Torque Steer

[vestax32]

Have you checked your tracking and alignment ?

Not yet, do you think this will be most likely culprit? Will get it done next week...

[Markp]

So, I had my RS4 geometry aligned by a specialist yesterday and I have to say that the problems experienced with the RS6 that come across as 'torque steer' when particualrly when making overtaking moves will most likely be down to suspension geometry.

Had a test drive before any work was completed with the specialist driving the car over a very well know prescribed test route assessed how the car handled and it picked up on a number of handling charachteristics identified by RS6 owners. Tests included:

- Slow speed test with the steering wheel straight
- 50mph speed test to see how the car behaves
- Acceleration tests with a variety of roads to see which way the car wants to steer under hard acceleration (This would be exagerated in the RS6 with much more torque and wider tyres)
- 'A' road with a 'standard' amount of camber to the left
- 'A' road cambered to the right
- Steering test around a fairly small roundabout - the car was chucked in and we went round a couple of times to see how the front and rear of the car worked together and how much the stability control kicked in
- Bumpy B road - point the steering wheel straight and it should go straight with the suspension absorbing the bumps

The specialist identified that in some instances the car would have left slip and in some instances right slip - to me the car felt 'confused'! Overall a lot of the comments and seeing how the car behaved are very similar to the comments with respect to torque steer and instability when making overtakes under hard acceleration.

From the test drive and a look at the before adjstument measuremets the specialist identified :

- Higher Caster Front Right vs Front Left - Influences car stability. In this instance particualrly when crossing over the crown of the road from left to right makes it less stable.
- Higher camber front left - tendency to push the car to the right to oppose left biased road camber
- Toes were not even at the front or the rear - Front and rear of the car were in opposition to each other - (higher front right toe and higher rear left toe) Under hard acceleration the car was being steered from the rear.

So if your RS6 handles in a similar way the goemetry could well be the culprit.

Considering this is the way Audi aligned the car only a month ago it's pretty poor and suggests that in this instance they had no idea what they are actually doing. Apparently Audi and other manufacturers don't geo all the cars before they leave the factory. They are set-up 'by eye' with only a small sample being tested to demonstrate that the 'by eye' setup is delivering an in-spec alignment. Also dealers including Audi have time limits within which to work to complete an alignment and apparently are incetivised to deliver an alignment quicker than the alloted time!

Overall the experience was very informative and explained fairly clearly why the car behaved as it did. The car has been fully reworked and now handles much much better than it did, particularly when making overtakes under hard acceleration!

So the car now has:

- Equal toe at the rear - aligned to the long axis of the car
- Equal toe at the front - greater than the rear to give a bit more 'front end' to the car
- Front Camber almost equal but slightly higher front left than right
- Rear Camber equal
- Caster higher on the left than the right

I had it set up for regular day to day driving with a reasonable amount of stability built in. The car feels much more balanced and behaves much more predictably. Definately worth the time and expense to get the car setup properly to get the most out of it.

If your RS6 doesn't handle how you expect, certainly when making overtakes under hard acceleration or crossing over the camber of the road, it could be well worth getting an alingment specialist to set the car up.

Hope it helps...

That has got to be Chris Franklin at CG.
Master at his craft.

[innercry666]

Markp you might just be right on that!

[Brooner]

any of these Geometry gurus up here in Jockland the any one could recommend
aas i would like to get my set up checked out not that i feel theirs an issue just would like ti to be set up by some one who knows there stuff rather than the stealers or tyre fitters

or would the alignment form a stealer to the factory spec be as good?

[Shinobi675]

My guess is you don't want the stealer setup. My e36 m3 had a lot of toe in added. Wasn't great for tyres, but sorted cornering a treat!

[vestax32]

Took car to have 4 wheel laser allignment done today, and all 4 wheels were a way out of tolerances. Haven't had a chance to test properly, but hoping this will go some way to cancelling the squirming I was feeling under hard acceleration. Will check back when I have tested.....

