Squirrely back end

[lessrbass]

Hey guys, gotta another question for ya. I think it has to do with the brakes but I'm not sure. Car has 70k miles so back brakes are getting changed soon anyways. It doesn't seem to depend on the speed but whenever I apply the brakes, the back end gets squirrely. That is the best way I can describe it, car jerks to the right, then corrects itself.
But the confusing part, to me, is that it also does it if I hit a bump in the road. Not all bumps either, just some. And it seems to be worse when it is very cold outside and gets better when the car warms not, doesn't go away completely but gets better.

I'm confused.

Any suggestions?

 

[SHOdded]

Sounds more like a suspension problem (though binding brakes are not completely out). Check for leaky shocks/broken sway bar links. No free-shifting loads in the trunk, I assume?

 

[FREAK_SHO]

Have the alignment checked as well.

 

[SHOrod]

Agreed, this sounds less like brakes and more like something in the suspension, subframe, or unibody. I had a nearly identical symptom in my first car (1988 ****** EXP). I looked a long time for it before finally find the cause - a crack in the unibody. Under braking and some bumps the body would flex enough to give the sensation of a nasty pull. The local friendly body shop welded the crack for me and confirmed the body was straight and all was well again.

-Rod

 

[lessrbass]

Trunk is completely empty. Thanks, as soon as it isn't freezing out I'll climb underneath and look around, won't buy brakes right away.

 

[rubydist]

you can get your symptoms from not enough toe-in on the rear, or a bad suspension bushing that lets the toe go out when you get on the brakes, as well as from a sticky caliper or pad that hangs up, so you need to check out all that stuff.

 

[lessrbass]

Sorry I'm kinda teaching myself all this stuff. What do you mean by toe in?

 

[rubydist]

so both the left and right wheels need to be pointing in the same direction. when you measure this, it is referred to as toe-in. Toe-in means that the front of the tires are slightly closer together than the rear of the tires. Each vehicle has a specification for toe-in for its front wheels, and each vehicle with independent suspension has a similar specification for toe-in for its rear wheels.

As you might imagine, if the direction the wheels are pointed changes suddenly when one hits a bump or hits the brakes, unexpected handling will result.

 

[lessrbass]

Any ideas on why it's worse when it's colder out? Like today was 46 and I didn't feel a thing going over the same bumps that would have caused the problem 2 days ago.

 

[lessrbass]

When I went to get it realigned, the guys told me that my back end was really loose on the passenger side and started to go bad on the drivers side. It ended up being the rear lateral links. $500, glad I got the warranty, only cost me $100.

 

[Dave]

Hope that does the trick!