CaptainX

Been pretty cold the last few days. I have noticed that in the morning when I go to work, i hop in the car and give the steering wheel a turn. It feels almost as if the wheels are frozen to the ground. There is some spongy resistance, then a "pop" free. Steers fine after that. The same is true if I let it sit for a couple hours in the cold weather and hop in it. The other thing I find odd, I park on the corner of the street, and when I pull away in the morning, after this mysterious pop, I take the first right almost immediately. I have to turn ALMOST full lock because of my proximity to the curb at that point. When I make that turn, the car makes a knocking sound from the steering, quite aggressively, and with each knock there is a banging feeling in the car and it almost jolts to the side with each hit. There's very little feedback in the steering wheel though. It sounds almost like a bad CV joint, but literally it's only in the first 10 seconds of driving, after the car has been sitting in the cold all night (it was 24 degrees Fahrenheit when I left for work this morning), then its gone and the steering feels fine. The first day I thought a stick or something was frozen to the tire, and just worked its way off, but the second day I can assume there was no stick.

Either way, anyone know what this could be? Tomorrow morning, if it's not snowy, I'll try and record it and see if I can recreate the results.

pascal

Since 2011, the cars are now equipped with the EPAS system (electric steering) so freezing temperatures might be causing a problem on sensors/contacts etc...
Not very familiar with these new cars so I'd be speculating more than passing on a true knowledge.
Talk to your dealer about this and see if they came across this problem before...

CaptainX

I've determined it's my tires freezing to the ground and causing flat spots. They work themselves out after a few hundred feet. Still got my summer tires on.

pascal

Makes sense...
Try to roll the car a couple of inches before steering then, makes it easier on that motor.

Derf00

Letting your summer tires freeze is a huge no-no. The compounds in summer tires do not take well to cold temps. Most summer tire mfgs specifically state on the tire or on their site to not allow them to freeze or use them in sub zero temps or damage could occur.

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...jsp?techid=273

http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete...jsp?techid=220

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/n...king/index.htm

https://www.pirelli.com/tires/en-us/.../tire-warranty Under their "What's not covered by the warranty" " Summer tires which develop surface cracks due to use in low ambient
temperatures. These include P Zero Silver, P Zero Trofeo, P Zero Corsa
System, P Zero, P Zero Rosso ™, P Zero Nero, Cinturato P7, Scorpion Zero ™
and Scorpion Verde."

The list goes on....

CaptainX

yeah, im working on getting a winter set on there. Ive had some struggles (see my wnter combo post in the wheels and tires forum) hopefully next week i should resolve everything