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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Discuss problems you have had or are having with your Z4
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Chris_D
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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Chris_D » Mon Dec 12, 2016 11:14 pm

Ewazix wrote:
Chris_D wrote:Very intersting reading through this thread.
Was a bit concerned with my own steering as i had exactly the same twitchy phenomenon and was planning to investigate.
It wasn't a huge problem and i had more pressing issues to deal with on the car so i left it.
By the time it came to put the winter wheels on (225x50 r16's all round) i couldnt believe the difference- all of the twitchyness has disappeared completely, no dead spot and incredibly smooth and relaxed steering on the motorway! The difference is day and night!
So now i'm wondering which way to go when the winter wheels come off; back to the original staggered 18's, fresh rubber on the back and a hunter alignment or go for a square setup of 225x40 r18's?
Also, ewazix, what lube did you use for the uj's? Ive got some high temp ceramic grease knocking about. Suitable or something thinner?
The UJ lube definitely made a difference to mine and several others and I re-do mine a couple of times a year and have had no further problems, several lubes have been suggested, but I initially gave a squirt of a thin cycle oil to 'get in there' then some Red Line synthetic grease after a run. Probably all wrong but it worked fine and TBH anything will be better than a dry grotty UJ (but not WD40 that will flush out lubricants and leave things dry) :)
Interesting. Will be putting some new boots on the rears come the end of winter. If the twitching returns i'll be giving this a shot as a first step for curing it...
:thumbsup:
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carl2990

Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by carl2990 » Fri Dec 16, 2016 11:25 am

Morning Chris!

Did you manage to get the fuse pulled? Did it make any difference or do you get the same result?
Chris_D wrote:The UJ lube definitely made a difference to mine and several others and I re-do mine a couple of times a year and have had no further problems, several lubes have been suggested, but I initially gave a squirt of a thin cycle oil to 'get in there' then some Red Line synthetic grease after a run. Probably all wrong but it worked fine and TBH anything will be better than a dry grotty UJ (but not WD40 that will flush out lubricants and leave things dry) :)
Interesting. Will be putting some new boots on the rears come the end of winter. If the twitching returns i'll be giving this a shot as a first step for curing it...
:thumbsup:

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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Chris_D » Fri Dec 16, 2016 12:09 pm

carl2990 wrote:Morning Chris!

Did you manage to get the fuse pulled? Did it make any difference or do you get the same result?
Chris_D wrote:The UJ lube definitely made a difference to mine and several others and I re-do mine a couple of times a year and have had no further problems, several lubes have been suggested, but I initially gave a squirt of a thin cycle oil to 'get in there' then some Red Line synthetic grease after a run. Probably all wrong but it worked fine and TBH anything will be better than a dry grotty UJ (but not WD40 that will flush out lubricants and leave things dry) :)
Interesting. Will be putting some new boots on the rears come the end of winter. If the twitching returns i'll be giving this a shot as a first step for curing it...
:thumbsup:
Ummm Carl, no plans to pull any fuses. U might have ur wires crossed a little bit there in referring to previous messages.
I responded to Ewazix' idea about lubing the UJ's, not pulling any fuses....
However, if relevant I lubed my UJ's recently and while it doesnt make any discernible difference with my winter wheels on it will be interesting to see if it cures the twitchyness with my summer wheels when they go back on....
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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by STUBOY2UK » Tue Apr 11, 2017 12:21 pm

Just wanted to add my own experience to this thread, it could possibly save others some time and money.

I had the exact same problem as the OP, over about 65mph the car seemed to wander, especially on slight bends. Going round a right-hand bend on the motorway, you'd steer right but the wheel would feel like it was pulling left and you'd have to put in more effort than usual, then suddenly the wheel would go loose and the car would cut into the corner so you'd have to keep correcting the steering wheel. It felt very unstable and above 80mph it was downright dangerous.

I had the car 4 wheel aligned on a Hunter machine at a place recommended on a couple of other forums (MX5 and Alfa), but no change. I renewed lollipops, then track rod ends having the car aligned after both but neither solved it. The tyres are Pirelli and have stacks of tread left so I wasn't going to spend money replacing them. I saw several posts about Steering Angle Sensor resets and began to wonder if it was that. I removed the power steering fuse and test drove it, but the feeling was still there and worse if anything.

I took the car into Autokraft (recommended on here) and they said it was 100% alignment, take it to the place they use and they'd sort it. I took it to their aligners and they said there was too much toe-in on both the front and rear which was making the car 'dance' at speed. They aligned it properly and hey presto, it's now bang on.

My advice to anyone with this problem is to try a couple of different alignment places before you start replacing too many parts!
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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Joycey » Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:04 am

STUBOY2UK wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2017 12:21 pm Just wanted to add my own experience to this thread, it could possibly save others some time and money.

