Dangerous problem in olds 88? (brakes, tires, costs, transmission)
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Alright, seeing as my old car needs a transmission overhaul, a family friend sold me his car dirt cheap.
1998 Olds 88. Did some work to it, and said I'd get two trouble free years out of it, at least. (That's another story..)
Anyway. He replaced the front struts and mounts. And I need an alignment now. That's expected. But it was still.. drivable?
As of this week, every time I hit a decent sized bump in the road, the ENTIRE car starts to shake and jolt violently, until I slam on the brakes and slow down, when it goes away. It comes back the next time I hit a bump.
It feels like it's happening more in the rear of the car than the front, but I'm not sure. Is this alignment-related? Or is it something else?
Actually I have seen this on older front ends with some wear and looseness if they have excessive toe-in, and/or the front tires don't have particularly deep tread.
You can probably get the alignment closer with just a tape measure, if you work carefully.
Get a professional alignment soon though - easy to waste more tire wear than the alignment costs if you keep driving it.
Stop driving this immediately before you kill yourself or someone else.
This, and take it to a qualified mechanic. Something like this is very hard to diag over the internetz.. lol. Good luck to you though. I hope it's not very expensive. Those are good cars in general though.
Alright, seeing as my old car needs a transmission overhaul, a family friend sold me his car dirt cheap.
1998 Olds 88. Did some work to it, and said I'd get two trouble free years out of it, at least. (That's another story..)
Anyway. He replaced the front struts and mounts. And I need an alignment now. That's expected. But it was still.. drivable?
As of this week, every time I hit a decent sized bump in the road, the ENTIRE car starts to shake and jolt violently, until I slam on the brakes and slow down, when it goes away. It comes back the next time I hit a bump.
It feels like it's happening more in the rear of the car than the front, but I'm not sure. Is this alignment-related? Or is it something else?
If you had new front struts installed, you need to get it aligned ASAP. A shop will do an inspection before they'll do the alignment, and probably find several things wrong - one of which will be the cause of your bad shaking.
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