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V35 Tight Steering - Is There A Way To Make It Smooth

@rawed

By @rawed,
in V Series (V35, V36, V37 & Infiniti)

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sonicii Veteran

sonicii

Posted
Posted

Check the above items.. if they are all ok, it could possible need a VDC alignment. This is an electronic procedure done by Nissan's consult, that teaches the VDC system the position of the steering wheel when you are driving straight. if this is out of alignment, the VDC system may think you are actually trying to turn sharper than the car is cornering, and thefore intervenes. This will be more noticable at high speed because less steering input is needed to lose control of the vehicle.

FlyingEL Rising Star

FlyingEL

Posted
Posted

All I know is, when the slip light flashes, it actually cut power to your rear wheel (as our car are rear wheel drive), so you feel the sudden deceleration. The VDC button is actually our traction control. But why it's coming on when you are just turning, I'm not sure. Some people also feel the that if turn into a corner to hard, the car understeer and VDC kicks in to control the slip on the front. They are wrong. The VDC only control the rear wheel, if you are on the brake while cornering, it's the ABS working. If brake is not apply, it will just continue to slid (understeer)

R6n350GT Experienced

R6n350GT

Posted
Posted

All I know is, when the slip light flashes, it actually cut power to your rear wheel (as our car are rear wheel drive), so you feel the sudden deceleration. The VDC button is actually our traction control. But why it's coming on when you are just turning, I'm not sure. Some people also feel the that if turn into a corner to hard, the car understeer and VDC kicks in to control the slip on the front. They are wrong. The VDC only control the rear wheel, if you are on the brake while cornering, it's the ABS working. If brake is not apply, it will just continue to slid (understeer)

This is the lower control arm and will cause VDC to come on when turning or going around a bend.

IMG_3469.jpg

sonicii Veteran

sonicii

Posted
Posted

All I know is, when the slip light flashes, it actually cut power to your rear wheel (as our car are rear wheel drive), so you feel the sudden deceleration. The VDC button is actually our traction control. But why it's coming on when you are just turning, I'm not sure. Some people also feel the that if turn into a corner to hard, the car understeer and VDC kicks in to control the slip on the front. They are wrong. The VDC only control the rear wheel, if you are on the brake while cornering, it's the ABS working. If brake is not apply, it will just continue to slid (understeer)

This is incorrect. Traction control and VDC are 2 separate things.

Traction control can only cut the engine power to maintain traction of the rear wheels when under heavy acceleration, it is only there to prevent wheel spin. I believe this feature is standard on all V35 skylines.

Some models also have VDC (indicated by the 'VDC off' button), VDC uses steering wheel angles sensors, wheel speed sensors (same sensors as ABS uses), Yaw sensors and G sensors to determine if the car is tracking a corner correctly as per the steering wheel input. if it is not, it can apply braking to wheels independantly and can adjust engine power to correct the vehicle's track

The 'VDC off' button probably turns off TC as well. for those without VDC, I am not sure if there is a way to turn off TC.

You should fix the lower control arm bushes regardless, it could possibly be the cause, if it is throwing your wheel alignment out under hard cornering, it may mean you need to turn the wheel harder and that could upset the VDC system. If it doesn't fix the VDC problem, you aren't any worse off, as the bushing needs to be fixed anyway.

Nightcrawler Grand Master

Nightcrawler

Posted
Posted

^^ the VDC off button doesn't turn off much except traction control, sadly. I found this out the hard way 2 weeks ago at the SAU Nationals at Winton - my abs/stability control kept going crazy trying to straighten me up around hard corners, as it thought I was going to crash. I was tempted to pull the ABS fuse and see if it stopped it, but was afraid I would throw a CEL and have to limp the car 700km to get home.

T4NK Experienced

T4NK

Posted
Posted

Well my mechanic had a look at it and nothing is wrong, there is a sound coming from the car that sounds like a diff bearing but he inspected the diff and its fine, he did notice my tires are lumpy as hell all 4 of them, he thinks that this could be causing the noise and also causing the car to break traction and cause the slip light to come on, i need to find someone that has a set of wheels that i can put on and drive around the block to see if the noise stops or not but all the control arms and bushes are fine he says even tho i have 112,000 on the clock now they appear to be going strong.

sonicii Veteran

sonicii

Posted
Posted

^^ the VDC off button doesn't turn off much except traction control, sadly. I found this out the hard way 2 weeks ago at the SAU Nationals at Winton - my abs/stability control kept going crazy trying to straighten me up around hard corners, as it thought I was going to crash. I was tempted to pull the ABS fuse and see if it stopped it, but was afraid I would throw a CEL and have to limp the car 700km to get home.

