Steering/suspension question (97 HSE)

[scot]

I am looking at a few different range rovers, and have some questions about one of them.

The alignment of the steering wheel to direction of travel was way off (15%CCW was straight forward). While it seemed to drive just fine going straight forward, with the wheel cocked to the left, it definitely wasnt super tight. It also has a braking vibration that does not feel like it is coming from the rotors, its quite violent and only from higher speed. The final issue is that when going at fair speed and hitting a slight bump the steering jerked around a bit. Nothing overtly dangerous, but it was definitely not "stable."

The mechanic attributed the issues to alightment and bad tires, but I am not sure. The owner will be replacing the tires and aligning so thats good, but I am curious about what everyone thinks.

Otherwise the Rangie felt fine, power was good, maybe a slight exhaust leak so the engine isn't perfectly silent but has plenty of power, EAS works, and much of it was recently (<1yr) replaced, and has no obvious fluids coming out of the bottom etc etc.

This is for a 97 HSE.

BTW What would you consider a fair price for a 97 in fair to good condition with new tires?

 

[Francis K]

well...

I'm looking at a 97 HSE with 107k on the odo for 8,000, it also is in perfect condition with new tires. They are problematic as hell with the lucas electronics and all but I figured the price is a steal. Care to tell what price range the one your looking at is in?


Francis

 

[scot]

Well I wish it was 8k. The one that I found in "perfect" condition is a 98 selling at 16k (not even contemplating it, he stated a dealer offered him 15k ) and the one with the steering issue is about 10.5k.

Scot

 

[scot]

Gonna have to bump this as I really need help on understanding the possible causes for the steering/suspension problem in this one truck.

BTW it has about 105k miles.

 

[cbrown]

Bushings

I had similar issues on my '89 RRC. Way off center steering wheel, a ton of play, bad vibrations, biased tracking, etc., etc. I changed out the pan hard rod bushings, and it made a dramatic improvement. A cadillac mechanic friend of mine drove it and nearly crapped himself, the steering was so bad. He had me lay under it while he played with the steering wheel, so I could see how loose the bushings were. I'm changing out the radius arm bushings next.

The moral of the story: check the bushings. I'd be willing to bet they are on the way out.