I'm wondering if there's something wrong with my steering, brakes, or tires. Occasionally, if I'm approaching a stop light and I apply the brakes just after the car has slowed to about 10 mph, then the front wheels try to follow any undulation in the road, rather than stop in a straight line. This means I have to keep some pressure on the steering wheel to prevent the car from wandering from straight ahead. On the other hand, the car stops perfectly if I brake from any higher speeds (what I would call normal braking).

My reasoning is that with 12,500 miles on the front tires (and slight wear on both inside treads), there is less "grip" on the tires to prevent them sliding off to the lowest point in the road.

Has anyone else noticed this, or should I be looking to change the tires, have an alignment check, or check for something more drastic?

 

seems pretty normal... just the tires following the road. This 'problem' will get worse with larger tires(width wise) and stickier tires..

My CRX is REALLY bad about this... the low profile, wide, and sticky tires will make it follow everything.

-Shing

 

Mine does the same thing. My Miata did this as well. Seems normal.

 

I haven't noticed this (16K miles) yet.

 

I was concerned about the same thing experienced on well worn A032Rs. Over some parts of the road while going about 25mph it felt as though the steering wheel would come out of my hands. After replacing the tires this problem went away, so I'd say it is the tires.

 

i have that quite a bit, esp. when braking on very rutted road for stoplights.

 

For a while I had a well worn pair of D40M2 tires on my del Sol, and they did the same thing.

 

Could easily be a function of our electric power steering (and possibly an in-specification but near-the-limit EPS position sensor). I am involved with EPS sensor engineering on other vehicles and some very peculiar things can happen on-center. This is where the EPS system requires the lowest "gain" so the driver can "feel" the road in the straight ahead condition and small wheel movements are immediately communicated to the wheels (rather than just winding up the torque-sensing element of the sensor). Any bump will be resisted less in this condition. You may also have a wider dead-band at center than typical.

I am NOT a Honda steering system expert so I have no specific checks for our system. The Helms service manual does have considerable information on the system.

 

My Stook has been "wandering" from the start but only does it as you described, slow, straight ahead stops, i.e. stop light/sign. I checked it at a flat newly surfaced parking lot and it did the same thing about 20-30% of the time.

 

My s2000 doesnt seem to do that. However, I had a '99 Prelude that did what you are describing. I am thinking that is normal.