I had the exact same problem as the OP, over about 65mph the car seemed to wander, especially on slight bends. Going round a right-hand bend on the motorway, you'd steer right but the wheel would feel like it was pulling left and you'd have to put in more effort than usual, then suddenly the wheel would go loose and the car would cut into the corner so you'd have to keep correcting the steering wheel. It felt very unstable and above 80mph it was downright dangerous.

I had the car 4 wheel aligned on a Hunter machine at a place recommended on a couple of other forums (MX5 and Alfa), but no change. I renewed lollipops, then track rod ends having the car aligned after both but neither solved it. The tyres are Pirelli and have stacks of tread left so I wasn't going to spend money replacing them. I saw several posts about Steering Angle Sensor resets and began to wonder if it was that. I removed the power steering fuse and test drove it, but the feeling was still there and worse if anything.

I took the car into Autokraft (recommended on here) and they said it was 100% alignment, take it to the place they use and they'd sort it. I took it to their aligners and they said there was too much toe-in on both the front and rear which was making the car 'dance' at speed. They aligned it properly and hey presto, it's now bang on.

My advice to anyone with this problem is to try a couple of different alignment places before you start replacing too many parts!
I've spent the last year chasing the same problem. Would you happen to have a copy of the alignment report so I could compare it with mine.

I'm also still convinced its a mechanical problem.

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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by mjennings23 » Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:12 am

As another perspective on this, my steering was wobbling a bit at 65 after a full alignment.

Due to unrelated issues, I believe, the EPS also failed a few weeks later, and I've since replaced the rack with an E46 hydraulic system, detached the EPS motor and replaced the intermediate shaft with the Z4M part.

No more wobble.

Now, I don't know if it was a worn out UJ on the intermediate shaft, a worn gear in the rack or just the electric motor trying to correct but I'm far happier with how the car feels now!

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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Sky-drive » Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:18 pm

mjennings23 wrote: Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:12 am As another perspective on this, my steering was wobbling a bit at 65 after a full alignment.

Due to unrelated issues, I believe, the EPS also failed a few weeks later, and I've since replaced the rack with an E46 hydraulic system, detached the EPS motor and replaced the intermediate shaft with the Z4M part.

No more wobble.

Now, I don't know if it was a worn out UJ on the intermediate shaft, a worn gear in the rack or just the electric motor trying to correct but I'm far happier with how the car feels now!
... is replacing the electric system with a hydraulic system a major undertaking? Im guessing it was a fairly expensive mod?
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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by mjennings23 » Tue Sep 19, 2017 8:56 am

Sky-drive wrote: Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:18 pm
mjennings23 wrote: Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:12 am As another perspective on this, my steering was wobbling a bit at 65 after a full alignment.

Due to unrelated issues, I believe, the EPS also failed a few weeks later, and I've since replaced the rack with an E46 hydraulic system, detached the EPS motor and replaced the intermediate shaft with the Z4M part.

No more wobble.

Now, I don't know if it was a worn out UJ on the intermediate shaft, a worn gear in the rack or just the electric motor trying to correct but I'm far happier with how the car feels now!
... is replacing the electric system with a hydraulic system a major undertaking? Im guessing it was a fairly expensive mod?
Probably less than you're expecting, it's 90% just parts from the E46. The only hard to find part is the Z4M intermediate shaft, seems very rare used here and £250 new from Sopers.

For perspective, I did my job for around £450 including the following:
Refurbished rack £140
Refurbished pump £75
Used pipes, no leaks £50
Z4M used intermediate shaft £65
New belt £8
Various bolts (I installed all new bolts and clips, possibly not needed but I figured I may as well), new pump pulley £45

If you were to buy all new parts, it would be significantly more expensive, I believe the pipes alone new come to around £200, a new rack is close to £1000 I believe?

Did all the work myself at a reasonable pace over one weekend. Started at 1pm on Saturday, worked until 7 and then another 4-5 hours Sunday finishing it off, so certainly DIYable if I can do it on the driveway!

Now my reason for doing it was due to the EPS failing on me, I figured the price differential between having the EPS refurbished and replacing with hydraulic was small, so why not make the improvement.

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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Joycey » Tue Sep 19, 2017 9:30 pm

Well tonight I replaced the tie rods and took the intermediate shaft out to have a look. This means all that's left is the rack itself. Will test drive later this week. If its still doing it I will send the rack away to be rebuilt.
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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by carl2990 » Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:31 am

This fix was from another guy on the Z4 Roadster forum, but I couldn't find the link to re post here, maybe there is already a write up on it.

If anybody else is having the same issue, try adjusting the eccentric ring between the steering motor and steering shaft. The bottom of the ring needed to move towards the drive (top of the ring towards the engine) so anti clockwise when looking towards the motor, or clockwise when looking towards the steering shaft.

This can be done without taking the steering column out, but you'll need a T10 spanner, a T10 socket, a ratchet knuckle and ratchet extension.

This fully solved my issue with the twitchy steering, it's trial and error how much to move it. Firstly I tried rotating the ring the opposite direction which made the steering feel more direct but definitely introduced the 'sticky steering' problem and was still twitchy over 30mph.

Here's an image of it rotated the "wrong way" for the issues I had, I eventually rotated it the opposite way to this.
20171013_175900.jpg
20171013_175900.jpg (172.68 KiB) Viewed 2733 times

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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Joycey » Fri Oct 27, 2017 1:40 pm

carl2990 wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:31 am This fix was from another guy on the Z4 Roadster forum, but I couldn't find the link to re post here, maybe there is already a write up on it.

If anybody else is having the same issue, try adjusting the eccentric ring between the steering motor and steering shaft. The bottom of the ring needed to move towards the drive (top of the ring towards the engine) so anti clockwise when looking towards the motor, or clockwise when looking towards the steering shaft.

This can be done without taking the steering column out, but you'll need a T10 spanner, a T10 socket, a ratchet knuckle and ratchet extension.

This fully solved my issue with the twitchy steering, it's trial and error how much to move it. Firstly I tried rotating the ring the opposite direction which made the steering feel more direct but definitely introduced the 'sticky steering' problem and was still twitchy over 30mph.

Here's an image of it rotated the "wrong way" for the issues I had, I eventually rotated it the opposite way to this.

20171013_175900.jpg
Nice one, I actually found this out the hard way by removing the whole rack. Got my steering feel back to what it should be!
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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Kamuela » Fri Oct 27, 2017 11:45 pm

There're a couple of write-ups on that, including one on Bimmerforum that I put there, but I can't seem to find them right just now. When I got my Z I was aware of the potential for the steering issue to surface after a while but I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was; in fact, the seller must have known because they kind of expressed surprised interest later that I had dealt with it and hadn't come after them with a hammer. It affected the selling price, I'm sure. Ha. Showed them. I knew about the drill-and-grease thing, which did f#$k-all, and my stealer wanted something like $8k for a steering column. Swore I was the only person in history ever to experience the problem, the lying bastard. Same with pretending to lube the u-joints, which was more of a pain in the arse than I imagined it could be and did diddly squat. When Guido K posted about the German website, with 120+ pages devoted to fiddling with the tension ring, I found the cure.
For those in the US, it's a bigger pain because of the knee airbag; can't get to one of the bolts without removing the airbag first, then it's a piece of cake, relatively. It also takes a 6mm hex head on this side, not the Torx driver. Somewhere up in my dash is the ball from my ball-end hex wrench, too; those bolts are snug!
I ended up rotating the ring about 14mm as measured between witness marks. Some have expressed concern that going too far will make the steering "light"; I don't see how. Increasing the lash just means the worm takes a fraction longer to engage the wheel, and since it's near-instantaneous response from the motor, it's not going to affect the overall steering response. Too tight, which seems to be the problem, causes a bind.
Anyway, even with removing the airbag and vacuuming the floor mat I'm going to lie on, it's less than an hour's work.

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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Mr.President » Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:00 pm

Sorry to bring up an old thread but i have the same problem.
My coupe just felt dangerous when driving at 150 kmh, it was moving left and right. At first i thought the problem were RF tyres but after changing them the car behaved the same at high speed. After adjusting the tension ring the car feels much safer but the problem is not gone.
Atm i am at a 4 day car event in Croatia at which we were driving on highway under police escort and i wasnt comfortable driving at speeds higher then 180kmh, this weerd left then right movement is especially shown when i enter slight bends at high speed.
The alignment seems to be fine, my mechanic cant find anything else to be wrong with the car, the tyres are new staggered 18s and the car acts the same on 17s, and the coupe only has 47000km on the clock.
I have driven a lot of cars and also some real sh***y ones like lada samara ( russian car), and i have never felt this unsafe at high speeds.
If i wont be able to find the problem soon, i think i will have to sell it :(

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Scary/Twitchy feel over 65mph!

Post by Jembo » Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:28 pm

Mr.President wrote: Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:00 pm Sorry to bring up an old thread but i have the same problem.
My coupe just felt dangerous when driving at 150 kmh, it was moving left and right. At first i thought the problem were RF tyres but after changing them the car behaved the same at high speed. After adjusting the tension ring the car feels much safer but the problem is not gone.
Atm i am at a 4 day car event in Croatia at which we were driving on highway under police escort and i wasnt comfortable driving at speeds higher then 180kmh, this weerd left then right movement is especially shown when i enter slight bends at high speed.
The alignment seems to be fine, my mechanic cant find anything else to be wrong with the car, the tyres are new staggered 18s and the car acts the same on 17s, and the coupe only has 47000km on the clock.
I have driven a lot of cars and also some real sh***y ones like lada samara ( russian car), and i have never felt this unsafe at high speeds.
If i wont be able to find the problem soon, i think i will have to sell it :(
Welcome to the forum... standard Z Steering is notorious, had the issue on my old 3.0 which I never totally resolved. This thread with the eccentric ring adjustment under the dash appears to have the greatest of success. Good luck
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