The largest Civic Type R club forum

Established in 2002 it brings together people from all over the world to discuss their one love of Type R's.

Have a problem with your CTR? Tell us about them here...

does your car pull to a side for no reason?

Pulls to the Left
205
25%
Pulls to the Right
421
52%
Does not pull
184
23%
#2812477
Managed to catch up with a bit of an expert when it comes to this, here is what he had to say to me (I'll leave his history about him self up so that you can see he has a slight clue as to whats going on)!

"The EP3 just does tramline, every singe EP3 (and for that matter JDM EK9 or DC5) that I've driven (maybe 20-25 or so) does too, its just something we (while I was at Abbey Motorsport) accepted. The problem is that in order to make a front-drive car handle, you'll always have to set it a little "skitty" (ie, tiny tiny tiny bit of toe-out on the rear, or parallel to tiny (0.1-0.2 Deg) toe in if its mostly a road car), this has the side effect of making it wander around and accentuate any tramlining, a front wheel drive car that doesn't tramline usually has a lousy turn-in! The first six years I was involved in Motorsports was with Abbott Racing, SAAB specialists down in deepest Essex. All SAABs at that time were front drive, and we used to compete in the National Saloons and Saloon 2000 series against Escort Cosworths and Andy Middlehursts R32 Skyline with our humble SAAB 9000's and 900's. The only way we could trump the 4WD guys, was on turn in, this was done by setting the car up as skitty as hell with the rear geo. They were nightmarish to drive, and having tried many combinations of front geometry to try and make them a little more tame (including six prototype modified subframes with moved lower arm pick ups etc), we pretty much settled on the fact that if you want feel and precision in a front-drive car, you'll end up with other nasty side effects as a result - its a balance of good vs evil.

You could make the front wheels more compliant to the road by running softer bushes, but (heres the good vs evil) that will of course give you reduced steering response and feel! Its a tightrope!! My suggestion is that if its only now very subtle, you'll have to live with it - sad to say but of course front wheel drive is by design, a compromise. I know the DC5 also tramlines quite excessively. One other possibility however is to run a tyre with a softer sidewall, again a loss of precision is going to be felt, but it may absorb some of the torque tendency to pull at the steering."
#2860832
I've read every page of this thread and to say I'm put off buying one is a huge understatement.....

The very last post makes sense but it appears that you've all spent £££'s on making Hondas flagship hatchback do the one thing a vehicle, no matter how expensive, should do with consummate ease....

Drive in a straight line!


I mean who'd have thought it, you spend £18k on a car and as u drive off the forecourt Honda say 'now if you wouldn't mind popping off to TGM and Tein and spending a little bit more money they'll make it go in a straight line for you'

Bonkers if you ask me......especially when all you hear on the grapevine is how good the Type R handles.
#3069071
My car only ever pulled when the tyres wern't all inflated to the correct pressure. My pressure gauge started playing up and gave slightly different readings to the true pressre (only by up to 4 or 5 psi) but it definitely made a difference.

I got a new gauge, did the pressures again and it was fine. Got to be worth saying that I do the pressures at home with cold tyres as doing them after a drive to the garage has also made a fair difference.
#3177665
I was going to post a thread about steering correction, but having read this I think my issues are pretty tame compared to most!

When I'm sat at motorway speeds I feel like I keep having to correct the steering, only very slightly, but its noticeable compared to past cars where I just hold the wheel and they stay straight. However, when giving it the beans there are no complaints at all. Seems like this is fairly normal then and I actually have it good compared to some people. 04 plate on 73k btw.

Would be interesting to see how similar FWD performance based cars handle this tramlining issue though
#3620741
I recently bought a JDM EP3 and realised after a few weeks ownership that it was pulling to the left on throttle. I'd bought the car with the tracking already checked and adjusted. The car was under warranty but i didn't want a 4 1/2 drive to get the car checked over at the import center.

I was confident the tracking was still ok but I took it to well known tuning garage for them to check over. I was told it was the diff and that until I replaced this the problem was not going to go away.

As it happened two weeks prior before I'd really noticed the problem I had decided to buy new wheels and a complete set of tyres (eagle f1's).
Basically as soon as these had been fit the problem was no more. My car drives in a straight line and I don't have to fight with the steering wheel anymore.

Seems like tyres are a good place to start with this common problem if youre tracking has been verified as ok.
#3620758
I haven't read all of this thread and no doubt its on here but it can be the steering rack slider. Some people grease it up but if its worn its not going to solve the problem long term and the part doesn't cost much its just a bitch of a job.

I had mine done when the car went in for suspension refurb and set up along with upgraded bushes etc etc.
#3703795
Mine is an odd one. Most of the time it feels fine, doesn't really pull or anything. I need to get the tracking done which I will do soon in the hope that it will solve some of the issues, but the steering does feel a little odd on occasion. When one is 'hoofing it', it tends to pull to the right or left depending on what corner you are taking. It almost pulls into the corner and stays on that line. The steering wheel centres itself normally, but seems to not centre as well when turning to the right, and when bombing in and out of corners you really need to hold on and steer the thing otherwise it just feels odd. It's difficult to explain really :scratch:
  • 1
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9
  • 10

Long time ago I had and Ep3 for 220k kilometers in[…]