Title changed - Uneven tyre wear Opel Meriva causing understeer

mjg

EDIT:
I changed the title as the problem seems to be heavy wear on the drivers front tyre, sorry if that's not how it's done. I left the original post below.

I was heading to take a close look at the tyres and ran into the previous owners, had a chat with them and they said they hadn't had any issue like that, but that they did have to change the front tyres a few times a year, even-though the car wasn't doing a lot of mileage.

I took a good luck at the front tyres, the passenger side looks like new, the drivers' side is certainly a little more worn, so it looks like the issue below is a tyre issue.

The parents want to get rid of it, they won't drive it, even if it is a tyre issue (they don't like the idea of new tyres every few months either) but they are afraid to drive it.

If they are to sell it on, they will tell potential owners that this is an issue, I'm not even talking about where they stand legally, but they couldn't not tell someone that the car needs tyres replaced every few months, particularly when it badly under-steers in the wet once the tyre gets worn to a certain point.

So, if anyone is looking for an '05 Opel Meriva that needs a new front tyre(s) every few months and that will scare the s**t out if you when driving in the wet, all offers are welcome.

Original Post

Hi,

My parents (in their 60s) bought a second hand Meriva almost a year ago now, from a local garage. My father knows the previous owners very well, and according to them, there were no issues with the car.

December last I was driving the car, I was going through a roundabout, turning left exiting at the second exit and not going particularly fast, and the car kept going straight for a foot or two, then over-corrected itself, making the car shake and rock from side to side until it corrected itself. Honestly it scared the s**t out of me. There was a car behind me, I saw it back off and give me a wide berth, I'm sure it looked like I was going to go off the road. It was a wet day, a little windy, and I thought that a particularly strong gust of wind had caught the car as I was turning and caused the problem.

I kept going slowly, there was another roundabout which I crawled around to the third exit, then a straight run, then a left turn. The car started the turn, halfway through the turn the car started to go straight again, then the steering seemed to kick back in and I had the same over-correction before it sorted itself out.

I pulled in, to take a look under the car, don't know what I was expecting to find. I figured at that stage that there was either something wrong with the steering, or that I had hit two patches of oil.

I drove it back to the parents house and pulled into a quiet car park, and tried to recreate the problem for about 10 minutes, pulling harder and harder left hand turns, and didn't see a problem.

I spoke to the father, and to a few friends of mine that knew more about cars than I did, and we figured that maybe there had been something on the road.

Months later, my mother was driving it and the same thing happened to her. I was at their house later, and the father had remembered the same thing happened to him once before, that he had just written off as skidding on something.

The garage that they bought it from sent it to an Opel center in Waterford for a full set of tests and they couldn't find anything wrong with the steering. They concluded that it was cheap tyres that the fella they bought it from had put on it, which he replaced with a new set of good tyres.

It has been fine since (for four months approx) until last Friday, driving in a town, and the same thing happened again when both of my parents were in it. They came very close to hitting two parked cars so they are, of course, scared to drive it again.

I have searched google to see if I could find any other cases of something like this but the only thing I found was a fault where the electric steering cuts out, but the car is still steerable. It really doesn't feel like that is the case here, if anything it feels like the steering wheel is disconnected from the wheels.

I would love to know if anyone has heard of this happening before, if even to just have something similar to quote to the guy who sold them the car. They will not drive it again, so I feel as the fault is so intermittent, there is a long battle with the garage coming up.

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.

Mick

ShaunieVW

Understeer? wet road, skinny tyres, then overcorrects? Also hardly the garage's fault. Issues appear with cars during ownership, hardly the previous owner's issue, Especially if it was bought a year ago.