This just started recently and was really bad today. If feels like I am moving the steering wheel left and right quickly, but I'm not. Only happens on wet roads.

It's really hard to explain. Picture a wall instead of the lane markers. Now take your hands of the wheel and drive 50-60mph. It's like my car was banging back and forth on that wall, except there is no wall and I am holding the steering wheel.

Tires are 18" Falken (not sure the model off the top of my head) with less than 10k on them and the car is dropped on NEX coilovers ().

In normal driving conditions, there is about 2" of steering wheel play.

This happened on wet/slick roads before the drop and with the stockies on...just not as bad.

Thoughts?

 

has this been going on for a while? I think it may be the tires, aggressive treads like to do this quite a bit, try getting behind a semi on the highway (stay 3 cars away) and you should be able to feel the same effect.

 

These are the tires I have now:



Falken Ziex ZE-912
I first noticed it when when I put P245ZR17 cooper zeon tires on my stock rims. It wasn't as bad as now, and I chalked it up to extra play in the sidewalls from the tires being wider. Those tires were all seasons with normal tread.
The play in the steering wheel has been there since day one. In fact, I never noticed it until I had an '07 TL as a loaner (mine is an '04).

 

Try adjusting the tire pressures-- what pressure are you running?
Try 39 psi in front (that's what the 18" A-Specs use) and 36 psi rear.

@2" is a lot of slop/play in the steering wheel-- I wouldn't be surprised if you need some front toe-out on an alignment.

 

Yikes. My pressure is at 33 all the way around. I will up it and see if that helps. I never knew it was supposed to be that high.

 

Let's hope the pressure was the problem/is the solution.
Car and wheel manufacturers have different psi recommendations for different-sized wheels combos; the A-Spec psi is also listed along with the 6M and 5A recommended pressures at the back of the owner's manual, IIRC.

Let us know if it improves the slop in the steering too, because my stock TL has almost no slop/play from on-center.

 

Thanks for the input guys.

I filled them up to 39 in the front and 36 in the back and went on the search for wet roads.....It's a little better, but it's still there. The slop is pretty much gone, though.

Does it make sense that it only happens on when the roads are wet? I just don't get it.

Either way, she's going into the shop tomorrow to have a RSB and camber kit, then 4-wheel alignment. They will test it out after to see if it stops after the upgrades.

 

Wet roads this morning and no swaying. I asked the dealer about when I had it in for the installs, but they couldn't replicate it since the roads weren't wet.

1 of the 4 bolts holding the RSB was broken and my alignment was way off due to the drop. These things, along with the low tire pressure seem to have been the contributing factors.