Can anyone help me with this?
96 Impreza L, 17 wheels, DBA 600 rotors and 2004 wrx calipers up front.

When I come to a stop sign or something, my car always seems to turn about half a steering wheel at about 2mph before I stop. I believe this has happened ever since I bought new wheels and tires but I just had a break job done and I know my rotors aren't warped or that my new brake lines are giving me a problem...any suggestions???

Also, on a side note, the heatshield that goes above my cat and midpipe (right under my e-brake console) is broke and rattles around 3,000RPMs, is it safe for me to remove the whole thing cause a new one is $125 for a stupid piece of scrap metal!

Thanks in advance,
Cody

 

As for the heatshield, if you just want to ghetto-rig it, I have some experience with that. One of my old cars, a '93 Saab 9000 turbo, had the same problem. A couple of the mounts on the heatshield broke, so it rattled. I took a coathanger, straightened it out, and then wrapped it around the heatshield and pipe, twisted the ends together (like a twist-tie) until it held the heatshield tight against it (it was actually the cat. converter heatshield on my car). I had it like that for about 5-6k miles before I sold the car, and it never made any more noise. Never burned the heatshield or anything like that either.

 

Sounds like too much work for me...maybe I'll just remove it and "file" it away.

 

I'm guessing one of your brakes is more grabby on one side for some reason. Maybe the pads aren't seated all the way, or there is some wierdness of pressure in your lines. Which was does the braking pull?

 

Alignment issues?

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

That's the thing, it pulls both ways, nothing really consistent, but I've heard that some people have this problem with 17s on the L and that in conjunction with the road ruts and camber give ya this problem. I did have an alignment and a brake job but they didn't seem to help. Funny thing is that I don't remember having this problem with my old 15 steele wheels...btw, anyone got some 16 winter wheels they wanna sell me cause i don't have winter shoes yet and I can't run these wheels/tires...it'd be like a car on a slip and slide!

 

I wouldn't imagine any problem with using 17" wheels on any Impreza if the offset is correct for the width of the wheel.

Thread moved to Impreza Brakes forum. For other questions regarding your car, please post in the appropriate specific i-Club forums, thanks.

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

A lot of impreza's do this. All of mine have including my brand new 05 STI.

Mine like's to pull to the left. My alignment is fine so I know it's most likely from the brakes; I'm curious too.

 

This might be bump steer. A lot of intersections have a bump in the pavement right where the "stop" line is, as the weight of vehicles causes the ground to settle under the asphalt over time. When I added 17" wheels and tires to my 02 WRX, it definitely increased bump steer -- the wheel is bumped in some way and that movement is translated back to the driver via the steering wheel.

 

This doesn't happen at speed though (thankfully) like it would in a VW. So I don't think it's bump steer because this happens only below 5mph.

I could be tramlining but again... this is only at very low speed.

 

Bump steer *does* happen at slow speed -- at high speed the tire deforms due to force and there is less bump steer. Below 10 MPH is actually where you feel bump steer the most.

 

I had a breaking problem something like that. i found out i had a bubble or flat spot on one of my tires. think it was a tire defect. get ur tires balanced or inspect them. that was my problem and my car responed the same way as yours.

 

hmm...I'll have to go get 'em balanced/rotated and see if they can find it. Thanks for the help guys!

 

Ehh, bump steer is created by bad front end geometry- the change in suspension compression changes the toe if the rack isn't lined up with the lower control arm properly. Your description could be what is causing it though.

Something else worth checking is if you have a sticky caliper slider pin. Try lubing up the pins on the side that the car is turning toward.