Until yesterday I always thought my 96 and 99 Legacies were the most directionally stable cars, but I had only been driving with one passenger. Yesterday I had a full car on a long journey in my 96 Legacy and both I and my co-driver noticed the car was weaving and needed constant small corrections.

Any similar experiences or advice please?

Gil

Never noticed that at all. I've had the 01 loaded with 4 people, towing my pop up camper and loaded with all our gear. Not anything that I remember. I have had the 93 loaded with my father-in-law and I and a 500+ lbs set of cast iron table legs. Drove about 300 mile with all of that and no problems. BTW, my father-in-law is bigger than I am, and I'm 6'1", 250lbs...

 

I would recommend going to a GOOD shop that does all wheel alignments. You may be out a little and not know it. By GOOD Shop, I would avoid the national chains... I've had good luck with a local independant HD Truck shop. They are always busy, and they fixed my uncle's 35ft class A motor home that he couldn't keep straight on the road... He was an over the road truck driver for several years, so he knew it was the "bus", not his driving...

Have you checked the tire pressures? I find that my car is really susceptible to things like that when the pressures are just a little bit different from side to side, moreso than other non-AWD cars I have driven.

 

Steve

Outback 97 beat me to it. Tire pressure ... I've had the whole wayback of my '95 Leg loaded to the top of the windows with firewood, and it still felt stable (I run 38 lbs).

It give you specs right behind the driver's door on a lot of cars. For a Christmas trip with five people and luggage I go up to the higher figure.

How accurately do pressures have to be matched side to side?

Didn't think about Tire Pressure causing those kind of issues... I've now learned something as well.

the tire compresses under load and changes the diameter. If you have a limted slip diff things can really get interesting, as well as if you rears are underinflated for the load the car is on an angle. This changes the front end settings effectively.