Car Goes Nuts On Ice??

[Metallman56]

this winter for one reason or anther my car will not track straight on slick roads. before you think i've got a bald tire, let me start off by saying all 4 of my tires have plenty of tread left on them. i used to work for discount tire, so i know i sh*t tire when i see one. nor are my tires some high performance summer only tire. there goodyear's tripple tread. i've had them on my car sense i bought it in 04 (2nd set) and the car has never done this. tires are all at 35 psi give or take a psi.

ok so now that its not the tires lets more on. heres what it does. anytime i go over 35 on a snow coverd road my car kicks to the left. then i have to correct to the right and i'm sure if i dont get off the gas it would end in a spin. the more slick the surface, the more extreme it wants to jolt into on coming traffic. also the slicker it is, means that it does this at a lesser speed. meaning this morning when i was driving on black ice, it wanted to vear left at about 25 mph. not fun at all when on black ice. its very hard to describe how it feels. its not quite the same feeling as a rear end coming around on a rwd car. and its not quite like a big gust of wind hitting the car while on the highway. really its a bit of both. i can feel the car moving to the left, then it feels like the back end is coming out.

my first thought was it needed a alienment (sp). i did replace a strut on it over the summer. right rear to be exact. and thought the tire could be slanted in a way that cause the rear to want to slip out. so i had a 4 wheel alienment done on thursday. all seemed well until we got dumbed on again with snow this weekend. this morning on the way to work the problem seemed worse. but the roads were also slicker then last week. so i'm really unsure wtf is going on.

i havent hit anything over the summer or anything crazy like that. though i admit i have not crawled under it yet and looked to see if it was anything obvious like something bent or broken.

my only other thought is that when i did the strut i used a monroe quike strut. which came with new springs and everything. the other 3 springs are stock but with kyb adjustables on them. so i dont know if that would matter, or make a differnce. i'm just trying to throw out everything i can think of.

one last thing i'd like to narrow down is its not just me. i've driven the car for the last 5 winters, this will be the 6th. i know what it does in the snow and slick conditions. just like i know what it does in the rain. when you've driven the same car for the past 6 years almost every day of your life, you come to know exactly what it does and exactly how it feels. it has never ever felt like this before.

any thoughts ideas, things i havent thoght of would be great. thanks guys!

yeah i know i cant spell, sorry.

[Mike Jung]

Aren't you suppose to do the struts in pairs !!!?

I bet your suspension is not "balanced".

[bricooper78]

difference in spring rates could influence the car, see if it goes weird on you while compressing/rebounding from a bump or hump in the road. maybe it's just enough difference in spring, combined with the slick weather...
at any rate, it's a weird problem, very weird. maybe your car hates that new unicorn sticker on the back bumper?????

[Metallman56]

i suppose it could be out of balance. but wouldnt that make the car handle like crap? i just cant see spring rates causing me to vear to one side or anther. i guess the only way to find out if thats right is to drop $450 on 3 new struts. yikes. i'll consider that a last restort.

[AaronGTR]

I would also suspect the suspension. You should NEVER use different brand/types of springs and struts between sides! You probably never notice anything on dry warm roads because the tires have enough grip to over come it, but on a slick surface it shows itself. The only other thing that I can think of that would make such an obvious difference is a dragging brake caliper, from either sticky slider pins or a caliper piston starting to freeze up.

I would probably check out the brakes first, and if you don't find anything wrong with those, at least replace the other rear strut/spring so they match. That won't be as expensive as doing all three and it should eliminate any difference that would make it pull sideways.

[Metallman56]

i'm definalty going to check if i have a caliper slipping. hell i havent touched my rear brakes in years, so god only know what kind of shape those are in. also i should say when i try to stop it does the same thing, goes left. but only when its slick.

thanks for the idea aaron. i'll definatly check it out.

if theres no update it means my car slide itself off the road and i'm dead

[rocketfast123]

Originally Posted by AaronGTR

I would also suspect the suspension. You should NEVER use different brand/types of springs and struts between sides!

I hate to say but I agree.

Think about if your left leg was 15 y/o and your right was 25y/o.

At lease do the complete front or rear at the same time. Tires are an another story.

[bricooper78]

think of springs like a pair of basketballs.

one fully inflated, the other half inflated.

drop them both from chest level. they won't bounce the same. that is basically what a new spring/shock is doing against the other three. if you do the other rear it will at least balance the left/right condition out

[stonemason90]

basically what the new spring is doing is pushing the car up stronger than the other side which causes a weight shift which in turn makes the rear end swing one way or the other. at the very least replace the other back strut/spring.... thatll at least balance out the back which should remove the problem.

[bricooper78]

and on a side note,

your car would be killer at Bristol!

[rocketfast123]

Originally Posted by bricooper78

and on a side note,

your car would be killer at Bristol!

[AaronGTR]

I just noticed... the thread title sounds like the name of an icecapades show. If it involved Ken Block in a rally car with studded tires, I would go see "car goes nuts" on ice!

[bricooper78]

LOL sequel to "Maximum Overdrive"

[thakid22]

Your issue is one of two things... A sticky or frozen rear brake caliper, or the mismatched suspension you've created.

As already mentioned, struts should ALWAYS be installed in pairs. IDEALLY, you want to replace all 4 at the same time, with the same kind of strut.

Your KYB's are adjustable? Chances are they are much stiffer than that Monroe Quick Strut you put on. Adjust the 3 KYB's to max soft, and see if that improves your situation. That'll help them better match the damping rates of the softish MONROE you put on.

If there's no change, then you can start looking to see if you have a funky rear caliper.

The problem is most likely your struts.

[Metallman56]

well sadly its not the breaks. took those apart this weekend, and they are are working fine. no wore pads on one side of the rotor and not on the other. also all were greased up just fine. which means its my struts. awesome.

to the above post all of my sturts were set at the softest setting. so now i'm going to put them all on the hardest setting to see just what happens. i think the new spring is the biggest issue. the other springs are stock and have about 115k miles on them. theres no way there as stiff as the new one. so what the hell, if its too bad it takes about a min to switch them all back. that is if i dont hit a tree before then.

[cutlsp]

Shouldn't have used a quick strut to save time unless you intended to replace both rears together. Also you always replace suspension components in pairs not single parts keeps the car balanced that way. Your issues are from that quick strut and the new spring together because the back end of the car is no longer balanced.

[psy7]

i cant really say because same thing happens to me and the suspension is stock car is aligned and brakes are fine but my car also hates the snow and ice

[Metallman56]

ok so i changed my left rear strut to the exact same as the right rear. same result on ice. the car simply will not drive straight when the road is slick. now here is what i dont get. before the strut change when i would break the rear end would slide out to the right. now it brakes straight like it should. so the strut corrected the braking problem, but it still wont go straight while not braking. i'm kinda clueless.

thoughts?

[cutlsp]

These cars have really bad torque steer problems common with front wheel drive cars not much you can do about not driving straight. At least when you brake it stops straight now. I can't think of any car that drives perfectly straight on ice. Unless they are the really fancy cars that claim to be able to handle ice well. Ice is slick and most cars will have issues on ice. Try starting off in second gear rather then drive and see if that helps any.

[Metallman56]

to above, no, no no no no and no. thanks for the help but what you posted above helps me 0. if you would have read my first post you would have read the car has never done this is the past 6 years i have owned it. and i know ice is slick. i also know that starting on ice can be a pain, however sense my car is a gt that means that its a automatic, which also means i cant start in 2nd. or any other gear for that matter. please dont waste your time posting if your not going to read about the problem to begin with.