Wheel alignment / pulling to the left

[Moped]

Went back to the fitter today and raised a complaint. They took the car on the ramp again and realigned. Surprisingly, over night and an astonishing 2 miles after the first alignment, the wheel alignment done Monday had gone away. Sorted. Drives well now. Thanks for everybody's advice.

 

[mahdirast]

Went back to the fitter today and raised a complaint. They took the car on the ramp again and realigned. Surprisingly, over night and an astonishing 2 miles after the first alignment, the wheel alignment done Monday had gone away. Sorted. Drives well now. Thanks for everybody's advice.

I have same problem as you, I have to hold the wheel at 10 degrees, I did wheel alignment three times and the issue still persist, can you tell me what have you done exactly please ??

 

[NLMGSAN]

Hi there.

I have done my mg4 wheel alignment 5 or 6 times in an effort to try and stop it drifting to the left when I let go of the wheel (even on roads with no camber or on the wrong side of the road)

I am a motor vehicle lecturer with an almost new hunter Hawkeye elite wheel alignment machine that has had no abuse and has gave perfect results on every other car.

No matter how many times I tweak my mg4 (and it's just that. Tweaking) it still seems to drift to the left.

No adverse tyre wear or feathering or anything like that.

Everything seems perfect. It just wants to drift to the left

Maybe I'm wrong, but I had the same drift and it was solved after the third alignment, but only after the Polish mechanic found out my steering wheel was out of tune. You probably already checked this, but just in case...

 

[tsedge]

Is the steering wheel on straight? If slightly misaligned you will get the behaviour you report.

 

[mahdirast]

Is the steering wheel on straight? If slightly misaligned you will get the behaviour you report.

Yeah, I have seen the technician make it fully straight.

 

[nogbad]

Apropos of nothing. I used to have a car that pulled to the left when I was nearly home (a different address) - straight into the pub carpark. I'd pick it up the following day

 

[Lovemyev]

Correct wheel alignment is pretty straight forward, but largely depends on who and how it is done.
It is very easy to goof up though.
The steering wheel is already fitted onto the steering column and is then offered up as an assembly to the steering rack, this is also aligned by means of a “master spline” and then held in place by a pitch bolt that grips the rack head, it is not possible to install the pitch bolt unless it is in perfect alignment, therefore highly unlikely that this is the issue.
Gone are the days when you can just remove the steering wheel anymore and move it a few splines at the top of the steering column these days.
I never understand how tyre shops will commence wheel alignment with tyres on the car that are already showing signs of uneven wear across the tread ?.
Should this be the case, then rotate the fronts to the backs, THEN carry out the alignment.
The steering wheel should be locked firmly in the straight ahead position and then the tracking adjustment made at the track rod ends.
When the tracking is within the correct spec’s, it is very important that they SHOULD be equal the number of threads evident on BOTH track rods ends.
If this incorrect, the alignment will show correct, but when the car is driven down the road, your steering wheel will be not be in the centre position and you will be fighting to keep the car on the straight and narrow.
In this respect even the hunter system can be fooled IF the process is done by an inexperienced person.
It’s easy to get right, but even easier to get wrong if you know what I mean.
Tracking just does NOT go out of alignment, just on its own accord.
Unless the road wheel or steering / suspension components have either excess wear, or has sustained damage due to heavy impact into an kerb etc and buckled the rim or bent something else.
But honestly, if you hit something that hard, there would be obvious damage sustained and you would remember causing it !.

 

[Kithmo]

Not the case here, but I've actually had a car that pulled to one side simply due to different brands of tyres on each side of the front axle. Changing the odd tyre to the rear cured it.

 

[Lovemyev]

Then this situation can be down to mixing of different tyre brands and not down to any steering geometry set up errors.
It’s a personal thing I know, but I have never mixed different brands of tyres on my cars, let alone mixing brands of different tyres on the same axle.
It is not uncommon to see four different brands of tyres all on the same vehicle.
This type of thing makes me extremely nervous tbh.
Why has this happened, are they all part worn tyres, from who knows where ?.
Tyres are the last thing between you and the tarmac.
If I don’t know their origin, then they're gone !.

 

[Kithmo]

Then this situation can be down to mixing of different tyre brands and not down to any steering geometry set up errors.
It’s a personal thing I know, but I have never mixed different brands of tyres on my cars, let alone mixing brands of different tyres on the same axle.
It is not uncommon to see four different brands of tyres all on the same vehicle.
This type of thing makes me extremely nervous tbh.
Why has this happened, are they all part worn tyres, from who knows where ?.
Tyres are the last thing between you and the tarmac.
If I don’t know their origin, then they're gone !.

