So, took my bone-stock Cupra up to Bedford Autodrome yesterday with a couple of mates. One of them was running his '02 Civic TR (which completely lunched 2 - YES 2 - sets of front pads!), and my car did great. My mates were impressed with how it handled - I have the XDS switched on, but don't know to what strength.
The brakes were the only weak point when on track - they juddered horrifically when pushed hard. Or maybe it wasn't the brakes...? More in a sec.
Took the car out for a few relatively easy final laps, parked it up (without using handbrake), where it was left for about 45 mins.
I then packed up and started to reverse and was treated to a horrendous scraping noise coming from the OSR wheel. Wheel off, we realised it was the heat shield (right term for it?) behind the brake disc. It had warped. We managed to bend it back away from the disc so it wasn't scraping, and then we all leave.
About 15-20 minutes into the journey - relatively easy driving around country lanes, the car started to feel weird, and shortly after this the steering wheel started to wobble, which became worse when turning right I'd just joined the A1 at this point, at 17:30 so traffic was bad and everyone was in a rush. I was doing 50 and the steering wheel wobble and cyclical thudding from the NSF wheel area started to get unbearable and quite scary - it felt like the wheel was going to fall off. Again, worse when steering right.
I managed to pull up somewhere residential and it was at his point a new symptom arose; at low speeds - crawling first gear speeds - there was a pretty bad creaking coming from the same area when turning the steering wheel. I've had a creak coming from there since I had the car which was relatively sporadic going over certain bumps. I managed to get the car recovered to my mechanic and they'll be looking at it in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, the old dear has leant me her J Reg Honda Concerto automatic....
Thoughts anyone? I'll update when I hear what it could be. I'm thinking anti-roll bar bushes, something rack related, or wheel bearings.
The brakes were the only weak point when on track - they juddered horrifically when pushed hard. Or maybe it wasn't the brakes...? More in a sec.
Took the car out for a few relatively easy final laps, parked it up (without using handbrake), where it was left for about 45 mins.
I then packed up and started to reverse and was treated to a horrendous scraping noise coming from the OSR wheel. Wheel off, we realised it was the heat shield (right term for it?) behind the brake disc. It had warped. We managed to bend it back away from the disc so it wasn't scraping, and then we all leave.
About 15-20 minutes into the journey - relatively easy driving around country lanes, the car started to feel weird, and shortly after this the steering wheel started to wobble, which became worse when turning right I'd just joined the A1 at this point, at 17:30 so traffic was bad and everyone was in a rush. I was doing 50 and the steering wheel wobble and cyclical thudding from the NSF wheel area started to get unbearable and quite scary - it felt like the wheel was going to fall off. Again, worse when steering right.
I managed to pull up somewhere residential and it was at his point a new symptom arose; at low speeds - crawling first gear speeds - there was a pretty bad creaking coming from the same area when turning the steering wheel. I've had a creak coming from there since I had the car which was relatively sporadic going over certain bumps. I managed to get the car recovered to my mechanic and they'll be looking at it in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, the old dear has leant me her J Reg Honda Concerto automatic....
Thoughts anyone? I'll update when I hear what it could be. I'm thinking anti-roll bar bushes, something rack related, or wheel bearings.
