weird steering issue with our Honda Odyssey

[Christien]

Maybe you guys can shed some light. The van is pulling to the left on acceleration and right on deceleration. It pulls just a bit and the steering wheel turns in the opposite direction. It only does it for a fraction of a second and the car barely moves. It feels more like a brief instance of hydroplaning. I've replaced both control arms (including ball joints), sway bar mounts and outer tie rods. The only old parts are the inner tie rods. Tires are relatively new, lots of tread left. Any ideas on what this could be, or how can fix it?

[Scott Douglas]

Almost sounds like a traction control issue.
Did you have it aligned after replacing all those parts?
Tires inflated correctly/evenly?

Just for reference we had a 2000 Ody way back when.

[BE911SC]

Wifey's bought-new '07 Odyssey went through a similar issue. Turned out to be bad tires. Then it had a recall, if memory serves, for a steering problem. That was two-ish years ago. Been fine since. over 130K miles now. For what it's worth.

[jsveb]

07 odyssey did have a steering problem recall. I believe it was something low-speed and pump related though.

[Christien]

Haven't done the alignment yet, that's next week. Could that really be causing this? I would've thought an alignment problem would cause the car to pull, then keep pulling.

[yetibone]

Check the motor mounts for sag that would apply a lateral load to the CV axles by weight transfer. The CV shafts don't have much axial play to work with, so if the drivetrain is sitting lower in relation to the front wheel axis, what little axial play there was in the shafts is now taken up by the axis of the differential hanging lower. The engine/transmission will then start to transfer it's weight directly thru the axle shafts to the wheels instead of transferring it's weight thru the engine mounts, to the body, and then to the wheels.

Try torque braking it GENTLY (it's an Odyssey) on a paved surface with a ruler vise-gripped to the hoist hook as a pointer you can see from the driver's seat.

Too much movement will be easy to discern from what's normal.


Also, try swapping sides with the front tires to see if the dynamics change.

[Christien]

I know one of the motor mounts was replaced when we bought the van last March. It's an active mount. Can you explain torque braking? Never heard of it. I'll try swapping the wheels and seeing if that makes a difference. Thanks.

[yetibone]

Left foot on the brake, and right one on the accelerator, at the same time. With the transmission in drive, and wheels chocked, hold the brake pedal fairly hard with your left foot, and then gently roll on the accelerator until the tach rises to about 1800 rpm. Don't hold it there for very long though.

[Christien]

OK, thanks. I'll try it tomorrow.

[onewhippedpuppy]

I would definitely get an alignment before getting too carried away. Cars can do some seriously weird stuff when they alignment is off.

[1990C4S]

You sure there still isn't t a loose control arm or bushing allowing the wheel to misalign?

Drive forward slowly, hit the brake, then reverse and hit the brake. Have someone watch, you might see one front wheel move/change direction slightly each time you reverse direction.

[Bugsinrugs]

Have you checked the steering rack bushings?

[osidak]

had the same thing happen on a VW - one of the bolts holding the control arm in place was loose (well actually the nut that was welded into place broke free) and allowed the arm to pivot back under acceleration and it would snap back once you came off the gas causing the car to steer right for a brief moment. odd feeling

had to replace the arm as there was no access to the nut inside the arm