"Shopping Trolley Syndrome"

Apologies once more if I have posted this in the wrong section of Ford Focus World.

My 1997 Discovery is suffering from what the Land Rover specialist called "Shopping Trolley Syndrome." Prior to the M.O.T and service at my old garage all was well, but after that certain roads with adverse camber or bumps leads to a sever juddering of the steering wheel until the camber changes. Then it is fine.

My new garage who specialise in Land Rovers found that the swivels were exceptionally loose and that my old garage had inadvertently put a new steering damper on up side down. The problem remained and I have had the track rod replaced, drag link ball joints replaced and new bearings to both front hubs. I also had De Carbon shocks fitted to the rear, which has made a massive improvement to the handling. Notwithstanding that, whilst driving on the A14 today, I had five seconds of severe steering judder.

I spoke with the chap at the garage who worked for Land Rover for 20 years including the original Discovery said that there would be one occasional Discovery that would do that. It was inexplicable and sometimes righted itself when worn tyres were replaced. He advised against spending further sums on this as he said that it would not necessarily make any difference.

Has anybody else experienced this or can suggest what the possible causes are.

Kind regards and thanks

anyone checked the bushes on the radius arms?

You said your 'swivels were exceptionally loose' - has this been rectified?
They need to be set to a certain preload with all steering linkages removed.
This may be your problem.

My current disco suffered from similar symptoms when I got it. Usually seemed to be set of by a change in the road surface or going over cats eyes or suchlike. I was going to change the steering damper but when I changed the wheels and tyres for my 265/75 BFG's the problem went away. I reckon it had something to do with the pathetic little 205s it had on as standard.

Many thanks. I did have the swivels pre loaded and bushes checked. The garage is run by real Land Rover fans. They all own Land Rovers. My wife hates going there as I am there for ages.

I did have two new tyres, Wrangler HP's. They are a newer version of the old ones, so the tread pattern is slightly different. The garage moved the two new tyres from the front to the rear as "feathering" had taken place. They adjusted the tracking which was one degree out.

My concern is that we tow a large caravan and the extra weight on the make may make the front feel even lighter. The chap said that when towing with a heavy weight the whole dynamics of weight distribution change, so it should be fine. It is annoying as the Disco has been really looked after but I am spending inordinate amounts of cash and it is no better. The problem is that the juddering, albeit often shortlived, is really severe to the point where I now brace myself when seeing bumps etc.

Once again, many thanks

Possibly the swivel pins, try removing the shims and re-fitting the swivel pins, this worked a treat on my friends so may well work on yours, he also replaced ball joints, track rods etc before we found the problem.

Thanks. Hopefully, that may be something that they have not done and will not be too expensive. As I mentioned earlier, on the plus side, the De Carbon Shocks mean that the Disco corners so much better. I would really recommend them. It is now the straights that worry me.

Kind regards

Don't discount the tail wagging the dog!
Check trailing arm bushes, A frame bushes, ARB etc.

Its less than an hours work so should be cheap enough, it only a case of undoing 2 bolts either side and lifting the pins, removing shims and refitting, it really is that simple, i never would of thought of doing this myself, it was a reputable land rover specialist in my area, west 4x4 that told me to do this and it worked.

The advice not to spend on this is sound. I had a 4 yr old range rover some years back that did this and I spent over a grand trying to rectify the problem and it never completely disappeared. Sorry not to be more optimistic but I did all the things mentioned here, to no avail

Many thanks for the all of the advice. Much appreciated. I have still gone and purchased this months LRO, so one cannot mourn forever.

I spoke with the garage again today and mentioned the possible faults suggested yesterday, but they said that they had already replaced and or checked those.

It was mentioned yesterday that replacing tyres had resolved the problem. I had two new tyres fitted at the time of the M.O.T in December, so maybe it is linked to that.

Either way, towing will be character building.

Kind regards and thanks

think some ford anglias had a similar problem back in the 60s, most ok just the odd one and seem to remeber reading there was no known cause or cure to it only that certain brands of tires made it worse.

Marc Potter said:

Many thanks for the all of the advice. Much appreciated. I have still gone and purchased this months LRO, so one cannot mourn forever.

I spoke with the garage again today and mentioned the possible faults suggested yesterday, but they said that they had already replaced and or checked those.

It was mentioned yesterday that replacing tyres had resolved the problem. I had two new tyres fitted at the time of the M.O.T in December, so maybe it is linked to that.

Either way, towing will be character building.

Kind regards and thanks

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more kind regards

shinydiscoball said:

think some ford anglias had a similar problem back in the 60s, most ok just the odd one and seem to remeber reading there was no known cause or cure to it only that certain brands of tires made it worse.

Click to expand...

The Anglia problem was a steering box problem, shims could be removed to adjust the steering play...

How's the steering play on the Disco? I've had a similar problem and have adjusted the steering box last weekend and with only beeing able to drive at 60mph for months whilst trying to solve the prob in the same manner as you... I have been able to drive to work at 75mph with no shaking at all since the steering box adjustment!

easy 5 minute job too.

Andy200TDi said:

The Anglia problem was a steering box problem, shims could be removed to adjust the steering play...

Click to expand...

Cheers for enlightenment