I haven't been able to confirm this, but I have heard that there are 2 stages of 'vdc off', if you just press and release the button it turns off VDC up to 60km/h, to disable it completly you need to hold down the 'vdc off' button for a certain period (something like 6 sec). Maybe someone else can chime in to confirm?

I doubt it will turn ABS off though.. I don't beleve there is any option to turn off ABS other than pulling the fuse. But I don't know if this will have any knock on effects (CEL/Limp mode).

T4NK Experienced

T4NK

Posted
Posted

Ok so, i cracked the shits with turning the VDC off in the raid today took it to a mechanic in Sydney and in 2min was told i have a colpased wheel bearing so now, just jap new wheel bearing asembaly $110 + labour and a trip to my family mechanic to slap the shit out of him.

  • 2 years later...
saif22 Explorer

saif22

Posted
Posted

Hi guys, sorry to resurrect an old thread again. I bought a V35 just a month ago and from the beginning I thought the steering was a bit tight. Please note that my other cars which I'm used to driving more often are a Hyundai i30 and previously a Honda Accord 2001. Therefore, I am comparing my V35 with the powering steerings of the i30 and the Accord as they were so smooth and soft and every time I turned a corner the steering would snap back straight to default position.

But with the V35, when I drive on the road I don't really feel any difference, its only when I'm trying to park the car and maneuver sharp left and sharp right I feel its quite tight (compared to by i30 or Accord) and the steering does not snap back straight to default position after turning which happens with my i30 or accord.

Other than that I don't see any other issues when I go for long drives in the weekends and it drives like a beauty. I know my wheel cambers are tilted at 2 degrees (it came like that from Japan) for better handling at corners and I'm wondering if that could possibly be making the steering so tight as explained above and not making it snap back to straight position after turning?

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

saif22 Explorer

saif22

Posted
Posted

Thanks Scotty. I don't really go racing just drive around normal. I wanted to re-align the wheels (also to stop the tyres from being eaten away on the inner edge) but the guy who imported the car for me told me to keep it as it is and I may ruin it if I try to get them all aligned at a normal tyre shop.

I have checked the power steering fluid, it was topped 3 months ago during service and there is no leak. I might need to get the rod bushes checked, as I have 1 year warranty on the car.

saif22 Explorer

saif22

Posted
Posted

lol,,,,I agree. I didnt even want warranty when I got the car. I previously had a bad experience with my Accord which also had a used car warranty from NWC. My transmission got stuffed and it didn't cover a dime. Had to pay $3000 out of pocket to get that fixed.

During test drive I mentioned about the tight steering and they said it was due to the negative angled cambers and also the thickness of the tyres (as I was comparing it to my accord and hyundai). But once I started reading this thread other questions popped into my head about steering pump or rod bush going bad. Just want to be on the safer side and get things diagnosed in advance.

Now Im even considering whether I even need to have negative cambers. I would be better off with all wheels balanced and aligned. Do you know if the cambers come angled like this from stock? I just want them to the OEM specifications.

sonicii Veteran

sonicii

Posted
Posted

stock alignment is only about 0.3deg neg camber on the front from memory. If it is lowered on stock suspension components, it will blow out. My sedan is on 350z springs which drops it about 25mm, and I have about -1.5deg on the fronts with stock components.

it can be difficult to dial out much neg camber on the front with lowered springs with aftermaret control arms, as the top control arm will hit the guard if it is moved too far out.

If you have stock springs and stock ride height, then something is wrong, either someone has fitted aftermarket upper control arms and dialled in the negative camber, or something is damaged.

As for the steering not 'snapping straight', it is normal for a FWD to pull back to straight under acceleration, you won't get this on a RWD to the same extent.

saif22 Explorer

saif22

Posted
Posted

The steering 'snapping straight' issue now makes sense. I was more worried about it than the tight steering, because I only feel the tight steering when I'm parking but during driving it feels just normal.

I'm pretty sure my car has stock height and I guess stock springs too. To be honest I can't tell what negative angle the cambers are (my claim might have been too extravagant when i said -2 degrees), but I can see all the 4 tyres becoming bald on the inner edge where middle and outer sides are still quite new. Would stock alignment also case the tyres to bald on the inner edge?

I want to re-align all wheels to stock specifications and then see how the steering is then. Can anyone tell me from where can I find the stock wheel alignment specifications?

sonicii Veteran

sonicii

Posted
Posted

http://www.nicoclub.com/archives/infiniti-g35-g37-factory-service-manuals.html

click on the 2003 coupe, open the fwd.pdf file. the alignment specs are on the 2nd last page.

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