Vague steering on center
 

I'm getting a sort of elastic/rubbery/maybe delayed feeling on turn in. It's not horrendous, just enough to be slightly off putting on a tight road. I don't really remember feeling it when the car was new, so initially I chalked it up to worn (at wear bars) stock tires, but I replaced them with pilot sport 4s a week or two ago and the sensation remained. The car is a stock '16 brz with ~22k miles on the clock. I've had it since new, it hasn't been hit and the tires i replaced were original and wore evenly.

I'm thinking now I might try a set of steering rack bushings or the Perrin lock parts and/or a set of crash bolts and a proper alignment... Any thoughts? It feels a lot like bushing squidge, but im wrong as often as right with crap like that. Maybe "they all do that" and I'm just nitpicking?

A few points:

- The stock tires are very hard tires. We all know this as they wear like iron (well, apparently you've been having a LOT of fun in your car to wear them out that quickly!) The tread compound is really stiff, which is how they manage to be "fuel efficient" tires, as well as so slidey. That does also mean good turn-in response.

- The Michelins you replaced them with are very sticky tires. They will have a much softer rubber compound. Softer rubber is squirmier. In addition, they have full tread, which means taller, squirmier tread blocks. It's not uncommon for people to shave down a new tire literally JUST to improve steering response by making those tall, squishy tread blocks shorter.

So, what I'm basically saying is, it wouldn't be at ALL unusual for your new tires to result in slightly less aggressive initial turn-in and on-center feel due to the added "squishiness" from the taller, softer tread blocks. That's something you should expect.

You really shouldn't need to replace bushings to get good feeling out of the steering. If it really, truly is feeling vague on-center, I would suspect an alignment more than anything else, which is the first thing I would have checked in your situation. Your bushings also shouldn't have degraded that quickly. I have 60,000 miles on my car on rough, Chicago roads, as well as plenty of autocrosses, and the steering still feels fine (though I'm on an ENTIRELY different setup, so that anecdote is rather pointless). Point is bushings last more than 20,000 miles.

You also might want to get into another car and take that one for a spin. Then you might come back to this car and realize that you had just gotten a bit spoiled ;)

When was the last time you had it aligned? Just a touch of toe out up front works well to get the on center feel back.

My commute is about 25 miles and 85% winding canyon road, pretty the entire reason I bought the car! So yeah, tire wear is definitely accelerated a bit. To be clear, the squidge was there on the stock tires, at least late in their lives. With regards to trying another car, my wife's mini may have been what made me notice this in the first place... It feels sharper (at least on turn in) at 140k in spite of to totally smoked and mismatched 16" runflats :iono:

You need to wait 1000 miles or so for your new tires to break in before making any judgements.

Are you on stock tire size? in my experience fatter tires can dull steering response a bit despite the increased grip.

but yeah definitely get an alignment if you haven't already. if your wheels are toed in rather than neutral (or out) you will have duller steering response. Good to do if you've never done it and also if you just got new tires.

Tire. Pressure.

Runflats have extremely stiff sidewalls and will always have a very immediate turn in feel compared to tires with softer sidewalls.


Definitely also check the tire pressure, low pressure will make them squishy too.

In my experience, high pressure can also make wheels feel squishy on center under certain conditions.

Stock size, 34-35 psi all the way around. I haven't played with pressures much on this car, and not at all with the new tires, so I'm open to suggestions there. The car has never been aligned, I will do that before throwing any parts at it. The reading I've done seems to indicate that I may need the crash bolts to get in the neighborhood of -1.5 - 2 degrees of camber, does that sound about right? Figure I'll shoot for that and 0 toe.

my money is on new tire squirm... it will pass

They shouldn't feel squishy, but higher pressure will make them feel lighter on center. More negative camber will have the same effect too.