[innercry666]

Before going to Centre of Gravity I had the car geometry checked and adjusted by Audi. Speaking to the Master tech he advised that they have 1 hour to do an alignment including setup. Explains why the result is less than satisfactory and they are only allowed to make adjustments if the parameters are out of tolerance. Getting somebody who know's their craft to adjust the geometry is worthwhile to get the most out of the car.

[jukka]

So, I had my RS4 geometry aligned by a specialist yesterday and I have to say that the problems experienced with the RS6 that come across as 'torque steer' when particualrly when making overtaking moves will most likely be down to suspension geometry.

Had a test drive before any work was completed with the specialist driving the car over a very well know prescribed test route assessed how the car handled and it picked up on a number of handling charachteristics identified by RS6 owners. Tests included:

- Slow speed test with the steering wheel straight
- 50mph speed test to see how the car behaves
- Acceleration tests with a variety of roads to see which way the car wants to steer under hard acceleration (This would be exagerated in the RS6 with much more torque and wider tyres)
- 'A' road with a 'standard' amount of camber to the left
- 'A' road cambered to the right
- Steering test around a fairly small roundabout - the car was chucked in and we went round a couple of times to see how the front and rear of the car worked together and how much the stability control kicked in
- Bumpy B road - point the steering wheel straight and it should go straight with the suspension absorbing the bumps

The specialist identified that in some instances the car would have left slip and in some instances right slip - to me the car felt 'confused'! Overall a lot of the comments and seeing how the car behaved are very similar to the comments with respect to torque steer and instability when making overtakes under hard acceleration.

From the test drive and a look at the before adjstument measuremets the specialist identified :

- Higher Caster Front Right vs Front Left - Influences car stability. In this instance particualrly when crossing over the crown of the road from left to right makes it less stable.
- Higher camber front left - tendency to push the car to the right to oppose left biased road camber
- Toes were not even at the front or the rear - Front and rear of the car were in opposition to each other - (higher front right toe and higher rear left toe) Under hard acceleration the car was being steered from the rear.

So if your RS6 handles in a similar way the goemetry could well be the culprit.

Considering this is the way Audi aligned the car only a month ago it's pretty poor and suggests that in this instance they had no idea what they are actually doing. Apparently Audi and other manufacturers don't geo all the cars before they leave the factory. They are set-up 'by eye' with only a small sample being tested to demonstrate that the 'by eye' setup is delivering an in-spec alignment. Also dealers including Audi have time limits within which to work to complete an alignment and apparently are incetivised to deliver an alignment quicker than the alloted time!

Overall the experience was very informative and explained fairly clearly why the car behaved as it did. The car has been fully reworked and now handles much much better than it did, particularly when making overtakes under hard acceleration!

So the car now has:

- Equal toe at the rear - aligned to the long axis of the car
- Equal toe at the front - greater than the rear to give a bit more 'front end' to the car
- Front Camber almost equal but slightly higher front left than right
- Rear Camber equal
- Caster higher on the left than the right

I had it set up for regular day to day driving with a reasonable amount of stability built in. The car feels much more balanced and behaves much more predictably. Definately worth the time and expense to get the car setup properly to get the most out of it.

If your RS6 doesn't handle how you expect, certainly when making overtakes under hard acceleration or crossing over the camber of the road, it could be well worth getting an alingment specialist to set the car up.

Hope it helps...

Brilliant write-up, and I can confirm everything from my own experience. Nothing much to add, except that not all "specialists" are really specialists. When doing something as fundamental as alignment to a high performance car, make sure you trust your car to the hands of someone you either know they know what they do, or you have evidence (recommendations) from others.

For those of you based in Melbourne, TruTrac in West Melbourne can't put a foot wrong in this area. Ralph Perluzzo is a living legend, I wouldn't let anyone else touch my RS4's alignment - to the extent that at service in Audi dealership I specifically told them not to touch the alignment under any circumstances.

[Mr Footlong]

Digging this old turnip back up again.....

The very first thing I noticed when I test drove my C7 before buying it was the torque steer-like effect/wandering steering when booting it half-decently from say 30 or so.

I had three different places look at the geometry, including MRC as of last week when they cranked up the power on the old girl. Doug drove her and it concerned him too, but everything was pointing in the right direction alignment-wise.

