Car pulls slightly to the left after wheel alignment

[VTowner025]

Hello all,

I hope that you can help me as I don't know too much about wheel alignments. Today I replaced all 4 tyres (New Michelin MX2 205 65 15R) on the car, and I had a wheel alignment completed at Tyreplus.

The car was driving straight before the wheel alignment with the warn tires, now seems to pull a little to the left with the wheel alignment and the new tires. I have the specs of the before and after from the alignment readout and have attached to this message. Can someone knowledgeable let me know if they did a good or bad job?

I drive a VT2 Commodore Berlina Sedan, made in 2000 V6 3.8L with LPG tank in the boot.

Thanks

[Verynice]

The final results are fine. Some tyres are known to have "radial pull".

Just take it back to where you got it done, and let them know. They will swap the front wheels side to side. Then if it pulls to the right, it is in the tyres. If pulling left still, could be in the front end suspension.

They should look after any problems you have, seeing as you did buy 4x top of the range tyres and a W.A.

Cheerz

[MikeCuzzy]

+1, explain the problem, they'll take it for a test drive- maybe go with them and point out the problem as it occured for you. They should fix it, given it's what you asked them to do originally.

[calais24/7]

most cars will slightly pull to the left, nearly every commy ive been in has, from like vl to vx

[304runner]

Yeah most cars should pull to the left, my understanding of this is just in case you faint or fall asleep at the wheel it will drift away from on coming traffic. I'm yet to own a car that doesn't do it.

[glenn l]

i agree with very nice, there is enough split betwen the camber and the caster to stop the car pulling left, its in the tyres, get them to rotate the tyres on the front left to right and it should fix it. we find a lot of michelins have a radial pull in them.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Agreed, swap the front tyres left to right and it should fix your problem.

Cars should drive straight when set up correctly, but they will tend to follow the camber of the road when it gets bad enough to overcome the alignment settings to compensate for it. On a dead flat road, they should pull right. From factory they are set up neutrally, so most cars will pull left until an alignment is done to compensate for the camber of the road.

[DANNY8]

I got 4 new tyres on mine the other day and the shop wouldn't do a wheel alignment coz my inner control arm bushes were rooted, he said he could of done one but it would of been a waste of time and money. Maybe go over ur suspension and look for worn bushes?

I'm not sure how true it is that all cars pull to the left automatically.....most of it is prolly due to the angle of the road.

[Jesterarts]

most cars will slightly pull to the left, nearly every commy ive been in has, from like vl to vx

Yeah most cars should pull to the left, my understanding of this is just in case you faint or fall asleep at the wheel it will drift away from on coming traffic. I'm yet to own a car that doesn't do it.

As far as I know alignments are set up to pull slightly to the left.

Most roads are also cambered so the car will pull to the left.

My clubby does it, my bimmer did it, my VX did it and my VN did it.

[johnno010684]

Yeah most cars should pull to the left, my understanding of this is just in case you faint or fall asleep at the wheel it will drift away from on coming traffic. I'm yet to own a car that doesn't do it.

exactly right, best mate works at bridgestone and they w.a all cars like that, if you get an experienced wheel aligner they will know how to set your camber to drive perfectly straight (that is on a road with camber)

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

You compensate for the camber of the road with the caster adjustment, not the camber.

Most cars pull left because of the camber of the road, nothing to do with falling asleep or anything else. Most new cars can't be adjusted that much o they still pull to the left, an experienced aligner will recommend kits to be fitted to enable more adjustment.

[VTowner025]

Thanks, everyone for the feedback, all very useful. I was wondering thou, do there exists wheel alignment data sheets for optimum specifications? in the the print put the second column is the target range, seems to be missing the data, hence I thought there might have been ideal sittings to set to.

[VTowner025]

Hi Not an Abby fan, had a look at the wheel alignment sheet, the caster alignment data seems pretty near the same with the before and after measurements, I have a question thou, if the car is driving perfectly straight, but the steering wheel is off center pointing to the left, what would be causing this? Cheers

[glenn l]

Hi Not an Abby fan, had a look at the wheel alignment sheet, the caster alignment data seems pretty near the same with the before and after measurements, I have a question thou, if the car is driving perfectly straight, but the steering wheel is off center pointing to the left, what would be causing this? Cheers

the caster is not adjustable from factroy, but you can get off set plates the change the caster(theres a little plate that clips in a recess that locates the bolt), that small caster movement happens when they reset the camber and toe.
as for your steering wheel it could possably be they havnt centered it properly when they aligned it.

[VTowner025]

Thanks Glen for the response, I really hate getting wheel alignments, due to past experiences with them, 50/50 Had some good wheel alignments (Pedders in Bayswater), but some really poor ones (tires place at Dandenong, and another place) drove the car away and the steering wheel was on a 5 degree lean? Took it back to them to fix.


