960 steering wander

I have an n-reg 3-litre 960 with 135,000 miles, which seems to wander and be excessivley affected by bumps in the road and ruts. Also, there is more feedback of said bumps through the steering wheel than I ever encountered with several previous 740's, which had impeccable steering manners. There is no play in the steering, which is light and not notchy. Is this a common problem with 960's resulting from a design fault or a one-off technical problem which can be fixed? Any advice or comments gratefully received as in all other respects this is a wonderful car, spoilt only by its lack of straight line stability

Hi, Tracking and/or 4 wheel alignment should be checked done. What tyres are you running on? Have you checked all the bushes, tie rods etc? Find out and let us know.. :) Des. . . ;)

yes check the rubber bushes for wear and play If they need replacing I would replace them with polybushes I've done all the front end bushes on mine and you can really tell the difference, there also easier to replace than rubber bushes

here's the bushes in question

Hi, Nice pics Andy.. :) I had a new one of those bottom bushes (top right of the bottom photo) for my first check up after purchase of the V90. Got a standard Volvo one... Des. . . ;)

As your car is an N reg the bushings are wrong for your car. Your front suspension is of revised type and is similar to the 850 front suspension. The rubber bushes are quite OK for normal motoring. You may need to replace the top mounting bushes and/or check the track rod ends on the steering for looseness. Des is right to ask what tyres you use as you might have 16" wheels on your car with lower profile tyres than for 15" wheels. I have tried to give the Superflex bloke the correct information but he didn't reply to me. G,S&F, Eurocarparts or Bromley's may well be able to supply the correct bushings at less than dealer price. All the best, Peter. :car-smiley-031:

Thank you all for your very rapid response to my problem. I am running on Pirelli P6000 205/55 R 16's on 6.5Jx16x43 rims, which I think is standard - I have certainly not tinkered with them. The car has just (last week) passed its MOT, when I asked the tester to pay particular attention to the steering and he did not mention any play or worn bushes, but that could have been just because they were in limits for the test. I have had four-wheel laser-tracking done in the past in an attempt to cure the problem with no luck.

I have run V90 and 960 estates on these tyres for many a mile and have had no problems with them.