Hi all, taking the vit on a long journey the other weekend, it felt unstable at speed. At 90 leptons/hour the steering was very light and sensitive. It felt like if you sneezed you'd spin off and crash...

Unfortunately I don't know if it was also like this before the power steering pump was renewed, because it wasn't driven at sustained speed.

Anyone know if this is a) normal? and b) how it might be remedied?

Thanks

Can anyone comment on how their car's steering feels at motorway speeds?

Front shocks? Why? If they go soft then "stickability" is impaired.

Think about it this way. If your wheels weighed 100 lbs each, everytime they hit a small bump they would try to launch away from the road. If the shocks are soft and the wheel weight is normal, they would try to launch more that if the shocks were stiff. The wheels therefor try to spend less time on the road so the steering feels light.

Conversely, put in heavy duty shocks and stiff poly bushes the roadholding is great, but you feel every bump and yer teeth all fall out.

Road holding > Comfort

SD1 steering is very light and sensetive with only 2 or so turns lock to lock, where as most cars have at least 3, it may be just a case of adapting to it, power steering on alot of cars 30 years ago was like this, try driving a Ambassador and that is so light its scary!

Yes, scary it does feel!

I'm gradually buying new suspension parts as tbh I think what's on there is past it's best. The shocks aren't obviously leaking, but when the car is jacked up it has to be driven for a bit before the front will settle to normal height. It sits at least 2 inches high when initially lowered from the jack...

I shall renew the suspension, get the alignment checked and see how it goes. I do hope it gets a little better as at the moment a fair chunk of the performance feels unusable

I think I'd have to agree with Ramon,My car is very similar...though my friend recently purchaced a 2300 and I got to drive it home (almost 170 miles) at one point we drove on the wrong side of 100mph (don't tell...Shhh!) and his car felt perfectly stable where I know mine would worry me at 75-80mph.

Would under-driving the power steering pump help at all?

Mine feels a bit twitcy at around 70-80, then feels perfect at 90+. It almost seems like a barrier that I must get through to be able to relax. It's such a shame that inconsiderate people think they can pull out on me, as I have to drop speed and then regain!
One thing about racks, my original rack was a Cam-gears, and that was superb for feel. Remember how Series I's used to feel like they went round corners in "bites"? Well the Cam-gears rack didn't do that, but it was worn out though. I fitted a recon Alford & Adler rack, and guess what, I've got the "series of bites" set-up back. I'm quite gutted.
Try jacking up one front wheel, and pull the wheel side to side. On my old rack, the tie-rod was moving all over the place, that's how I knew I needed a new rack. I took the gaiter off, and the rod was like a d**k in a bucket. it was getting to the point where it was nearly impossible to keep it in a straight line! The new rack has cured that (almost!).