Steering damper

Hi All,
Just after a bit of feedback from those that have fitted a steering damper. Does it make the steering heavy and has it improved or made worse the driving experience of your jimny.
Ours does not suffer "wobble" all the time, but some roads or pot holes can induce it a little, and on motoways the steering will "shuffle" as we go along. Not a real big issue, but the £80 for the kit has me interested if it will calm the Jimny "fidgety steering", allowing me to doze off at the wheel:whistle:
Any experince? Worth it, waste of money etc

Thanks

Mike

I fitted Tough Dog RTC damper and love it. Steering is now a whole lot better and just hard enough (now it's comparable to my VW Polo, before it was somewhat toy-like).

It was the first thing I added to mine just smooths the steering out like a normal car worth it in my opinion

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Very worth the money for the imrovement

Thanks for the comments everyone.
Went for it and fitted the Armstrong "nothing special" damper kit. Have to say it's well worth the money in my humble opinion.
The steering feel is still fairly light but the car feels better on the road. That slight wander has gone along with the 45mph wobble feel that it had intermittently. Good accessory, very happy.

I have one for Ermintrude but quite honestly it is on a shelf. The thing is that if a Jimny is set up correctly on stock suspension it shouldn't have need of a steering damper. If it does then that points to something being in need of attention be it kingpins, wheel bearings, bushings, steering rod joints, wheel balance, dampers or whatever, if something is at the end of its service life even if it hasn't actually failed it can present in some subtle ways that fitting a.steering damper will mask. On lifted cars though the entire system can be fitted new and still have need of a damper simply because of the size of the new bigger tyres. Fundamentally the design of the Jimny suspension is about on the limit of what it will suffer in standard form in terms of tyre size and weight, increasing this requires additional assistance for the system to cope.

Hi Lambert,

I have to agree with your comments, its more than likely masking an issue.... BUT even Suzuki hint at problems as they issued a modification that includes new bushes and shims to set a preload on the kingpin bearing, this suggests a need for damping, provided by correct kingpin preload.
I chècked for play in every joint (none), the wheels are balanced and new. The only thing I did not check was the preload on the kingpins. As the car has 40k on the clock its likely the preload is lower than that suggested, I also dont have the improved bushes fitted. The steering damper I fitted may be simply adding damping in place of the kingpin preload, but if it is it works just as well. One day I will strip and set each kingpin, fit the bushes and try it again without the damper, but until that day arrives I am still over the moon with it and the improved feel of the car on the road. Of course this improvement to feel is only in my humble opinion.

Thanks all again

JUst hurt my wrist these days after I drop one front wheel in a pothole. To this date, I did not found necessary to ad a steering dumper. Look at the tough Dog site for the RTC ones and it said it did not fit the jimny!
I have a left hand drive one with OME suspension. Wich damper have did you recomend, particularly that maintain the on road handling and RTC function? anyone tried the Trailmaster?
regards,

Hi,

This is the damper I fitted and I have no complaints. It's fitted to a standard GEN3 which only gets road use.

Suzuki Jimny Steering Damper Kit Improve Steering Handling Help Death Wobble | eBay ebay.us/crjg4g

Not sure what RTC stands for in this instance, Road Traffic Collision !?

It makes the Jimny nice on road and the steering is more like a "normal" road car. I am comparing to say a modern VW polo in this instance. No feedback on the trailmaster version and how it differs sorry.

Mike

Rtc return to centre. It means that the damper is either internally or externally sprung to make it return to its centre of travel. This is ver useful for cars with huge heavy tyres and saves some of the wear on the pas system and fatigue in the driver. It is critical that the steering is centred when installing an rtc damper else it will be constantly fighting itself. With a plain damper it is less of an issue so long as the damper doesn't bottom out before the steering reaches either lock stop.

Thank you Lambert, never too old to learn something new.

Dear Lambert,
tks for the explanation!
I ride in a 215 75 r15 Tyre size. It came with this size from de SZK as a special edition. Are this size big enough, or maybe It´s not necessary? It´s my day car, but I also use very dirt/mud roads.