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I drive a 2001 Renault Clio 1.4 16v. It was bought second hand in 2006 and it came with aftermarket 14" rims. About a month ago I had to replace my tires, and the guy from the shop just happened to have a set of used stock 15" rims from a Clio 1.5dci, and so I decided to replace both tires and rims. Ever since then, I've been noticing the strange behavior in the steering at high speed. Going on the highway at about 140/150Kmh during the more pronounced turns, sometimes the car turns more than it should. I start turning the steering wheel and everything is fine, then while holding the steering wheel in place, just for a split second, it's like the front of the car is being pulled to the side I'm turning, and then, still without moving the steering wheel, it goes back to normal.

Some additional info:

  • The front tires are Michelin but the rear ones are from a crappy Chinese brand called PACE
  • The car feels a bit bouncy on the highway
  • Driving in the city the car handles perfectly at any speed
  • I'll probably replace the rear crappy tires before winter as they are awful when it rains

Any thoughts on what could be causing this "oversteering"?

Solution: Changing the crappy tires to brand new Michelins fixed the steering problems.

Davide
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3 Answers3

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Depending on how well you know the feeling, the symptoms sound like they could just be a brief slip into oversteer:

As the back end loses traction (which could be the case based on your description of the tyres) the car will feel like it is suddenly turning too much into the corner.

Normally, however, once you lose the back end, it doesn't come back by itself - I don't know whether that model of Clio has intelligent traction control that can sort out an unplanned oversteer, but I guess not.

Rory Alsop
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from what you've said it sounds like an issue with the rear tyres, mismatching different makes of tyre's can throw the handling out as they all have different tread patterns (even more noticable in the rain because they aqua plane differently)

couple of other things to check would be -

  • Check all the wheels have been balanced properly
  • check all the tyres are the same size
  • check the actual wheels you bought fit your car, the offset or center bore might be slightly off
  • make sure the wheel/tyre isnt catching on anything such as the inside wall, suspension strut, etc

I used to work in a garage and these where the most common fixes, after that it started going into things like suspension issues, bent bottom arms, trackrod ends, etc

scriptss
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Once u replace the rears it might be worth getting the tracking done. After that it could be a problem with power steering as might be itermitent fault with servo.

James king
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