The Camaro Club (UK)

I have owned my Camaro for many years and this winter learnt a few things that I didn't realise and I thought I would pass on:-

1) Pulling out of a car parking space when cold I kept getting this knocking/judgering from the front wheels. It worried me as it kept on happening and sounded like it was catching something but getting someone to check it was all ok. It only happened in the cold. I met someone at work who had the exact same experience with his wife's Merc to which the Merc garage couldn't find the fault. I work with loads of clever engineers and they established (after a few days) that there was nothing wrong with the car but was the characteristics of cold tyres.... They pointed to a chapter in a book but in my world I explain it as follows:-

The centre line of the tyre gets stiff when cold and when you turn the wheel this centre line doesn't move and effectively the trye gets dragged accross, hence the judgering (similar to rear wheels of artics on a tight lock) i.e also I believe the two tyres are on slightly different locks due to this until the tyre is warm.

2) In the snow/ice I had experienced that when I put the car in "D" on the auto box with the brake full on that the car just started to go forward and the only way to stop this was to put back into Neutral. This meant at T junction the car wouldn't stop as the engine was still pushing it. Initially I wondered if my rear brakes where working etc but they were fine. The engineeres came up with the following:- The ABS was sensing the car was sliding when I put it into "D" and was releasing the brakes accordingly so the car went forward so N was the only option - how crazy is that.

I've got the same problem on my E class Merc. Come to a junction in the ice, stop & the car just keeps going forward. It was abit unnerving the first time it happened, but soon learnt to drop it into neutral

cheers...Nige

_________________
Too much power...not enough hands!!

i've been driving auto's for years and hadn't sussed that one out.

Funny how the ABS works against you in those circumstances. Luckily my car turns the ABS off after a few miles due to having different size wheels on front than back to which has its benefits now.

Someone also mentioned that due to the transmission fluid being cold and that bit thicker isn't helping either.