Seems I might of have another semi poor experience with this one, car is drifting to the left but also I don't think the wheel was centred correctly before the alignment was done as you mentioned above, grrr, as it is off centre to the left a little when driving on a flat straight road. I would have thought a place like Tyreplus was reasonable good at what they did, but it is very hard to get good reviews from the net for decent place to go for new tires and a wheel alignment done correctly the first time. I checked the tire pressure today also to see if that was causing trouble, and they were a little out too, back right 31 psi back left 37 psi, front right 34 psi, front left 33 psi, seems a little poor on the tire place for inconstant tire pressures. Will be back tomorrow to let them have another go at the wheel alignment. Otherwise might take it back to Pedders. Cheers

[glenn l]

Thanks Glen for the response, I really hate getting wheel alignments, due to past experiences with them, 50/50 Had some good wheel alignments (Pedders in Bayswater), but some really poor ones (tires place at Dandenong, and another place) drove the car away and the steering wheel was on a 5 degree lean? Took it back to them to fix.


Seems I might of have another semi poor experience with this one, car is drifting to the left but also I don't think the wheel was centred correctly before the alignment was done as you mentioned above, grrr, as it is off centre to the left a little when driving on a flat straight road. I would have thought a place like Tyreplus was reasonable good at what they did, but it is very hard to get good reviews from the net for decent place to go for new tires and a wheel alignment done correctly the first time. I checked the tire pressure today also to see if that was causing trouble, and they were a little out too, back right 31 psi back left 37 psi, front right 34 psi, front left 33 psi, seems a little poor on the tire place for inconstant tire pressures. Will be back tomorrow to let them have another go at the wheel alignment. Otherwise might take it back to Pedders. Cheers

most tyre places (i say most, not all of them) only do a toe and go, if it takes them 10-15 mins they are not aligning it just a toe and go. it will not fix it if it pulling.
i recomend going to a wheel alignment specialist, might pay more but you get what you pay for.

[VTowner025]

Been doing some research I think I understand what is going on with the no drifting to the left and right before and after, good for someone new like me and other newbies.

Rung up a Holden dealership and they said that recommended settings for the 3 main settings Camber, Caster and Toe is as follows:

Camber: -0.3 to -0.6 degrees (Confirmed this with Wikipedia as a bit of negative chamber helps to align the wheel straight around corners due to shear forces, but to much will scurf the tires)
Caster: 6.3 to 9.3 degrees
Toe: -2.9 degrees max (Wikipedia says, negative toe push the wheels in, make it travel in a straight line.

Before the wheel alignment

I had the following measurements:

Camber
Left: +0.02
Right: -0.37

Caster
Left: 9.29
Right: 8.30

Toe
Left: +4
Right: -1.1

So the old settings had front left tire pointing 4 mm right (due to positive reading) and also the front right tire pointing 1.1 mm right (due to negative reading) so both tires use to point right, hence when sitting on a chamber road to the left, they cancel each other out and the car drives straight, now that the car has the following settings -1.1 for both the front right and left tire, there is no longer no bias to the right and the car will drift to the left on a camber inclined road. Any car experts please let me know if I am wrong? although I still dont think they aligned up the steering wheel correctly before the wheel alignment, but that is another problem I think.

[johnno010684]

whats the difference between toe and caster? i know camber stands the tyre up vertical and if you have an adjustable caster kit on the front you can adjust toe to pointing in or out.

[Brett_jjj]

whats the difference between toe and caster? i know camber stands the tyre up vertical and if you have an adjustable caster kit on the front you can adjust toe to pointing in or out.

Caster angle is how far back or forward the wheel sits from the front axles centreline ..

[VTowner025]

I have found that this youtube video shows a good representation of the wheel alignment.

YouTube - ‪The Importance of Proper Wheel Alignment‬‏

[oska]

all cars pull to the left

roads have a slope that leans to the left thats where the drains are, find a nice flat road and see if it still does it

my car does it unless im driving on a flat road otherwise it's dead straight

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Having different toe settings on each wheel won't make the car pull in any direction, the wheels will self centre and even out the toe. When the steering wheel is centred, the toe may read differently on each wheel. There are different types of alignments, but the one that guarantees a straight steering wheel is the thrust alignment (or compensated alignment), this aligns the steering with the thrust line of the rear wheels.

Caster is the imaginary line formed by the steering axis of the front wheels.

[ToMMMaY]

Nothing worse then driving straight with a steering wheel thats not

[johnno010684]

i have just put in nolathane adjustable caster bushes what do they adjust? i have bad wear on inside edge of front tyres

[glenn l]

i have just put in nolathane adjustable caster bushes what do they adjust? i have bad wear on inside edge of front tyres

caster depending on where you have put the shims.