn bush at the back of the wishbone.
Replaced bush, car behaved the same....... Then checked aligning/toe in/out (should have done before changing the bush, then again I'm no professional for sure.... ?) and there was (very much) toe in.
After setting it up to zero, all was fine again.
Then again maybe it was sheer luck.....

You had an exceptional story (I hope for all A2 owners.... ?) and glad you've found the solution (post #121), but also hope for @longdog they made an error performing the alignment and set up is brought to toe in.
 
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Menno said:
@Rusty911, yes there could be something wrong with bushing or ball joints.
I agree the A2 is very forgiving at tracking, but only at toe out, it has almost no influence on pulling to left or right (does wear out tyres).

I had an experience with an A2 giving the same symptoms; pull to the right on power, back in/slightly pull to left when power off/braking.
Was down to worn bush at the back of the wishbone.
Replaced bush, car behaved the same....... Then checked aligning/toe in/out (should have done before changing the bush, then again I'm no professional for sure.... ?) and there was (very much) toe in.
After setting it up to zero, all was fine again.
Then again maybe it was sheer luck.....

You had an exceptional story (I hope for all A2 owners.... ?) and glad you've found the solution (post #121), but also hope for @longdog they made an error performing the alignment and set up is brought to toe in.
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Perhaps in your case the toe had previously been adjusted to give correct alignment with the worn bush, and replacing that bush then sent the toe off?

Having thought about it, @longdog it does seem mighty strange for such an issue to appear at exactly the time the tracking aas done. Against that, there's no way my issue would have been picked up at MOT time, so don't dismiss an underlying issue. One of my upcoming refurbs is a Discovery 3. These are notorious for doing bushes and there are lots. Talking to specialists what happens is customer asks for alignment to be done but because everything is worn / soft, getting accurate settings is like nailing jelly to the ceiling. Everything's moving / drooping / sagging so any setting is almost meaningless. Net result is a £1500 suspension refresh and finally, an accurate alignment.

Anyway, point being is fact alignment needed doing may be because of a pothole (which let's face it, still means something's bent or shifted) but just as likely because bushes have degraded, or something somewhere is moving.
 
Thank you, Rusty911 and others, for your very helpful answers. I'm going to take the car to a trusted garage to have the bushes really carefully examined, and then decide what to do. I will relate Rusty911's experience. You've confirmed that there's no point at this stage in going back to ATS to have the alignment checked again.
Thanks again.
 
longdog said:
Thank you, Rusty911 and others, for your very helpful answers. I'm going to take the car to a trusted garage to have the bushes really carefully examined, and then decide what to do. I will relate Rusty911's experience. You've confirmed that there's no point at this stage in going back to ATS to have the alignment checked again.
Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Yes, fast fit type centres (esp the big names) are renowned for their value, expertise or diagnostic prowess. I seem to remember that most of my levering around was pretty random to start and involved getting the bar in wherever I could. It's important to replicate the stresses that occur in use though, so in the case of wishbones, an in / out movement.

If there's deffo no movement, then get them to do a quick and dirty tracking check. It might be that it's miles out after all :oops:
 
Update on car veering power on/off: the boss of the local garage drove the car and said he didn't think the problem was in the wishbone bushes. But then he put it on his very impressive lift with 'shaker plates', which pushed and pulled the wheels in and out, and found that there was indeed play in the n/s bush.

He later called to say he couldn't get replacement cast arms from Audi and very generously suggested that if I got some off ebay he would be happy to fit them. He thought labour cost would make replacing the bushes on the existing arms too expensive, though various Youtube videos suggest it's not such a big job.

There seem to be quite a number of cast wishbones on ebay, at very different prices, mostly from Lithuania but branded.

I've read a lot on the subject of wishbones on this forum but would still be grateful for anybody's recent experience - in particular whether to get the bushes replaced or, if not, which cast wishbones to go for.

That the problem surfaced immediately after I had the alignment adjusted must have been co-incidental, but of course correct alignment would have been unachievable anyway.

Thanks to all.
 
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