Are there any of us with this issue that are NOT on air suspension?

I am always in Dynamic mode if I plan on having any real fun/booting the car.

On the way home from MRC, I got to the "home straight" near my house. Coming off a big roundabout at around 40 or so on to Dual Carriageway, the car was pointing straight and I booted her. The increased power has amplified things somewhat I feel, but as always, the back end squats down massively, transferring weight and balance more towards the back of the car than I want and expect from this car. This gives the sensation of the front end lightening up a lot (think borderline gasser car ) and for around three seconds the car is doing her best to point me towards the central reservation......

a couple of hours after that, my new Continental Winter Contact TS 860 were on the car and as expected, no difference really. Saying that, preggo wife was in the car so I may have been slightly more sedate, but I don't think so as I am a moron... Will get to spank her properly today on the office commute, but I am expecting no difference.

Our Cayenne Turbo was a fat and heavy beast, but exhibited none of this and had utterly wonderful handling. Our C5 RS6 is a bloody quick old thing and when you boot her, the front is perfectly planted and if the back squats down then I sure as hell don't notice it. Bilstein coilovers on her. I can't help but feel it is the back squatting down so badly on full beans on these.

[MikeFish]

I've noticed some of the back end squat and front end lift on the air suspension cars on drag strips and thought this issue might be related. However, I think there were some spring cars in this thread too. Might be wrong, but the air suspension was my first thoughts. My car doesn't do it. I sometimes get a little pull to one side when crossing the middle of the road for an overtaking move but certainly not this front end loss as described my some.

[Daveperc]

Mine (DRC) did it when I first had it, but decent tyres and proper alignment have all but eliminated it. Occasionally deviates slightly when crossing camber, but otherwise seems fine - but then I'm not running the power.... yet!

[Paulm]

I had a 2015 RS6 on air and the torque steer was pretty bad, even the wife noticed it and she drives miss daisy. I bought a 2017 S7 again on air (mapped to around 560bhp) no torque steer at all on 450bhp or when mapped. Given they are more or less the same car it must be alignment related?

[Mr Footlong]

three different alignments though......

I think it will be useful when I meet up with Dave above, as he can see what I mean when compared with his perhaps. I am certain how quickly/aggressively the back squats down has a heavy part to play in upsetting the balance up front. I do have this in the VCDS logs, but from what I read on the tinterweb, most likely related to people using the change tyre function thing (can't remember what it is called) in the car controls?

Address 34: Level Control (J197) Labels:. 4G0-907-553.clb
Part No SW: 4G0 907 553 F HW: 4G0 907 553 F
Component: LUFE-DAEMPFER H18 0782
Coding: 008002
Shop #: WSC 02391 785 00200
ASAM Dataset: EV_AirSuspe 003024
ROD: EV_AirSuspe_VW51.rod
VCID: 2E53D43171CF543A77-807A

1 Fault Found:
403200 - Function Shut-Off Active
C10C8 00 [008] - -
Intermittent - Confirmed - Tested Since Memory Clear
Freeze Frame:
Fault Status: 00000001
Fault Priority: 6
Fault Frequency: 4
Reset counter: 153
Mileage: 77156 km
Date: 2018.11.06
Time: 16:40:08

[wildbore]

Funnily enough, I had this problem really badly on my first set of Continentals (that it was delivered on in 2015) but not on the latest set, so I am guessing that Continental has tuned the ContiSport 5 and eliminated the problem as nothing else on the car has changed. I always fit RO1 with the strengthened sidewall.

[Mr Footlong]

I pumped the tires up a bit higher than normal spec today for the hell of it. Got to really gun it properly a few times today down my favourite Dual Carriageway and the front still feels too light and slightly wandering, I am having to make lots of little corrections. Saying that though, she is flying off as such a ridiculous pace now that some of it might be due to that.

I used to scoff a bit at cars that had bumper canards bolted on to them, but I am almost thinking that they would actually help with front downforce. Don't fret, I don't think I will be Jon Olssening this thing just yet.....