needdlex

Hey guys,

I'm not an expert, but I think I can explain this well enough to give accurate information.

I can hear/feel a very faint noise coming from what I think is the front wheel area while turning left and right. I only feel it at low speeds and while moving (forward or backwards). I can sit idle and turn the wheel and I don't feel or hear anything, it's as smooth as glass.

There isn't any play in the steering when I am driving the car, it is very tight and responsive. I don't feel any slop at any time. The lug nuts are tight, I don't feel any play in the tie rod ends, and I can't hear anything "crackling" like a loose ball joint.

When I am backing out of my driveway, I turn the wheel and I get the feeling that the car is hesitating or that the wheels are turned to sharply. I don't see a drop in RPMs, it's just a very faint feeling that I didn't have with my C5. It idles really low when rolling out of the driveway, so it might just be the fact that it's trying to move the car with rpms.

My car is under warranty, but the dealership is over an hour away. I don't have a problem getting it looked at, but I want to say, "You need to look at replacing the lower ball joints, or the sway bar is causing a bind"... I imagine that they get plenty of "noisy thing in the front" descriptions, and I'd like to save myself some time.

Thanks in advance.

EVRose

It's normal. It has to do with the width of the front tires. "When making a turn the outer tread portions of the tires are traveling a further distance than the inner tread portions. Since the wheel each tire is mounted on can only rotate at one speed at any given time and your inner and outer treads are traveling different distances, something has to give, and this is termed tire scrubbing. It will often be accompanied by frictional noise termed stick-slip as a portion of the tire repeatedly adheres to and then brakes loose from the pavement. The tighter the turn, the wider the tire, and the stickier the tire compound (as in summer "performance" tires that come on the car), the greater the problem."

needdlex

I'm glad to hear that. I assumed that's what was going on as it wasn't a "hard feeling, like something touching the inside of the rotor notches, it was just something very soft.

The only thing I could relate to when "hesitating when backing up" was turning a tractor's wheels to sharp and it bogs down when you let off the clutch. I'm not sure how many people here have ever driven an old tractor like that, but it came to mind.

I've put less than 500 miles on the car since I bought it, and the former owner also owned the dealership that I got it from, so I had a hard time believing this would have any actual problems.

Josh B.

Could it be a sway bar end link? I had a bad one that would clunk when turning onto uneven asphalt.

87SAM

Threads like this always pop up this time of year as it is more pronounced as the weather cools.

WW7

Mine does it more when the weather is cold like mentioned above , but when it really does it is when I turn sharply on concrete that has the brushed/grooved finish .. The brushed concrete actually makes the steering wheel vibrate back and forth and feel jerky..I have 2 Corvettes and they both do the same thing .....WW
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torquetube

One winter I was parked in a big garage that was bone dry but below freezing. When I went to move the car, I thought for sure something had failed in the suspension. The car shuddered violently when turning.

I'd owned the car for years and was perfectly aware of the noise from front-end scrub, particularly in cold weather, but this was a whole other deal.

It was just temperature. That last ten degrees (particularly on a second-storey floor deck without the thermal mass of the ground below) made all the difference in the world.