Hello, anybody have any suggestions on what I can do to make my car ride better on the highway? It wanders back and forth at higher speeds and it's really annoying possibly dangerous. I bought it used with 100,000 miles, but its been maintained well, the shocks feel fine, and its got nearly new Michelin Defenders on it, stock size. It now has 120k miles on it. I'm wondering if this is just a normal trait for this car and if the addition of the TRD sway bar will help with this. I wouldn't mind a little flatter cornering along with more precise highway handling. My sister owns a 2013 Prius with 15 inch wheels and says hers doesn't wander like mine does. any suggestions would be much appreciated! Thank you!
welcome? at what speeds? what are your tyres psi? how many miles on your sister's? you might need some suspension work at 120k, especially since someone else had it the first 100. all the best!
thank you and thanks for the reply! it seems to start the wandering anywhere from 65 to 75 maybe. Somewhere in that range.I'm running my tire pressure at 35 - 37. What kind of suspension work? You mean like tie rods or ball joints? my nephew was a Toyota engineer and I got this car through him. It was an employee lease turn in vehicle and they have to be maintained religiously in order for the employees to keep the lease so I feel like the car was maintained very well.
probably, but you can't maintain the suspension. when you get tired of the ride and handling, you start replacing parts. i'm no expert, and would leave it to a good shoppe. someone will chime in here with advice on mods that might help. also, if you search, there are other threads with your complaint. they might include good advice.
I actually usually do on my own work but I'm just wondering if these are normal traits for the car before I start searching for problems up underneath it. I guess that is the next step and I'll check out other threads like you suggest. Thanks for the help!
I don't think that's normal, I bought my '10 with 43K and Goodyear Assurance Fuel Max and on roads with groves, it would wander. At just over 70K, I put new Michelin Defenders on it and no more wandering. I had the alignment checked and nothing was changed. Alignment check would be my first thing to try.
Not normal. I would pump the tires up to max sidewall pressure. If there is no change then i suspect steering or suspension parts need to be replaced.
We have a highway here with heavy rain grooves and the car pulled like crazy on it for awhile after having the new tires installed. It's not as bad now, but it still pulls with the grooves to a degree that I feel is a little abnormal. Never had a passenger car tire do that before. Even my 4Runner with it's oversized AT tires doesn't pull anywhere near that bad! Is it the tires on the Prius, or is it some other culprit? I didn't get an alignment done when I got the new tires since it was tracking straight with the old tires. In hind sight, it probably should've been done just to be safe. I guess that's what I'll try next after I have a look up underneath. So, do you guys pretty much across the board run your tire pressure higher than what Toyota recommends for the car? If so, why, and what pressure do you recommend?
IMO 34psi in a tire designed for 51psi is a joke. I run at max sidewall pressure to improve handling and prolong tire life. Read Driving Under Pressure. Higher tp will also be a benefit if you pick up a nail and have a slow leak. At 50psi the tire can leak for 12 hours and still have enough air in it to make it to the shop to get patched. I figure it lost 15psi in 12 hours. Just did this with Mom's Malibu on 40psi Firestones. Driving Under Pressure (full article) - CleanMPG Forums
Wow, great article. I've always prescribed to the concerns of running over-inflated tires, but the info in that post makes sense. I do notice that when I've increased tire pressure when on road trips with a loaded down car or truck that it seems to drive better all the way around. I guess I'll try upping the pressure today and see what happens. Go all the way up to the max on the sidewall, huh?
I'm less and less a fan of max sidewall pressures. To be fair, we've got the 215/45R17 tires, which can be brutal with raised pressure. I've currently got them (all around) set just a pound or two above Toyota's recommended pressure. Handling is great (Michelin Pilots), and ride comfort much better, well except for &%!! speed bumps, which I still take at dead-slow. Fuel economy doesn't seem to have suffered, at least not noticeably. One thing I'm semi-convinced of is that grossly raised pressures has got to hasten wear of shocks and suspension components. By how much I do not know.
Steve, go into an empty parking lot, get the car up to 25 mph, give the steering wheel a quick half turn to to one side then back. If your tires squeal they are underinflated. In an emergency situation you could lose control of the car. When Ford printed a rather low tp on its labels the result was overheated and blown tires resulting in rollovers. Firestone took the heat recalling tires and losing its exclusive Ford contract.
Thanks Jim. Sorry for the late reply, as I haven't been back on here since last posting. I upped my tire pressure to 40 psi, per recommendation of a Toyota dealership that has a lot of good videos on these, and it made a pretty big difference. I had the car aligned recently at a Goodyear dealership across the street from where I work and they told me to never inflate the tires over what the manufacturer recommends and that all the hype on the forums was bad information. They had deflated them to stock pressure and the handling went back to where it had been. I put them back up to 40 psi and the car handles and drives a lot better and I can tell fuel mileage has improved a bit, too.