I'm the same, even the old bangers I used to drive in the 70s always had a full set of the same tyres on and always a well known brand.
The situation I mentioned above was put upon me by the dealer doing an MOT test when they found damage on the inside wall of the aforesaid tyre and didn't stock the Michelins that were on the car already. The reason I moved it to the rear and left it on, was that the same dealer was taking the car in part exchange a few weeks later so it was going to be their problem.

 

[tsedge]

Then this situation can be down to mixing of different tyre brands and not down to any steering geometry set up errors.
It’s a personal thing I know, but I have never mixed different brands of tyres on my cars, let alone mixing brands of different tyres on the same axle.
It is not uncommon to see four different brands of tyres all on the same vehicle.
This type of thing makes me extremely nervous tbh.
Why has this happened, are they all part worn tyres, from who knows where ?.
Tyres are the last thing between you and the tarmac.
If I don’t know their origin, then they're gone !.

Tyres have become vastly more expensive, which is why people don't maintain them like they used to and will mix them up. Tyre technology has gotten amazingly more advanced but the prices reflect that. It is no surprise to me that people slap on a single budget replacement whenever they get a problem.

One of the primary reasons for this is the stupidly big wheels that cars have which is principally driven by marketing and car reviewers. Big wheels require big thin tyres which are hard and expensive to make. Then they ruin the ride.

If we went back to sensible sizes and profiles, tyres would be way cheaper and people would maintain them better.

Edit: Another factor is the weight of modern cars, which was initially driven by safety considerations and latterly by the weight of batteries and all the ADAS kit required. As batteries get lighter and lighter EVs come on the market, as is already happening, tyre strength and pressures will be able to be reduced again, keeping prices down.

 

[Kithmo]

Tyres have become vastly more expensive, which is why people don't maintain them like they used to and will mix them up. Tyre technology has gotten amazingly more advanced but the prices reflect that. It is no surprise to me that people slap on a single budget replacement whenever they get a problem.

Also tyres don't last as long as they used to. Back in the 70s, 80s and well into the 90s, it wasn't uncommon to get 50k+ miles out of a tyre, a rarity now, anything over 20k miles out of a tyre is a bonus these days.

 

[siteguru]

Also tyres don't last as long as they used to. Back in the 70s, 80s and well into the 90s, it wasn't uncommon to get 50k+ miles out of a tyre, a rarity now, anything over 20k miles out of a tyre is a bonus these days.

A large part of that is the weight of vehicles now ... many cars were less than a tonne back then (esp. in the 70s); nowadays we're hard-pressed to find any car less than a tonne.

 

[Lovemyev]

Mixing different tyres on the same axle can become a risk, because small differences in the tread pattern, weather suitability types and the compound ( soft or hard ) could be a problem especially if the tyre is being pushed hard or in different types of weather conditions for example.
E.G. - For some reason you end up with a hard compound / summer tyre on one side of a RWD vehicle, on the other side is a previously replaced tyre of unknown origin that is a soft compound / winter tyre on the opposite side.
The weather is not great, ice / snowing maybe, or even heavy rain.
Then you are forced to brake and make an unexpected steering manoeuvre.
This is when the mismatch in tyres is likely to let you down at the most important time.
All tyres are round & black, right !.
They have little else less in common after this point to be honest.

 

[Moped]

I had exactly the same issue. Unbelievable, but having the tyres aligned at an MG dealer immediately healed things. Three attempts at other fitters did not help. Don't know what they do differently, but... Maybe some software thing?
Anyway, this is not a commercial post in favour of MG! Just saying how it worked for me.

 

[Paulie68]

Gone are the days when you can just remove the steering wheel anymore and move it a few splines at the top of the steering column these days.

You were never meant to do this, even back in the day! It sets the centre point away from the centre of the rack/box if you do. The starting point of any alignment even on primitive systems is to make sure the steering is set at dead centre and then check the wheel is set correctly. Only then do you start the alignment.

 

[Lovemyev]

I had exactly the same issue. Unbelievable, but having the tyres aligned at an MG dealer immediately healed things. Three attempts at other fitters did not help. Don't know what they do differently, but... Maybe some software thing?
Anyway, this is not a commercial post in favour of MG! Just saying how it worked for me.

The equipment if only as good as the person operating it !.

 

[Lovemyev]

You were never meant to do this, even back in the day! It sets the centre point away from the centre of the rack/box if you do. The starting point of any alignment even on primitive systems is to make sure the steering is set at dead centre and then check the wheel is set correctly. Only then do you start the alignment.

Of course I fully understand this, I was just making the point that “back in the day” SOME people would realign the steering wheel instead of doing the procedure correctly !.