Steering Wheel off Centre when driving Straight

smr

smr

smr

Soldato
Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
8,799
Location
Leicestershire
I'm just wondering if I am over analysing this... I had wheel alignment done last Wednesday from ATS and when driving straight ahead I'm having to keep my steering wheel angled about 5-10 degrees to the right.

Is this normal?

And, although this was explained - it's still double dutch to me, wonder if anyone can tell me if this looks reasonable for the alignment:

 
then again I'm sure even if I drive in the middle of the road with it slightly sloping to the right and hold the steering wheel dead centre it starts to gradually drift off to the left
 
so normally they should set the steering wheel straight by hand and then adjust the wheels or are they supposed to put something on the steering wheel to keep it straight before doing the alignment?
 
smr said:
so normally they should set the steering wheel straight by hand and then adjust the wheels or are they supposed to put something on the steering wheel to keep it straight before doing the alignment?
Click to expand...
They set the wheel straight and should then lock it in position with some kind of device.
 
Mine does this, also after having just had it aligned. The guy that did it was a top mechanic as well. I did have other suspension work done at the same time though so I'm letting it settle for a few weeks then will address it if it's still an issue. Mine is only very slightly off. Also pulls to the left.
 
When adjusting front toe-in the proper way to do it is to lock the wheel in the dead ahead position and adjust both sides to the correct toe angles. It’s fairly common for lazy techs to only adjust one side which, whilst it gives the correct overall toe, it leads to the wheel being off-centre. Doesn’t necessarily cause an issue but it’s not right, should be done properly and should tell you all you need to know about the attitude of the people there towards their overall quality of work.
 
kaiowas said:
When adjusting front toe-in the proper way to do it is to lock the wheel in the dead ahead position and adjust both sides to the correct toe angles. It’s fairly common for lazy techs to only adjust one side which, whilst it gives the correct overall toe, it leads to the wheel being off-centre. Doesn’t necessarily cause an issue but it’s not right, should be done properly and should tell you all you need to know about the attitude of the people there towards their overall quality of work.
Click to expand...

Yeah for some reason I just get the feeling that the steering wheel wasn't locked in dead ahead position at all, with anything.
 
If the steering wheel is offset to the left when driving straight on a level road they/ you need to add a bit of toe out to the LH front wheel and the same amount of toe in to the RH front wheel until it drives straight with the steering wheel straight.

If the steering wheel is on a multi spline hub you can pull it off and set it straight, but airbags and concentric clock springs for rotatable electric feeds can make it far less straightforward (pardon the pun) than doing it on the track rod ends.

I centre the rack with equal track rod end extension on either sides, lock the steering wheel straight ahead and set the toe, then road test.

I don't do many road cars, on race cars everything is set relative to the true centreline of the tub. Parallel bars arre set up referenced from that centreline and everything relative to that plane is measured from those. You can work to very close tolerances as the settings don't move around with squishy rubber bush compliance.
 
had this before, effs w/ my OCD lol. back in the day you'd just pop the central logo off and adjust via the nut, now you got airbags and stuff in the way.
 
What had you hit for the alignment to be out in the first place.
Genuine question. An ex KwikFit manager told me tracking doesn't just go out.. Theres a lock nut stopping the trackrod from moving.
 
Indeed , would they have made an adjustment at the front if the steering wheel had been in the right place - or was it all within tolerance
they compensated for the wheel being off to the right by turning both wheels anticlockwise 0.7 & 1.2

by the looks of it camber & castor can't be adjusted, so, in retrospect is a full wheel alignment justified.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom