Steering is driving me nuts!!

[Frans]

I 'm having the same problems and mentioned this at my dealer .
He told me that he had the same problems with his kizashi and after several attemps it appeared that wider tires 240 245 did have very good result. So this summer i will have my tires cahged for sure

[smsmart]

Hey Everyone,

It's been crazy at work/life the past couple months, so I haven't had the time to pop my head in here and see the responses/follow up. Thank you for the input and advice, I really appreciate it!

The strut mounts suggestion never occurred to me, so I'm going to have a look at it soon when I get a chance. Some of the online articles I've looked at about them mention symptoms of worn ones that seem similar to what I'm experiencing, especially since I also have the clunking noises coming from the front.

Although like Ronzuki mentioned, I'm still leaning towards suspecting that it's an issue with the electric power steering unit. The reason I say that is because I've noticed that sometimes (although very seldom) the steering will "firm up" in the middle of driving. It'll start off feeling loose and sensitive as it usually does, and then at some point during the drive it'll get firmer and more like I remember it being when I first bought the car. Makes me think that maybe the sensors in the unit start sending different signals at some point, and the EPS unit then starts reacting to driving/road input differently.

Of course, I never get any steering indicator lights or check engine fault codes that would indicate something is wrong with the system, so if there really is something wrong with the unit, apparently it's not wrong enough to be outside of the system's norms. But this is all just a guess.

The nearest ex-Suzuki dealer that I would have some faith in diagnosing the problem is up in Santa Ana, about an hour's drive from me. It's actually where I bought the car new, and they were the largest Suzuki dealer in Southern California so they should in theory have the most experience with these cars. But long ago when I went in to get this (and another thing) looked at, they came back with a "can't replicate issue", so I hesitate going up there again if they're just going to tell me everything is fine and charge me a $100 diagnosis fee. I personally know everything is not fine because I've had the car since new, so I know how it handled originally...but apparently getting a mechanic to acknowledge that there's a problem is an incredible feat. I don't know if they even bothered looking into it closely.

[KuroNekko]

Hey Everyone,

It's been crazy at work/life the past couple months, so I haven't had the time to pop my head in here and see the responses/follow up. Thank you for the input and advice, I really appreciate it!

The strut mounts suggestion never occurred to me, so I'm going to have a look at it soon when I get a chance. Some of the online articles I've looked at about them mention symptoms of worn ones that seem similar to what I'm experiencing, especially since I also have the clunking noises coming from the front.

Although like Ronzuki mentioned, I'm still leaning towards suspecting that it's an issue with the electric power steering unit. The reason I say that is because I've noticed that sometimes (although very seldom) the steering will "firm up" in the middle of driving. It'll start off feeling loose and sensitive as it usually does, and then at some point during the drive it'll get firmer and more like I remember it being when I first bought the car. Makes me think that maybe the sensors in the unit start sending different signals at some point, and the EPS unit then starts reacting to driving/road input differently.

Of course, I never get any steering indicator lights or check engine fault codes that would indicate something is wrong with the system, so if there really is something wrong with the unit, apparently it's not wrong enough to be outside of the system's norms. But this is all just a guess.

The nearest ex-Suzuki dealer that I would have some faith in diagnosing the problem is up in Santa Ana, about an hour's drive from me. It's actually where I bought the car new, and they were the largest Suzuki dealer in Southern California so they should in theory have the most experience with these cars. But long ago when I went in to get this (and another thing) looked at, they came back with a "can't replicate issue", so I hesitate going up there again if they're just going to tell me everything is fine and charge me a $100 diagnosis fee. I personally know everything is not fine because I've had the car since new, so I know how it handled originally...but apparently getting a mechanic to acknowledge that there's a problem is an incredible feat. I don't know if they even bothered looking into it closely.

Going up to Orange County may be worth it. Are you still under warranty? While Santa Ana is a bit far from San Diego, the headquarters for American Suzuki Motor Corporation is located in Brea, CA so I'm not surprised that a Santa Ana dealer nearby was the biggest Suzuki dealer in CA. If you plan to keep the car a while longer, you might as well try to get this issue completely resolved.

[Ronzuki]

Of course, I never get any steering indicator lights or check engine fault codes that would indicate something is wrong with the system, so if there really is something wrong with the unit, apparently it's not wrong enough to be outside of the system's norms. But this is all just a guess.

Don't let the fact that the car isn't telling the tech what's ailing it, or, the assumption the car even knows what the 'norms' of steering are stop you from taking it back in. When I don't want to know about an 'alarm' (or fault) I can simply not program it in to the control system. Doesn't mean a problem doesn't exist or couldn't occur. Happens all the time. We get called in to plants more times than anyone would care to admit because "the system just stopped, we can't get it running again and don't know what happened". Most times there are no alarms and either poor coding or an actual unannounced hardware fault was to blame. Either way, no indication to point to WHAT the cause was.

You'll need to be prepared to demonstrate the issue to the tech. See if you can work that out prior to making the trip if at all possible. Don't just throw the guy the keys and say here's what it's doing and let him toodle off on his own. You'll get the same old 'can't duplicate customer's complaint' line back. I know, easier said than done, but that's the reality of it.

Many errors aren't reported in many systems because code developers don't know a problem could ever exist nor does it even occur to them to ask a metric crap-ton of questions about what they're actually developing code for. Therefore the "fault" wasn't thought about or programmed to provide an alert.

Ask yourself how it is, in this day and age of airline systems and high-tech wizardry, that when Delta's "back-up" system was needed as a back-up, it had also failed? Was it ever tested? Was there any indication, anywhere, that it was in Fault status or Ready status? Apparently, not likely. Or, like most alarms, was it completely ignored by those who are supposed to be watching out for such things? Much like we do when the check engine light comes on and the car 'appears' to be running fine, aye?