Hi Peeps, i'm new here and looking for advice....about a month ago i noticed my fiesta would rock from side to side every now and then if i went over a bit of an uneven road, had it in at a garage who said it could be the bushes, so had them done, got the car back and the problem was still there yet now the steering wheel is slightly off set to the right, so took it back and the mechanic said the tracking was out so did that..... got it back again and it now feels that the car zig zags rather than rocks but the steering wheel is still slightly offset to the right and now the car pulls to the right, The steering was perfectly fine before the bushes were done as was it wasn't pulling to one side. I've spoke to the mechanic who seems to be baffled as to what it can be as he says he's looked at everything and all seems ok.....any help is greatly appreciated 

Have you checked your tire pressures are all correct, the fiestas are very sensitive to wrong tire pressure (over inflated tyres mostly)

No but I can do that tomorrow, I would have presumed the garage would have looked at that too ?? but you never know....its strange thats it only been doing it for about 3/4 weeks

ive seen several posts on here about strange handling of the car because the garage pumped the tyres up too much or did something like 30PSI on all four tyres

30 on all 4 ha ha ha.....even a novice like me knows you don't do that

If the steering wheel is still off it sounds like the tracking still wasn't done perfectly.  Tracking is one of those 'get what you pay for' things.  If it's just a small garage using an old style manual laser aligner, you might be better off going somewhere that uses a Hunter type machine.  F1 autocentres or KwikFit generally use this type.  It still relies on the tech knowing how to do the job and not dropping the wheel hubs though lol.

They also do a full geometry check which will show things like bent struts which cause odd handling but won't be picked up on a simple toe check.  Also worth asking if you could have hit any large potholes or kerbs lately that might have bent something?

The garage itself doesn't do tracking, I think they take it somewhere, I've not hit anything or gone over anything major that I can think of, I think its something that's just wearing away that's started the problem but just don't get why after what they have done my steering wheel isn't straight anymore as it was fine when it went in???

I would suggest going to a different garage. Ask a friend to recommend one.

Corrie

17 minutes ago, Hedgey said:

The garage itself doesn't do tracking, I think they take it somewhere, I've not hit anything or gone over anything major that I can think of, I think its something that's just wearing away that's started the problem but just don't get why after what they have done my steering wheel isn't straight anymore as it was fine when it went in???

The 'straight ahead' position of the steering wheel is set by the track rods on the steering rack so it's directly affected by a tracking (toe) adjustment.

They should hold the wheel in the central position and then move the rods equally each side to keep the steering wheel perfectly centred.  A lot of places either don't know how or just can't be bothered to get it perfect, I've only been happy with one tracking job that I've had done in the last decade lol!

54 minutes ago, corrie273 said:

I would suggest going to a different garage. Ask a friend to recommend one.

Corrie

Its booked in with a different one this week

Apart from tyre pressures I'd suggest you (or garage) make sure the wheel nuts are correctly tightened. I have seen years ago someone going to a 'quick' tyre place for new tyres fitted to find half way down the road a wheel falls off!! You can get better than a ..........

As it's booked in, I'd also suggest you ask them to check all wheels for movement when on the ramps, before they put equipment on. Most garages do it anyway (one I use does).

The Fiesta I purchased before the one I have now arrived from a Ford main dealer with all four tyres at 20 psi.

 

Strangely when I bought mine, the tyre pressures were way over pressure. 38-40 psi instead of 32/33. The Mk8 has tyre pressure monitors where you can see the pressures in the settings. You can check them whilst on the move. I'm not sure if you can on earlier models.

My 2019 St-Line was delivered from about 80 miles away. The guy who handed it over to me was clearly clueless as a driver as he said to me these things handle quite well don't they.

I dropped him off at the local train station about 3 miles up the road from me. The first thing I noticed after my previous 2016 st-line was that if felt very light on steering and way too stiff on the suspension. Was begining to think I'd mad a mistake on getting this model. Drove it back home and thought the handling was pretty bad.

Thought I'd check under the bonnet to make sure the Oil level was ok, found a dead snail stuck to the top of the battery and brown paper wrapped around lots of the cables and pipes. Then checked the tyres, 42psi all round 😞

Removed the snail and brown paper and set the tyres to 33/26 as per the manual and took it up the road, was handling lovely then. 

Clearly nobody did any pre delivery checks and the driver didn't check the car was safe to drive (same could be said for me I suppose, but was under a bit of pressure to get him to station for the next train and excitement of a new car is my excuse 🙂 )

Sadly since then my car is now also feeling a bit strange handling wise. Shouldn't be any wear in the 20,000 miles I've done, I have managed to avoid all pot holes and the biggest bump it's been over is a cats eye. Feels very vague, just waiting for the covid restrictions to be (hopefully) eased so that I can book it in for a proper inspection and get a courtesy car.

Not sure how I'm going to get on claiming for warranty work if it's required, I'm guessing that any damage/wear in suspension will be hard to prove it's not my fault for driving into holes or kerbs?

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Jim H said:

Strangely when I bought mine, the tyre pressures were way over pressure. 38-40 psi instead of 32/33. The Mk8 has tyre pressure monitors where you can see the pressures in the settings. You can check them whilst on the move. I'm not sure if you can on earlier models.

as far as i am aware on older cars such as the mk7.5 and older if you had tyre pressure monitoring sensors installed they would only give you a warning light if the tyre pressure was low and there was no way of checking the pressure through the sensors without plugging a laptop in

4 minutes ago, Neb_engineer said:

as far as i am aware on older cars such as the mk7.5 and older if you had tyre pressure monitoring sensors installed they would only give you a warning light if the tyre pressure was low and there was no way of checking the pressure through the sensors without plugging a laptop in

Depends how the monitoring system was set.   The one with all the tyres at 20 psi had the monitoring system but it didn't show any abnormalities.   I reset all the tyre pressures to the proper values and then reset the monitoring system.

3 minutes ago, Bobr said:

Depends how the monitoring system was set.   The one with all the tyres at 20 psi had the monitoring system but it didn't show any abnormalities.   I reset all the tyre pressures to the proper values and then reset the monitoring system.

i mean when i said that it was the assumption that the monitoring system had been callibrated properly

also with my fiesta the normal tyre pressure is 32/26 psi

Check tyre pressure and according to manual they should be 30/26....tyres and pressure is fine....I def think its something that's wearing away as its only just started doing it about a month ago, been out in it today and its even worse, I'm more mad that not only do I still have the original fault but that's its now worse and also my steering is not straight which it was before the 1st garage had it

the steering not being straight just sounds like the adjusted the tie rods for toe wrong, you can check this by turning the wheel full lock one way, check how much the wheels are actually turned, then do the same thing on full lock the other way

Had it in at another garage who said the tracking hadn't been done right.....steering wheel now straight and car feels a lot better but i don' know if im just waiting for it to go funny now lol.

Thanks for the suggestions tho peeps 🙂