Car Drifting To The Left

Roland Butter · 5 Jul 2018 at 13:30

Car drifting to the left on most single carraigeway roads, not so bad on motorways but not perfect.

Car has done 12K miles , it behaved perfectly until I had to replace the left front tyre due to a inner edge bulge caused by a pothole impact, so I replaced both front tyres rather than have two differing tread paterns on the front axle.

I have swapped them round to no effect.

As you can see the alignment specs are spot on although I'd prefer a bit more cross camber
to combat road crown effect.
Any ideas ?

Hyburnate · 5 Jul 2018 at 13:49

What tyres have you put on?

Roland Butter · 5 Jul 2018 at 14:39

Well, not budget ones, but neither top of the range either.
Avon ZZ5

The originals were Dunlops.

MissChief · 5 Jul 2018 at 15:04

It's worth remembering that very few roads are uniformly flat and most will have a slight camber to the kerb for drainage. It's normal for a car to drift left slightly due to this. If you can find a truly flat road, does the car still pull left? Most tyres have a rotation direction, have the tyres been mounted correctly? slightly binding brake caliper could also cause this for example. Does the wheel turn freely when that side is jacked up? Or after a run is that side hot?

Roland Butter · 5 Jul 2018 at 15:23

MissChief said:
It's worth remembering that very few roads are uniformly flat and most will have a slight camber to the kerb for drainage. It's normal for a car to drift left slightly due to this. If you can find a truly flat road, does the car still pull left? Most tyres have a rotation direction, have the tyres been mounted correctly? slightly binding brake caliper could also cause this for example. Does the wheel turn freely when that side is jacked up? Or after a run is that side hot?

On a flat road it's fine, I'll check the tyres for direction, I don't think the brakes are binding, I know that problem from a previous car.

eddie101 · 5 Jul 2018 at 15:36

Roland Butter said:
On a flat road it's fine

I think you've answered your own question bud.

grudas · 5 Jul 2018 at 16:24

its the road, totally normal for tyres/car to follow road camber. Especially if it's fine on a flat road.

Psycho Sonny · 5 Jul 2018 at 16:38

"so I replaced both front tyres rather than have two differing tread paterns on the front axle"

lolwut? complete overkill

i have non runflats and runflats on the same axle. i'm still alive. been over a year too.

i also have completely different tread patterns, makes, etc.

also tread pattern only makes a difference on the same side of the car i thought. as in the front tyre and back tyre. the front tyre wicking away rain so the back tyre gets much more grip.

anyway it's a load of BS. unless you are a pro race driver. just buy decent tyres. it also makes even less sense if you have a normal car (less than 150 bhp). so long as it's a decent tyre it doesn't matter in most cases if they are all different.

there are people out there driving with 4 cheap tyres on each corner all of different makes, etc and they are all still fine. so my advice is do something inbetween. no need to go overkill. don't go cheap either. just buy whatever is decent and offers best value at the time.

grudas · 5 Jul 2018 at 16:45

Psycho Sonny said:
"so I replaced both front tyres rather than have two differing tread paterns on the front axle"

lolwut? complete overkill

i have non runflats and runflats on the same axle. i'm still alive. been over a year too.

i also have completely different tread patterns, makes, etc.

also tread pattern only makes a difference on the same side of the car i thought. as in the front tyre and back tyre. the front tyre wicking away rain so the back tyre gets much more grip.

anyway it's a load of BS. unless you are a pro race driver. just buy decent tyres. it also makes even less sense if you have a normal car (less than 150 bhp). so long as it's a decent tyre it doesn't matter in most cases if they are all different.

there are people out there driving with 4 cheap tyres on each corner all of different makes, etc and they are all still fine. so my advice is do something inbetween. no need to go overkill. don't go cheap either. just buy whatever is decent and offers best value at the time.

yes it is all fine until you need to do emergency stop to avoid a collision on a wet/greasy road and then it's not all fine

Psycho Sonny · 5 Jul 2018 at 16:49

grudas said:
yes it is all fine until you need to do emergency stop to avoid a collision on a wet/greasy road and then it's not all fine

why wouldn't it be fine? i'm advocating he buy decent tyres. however there is no need to be anal about them all matching, etc. yes it's better. as in let's say he needs to replace 2 tyres then buy 2 matching ones. however if 1 is gone then just buy 1 decent one.

Roland Butter · 5 Jul 2018 at 17:26

MOT failure if the tyres are different makes, that's a cert.

smilertoo · 5 Jul 2018 at 17:32

you sure? car i bought in december had 4 different tyres.

Armageus · 5 Jul 2018 at 17:34

Roland Butter said:
MOT failure if the tyres are different makes, that's a cert.

Nope not at all.

Wife's zafira had 4 mismatched tyres when I bought it and had fresh mot.

Only requirement for mot is to not mix radial and cross-ply.

Gaygle · 5 Jul 2018 at 17:43

Psycho Sonny said:
there are people out there driving with 4 cheap tyres on each corner all of different makes, etc and they are all still fine.

With the application of this sort of logic in life - how could you go wrong? :rolleyes:

The statement is so moronic that it hurts to even think about it.

There are people out there who don't wear their seatbelt too and "they are all still fine"? Does that make it a smart thing to do? By the way, how are we measuring that "they are all still fine"? What does that even mean?

Lopéz · 5 Jul 2018 at 17:53

Roland Butter said:
MOT failure if the tyres are different makes, that's a cert.

No it isn't.

adolf hamster · 5 Jul 2018 at 18:06

Psycho Sonny said:
"so I replaced both front tyres rather than have two differing tread paterns on the front axle"

lolwut? complete overkill

i have non runflats and runflats on the same axle. i'm still alive. been over a year too.

i also have completely different tread patterns, makes, etc.

also tread pattern only makes a difference on the same side of the car i thought. as in the front tyre and back tyre. the front tyre wicking away rain so the back tyre gets much more grip.

anyway it's a load of BS. unless you are a pro race driver. just buy decent tyres. it also makes even less sense if you have a normal car (less than 150 bhp). so long as it's a decent tyre it doesn't matter in most cases if they are all different.

there are people out there driving with 4 cheap tyres on each corner all of different makes, etc and they are all still fine. so my advice is do something inbetween. no need to go overkill. don't go cheap either. just buy whatever is decent and offers best value at the time.

i was always under the impression that not running mixes tyres was more about preventing undue differential wear than safety, ie that it's fine to mix on non-driven axles.

at least that's the logic i've always followed.

On Holiday · 5 Jul 2018 at 18:14

MissChief · 5 Jul 2018 at 18:27

adolf hamster said:
i was always under the impression that not running mixes tyres was more about preventing undue differential wear than safety, ie that it's fine to mix on non-driven axles.

at least that's the logic i've always followed.

While it's fine, no one wants different grip levels across the same axle, especially on driven wheels.

Quartz · 5 Jul 2018 at 18:27

Roland Butter said:
Car drifting to the left on most single carraigeway roads, not so bad on motorways but not perfect.

That's expected behaviour due to the camber on the road, as @grudas has already said.

adolf hamster · 5 Jul 2018 at 19:06

MissChief said:
While it's fine, no one wants different grip levels across the same axle, especially on driven wheels.

that is a fair point.

i've always went for the same left/right but a mix front/back depending on the configuration of the car.

current motor has a mix mainly because i haven't got around to changing them yet to something uniform.