More on Chrysler wheel alignment

Feb 26, 2004 22 Replies

I have a 97 T&C AWD van. I had the same problem. I purchased the car new. What follows is a post I first sent to this newsgroup back then.

I thought the car pulled very slightly to one side. The dealer worked on the alignment, claimed it was caster and even though the manual says it is not adjustable. The dealer claimed he was able to have it adjusted by making the hole a little larger and retightening the bolts. HMMM. Camber is adjustable with a kit that contains an eccentric bolt; perhaps the alignment shop he sent it out to didn't explain it correctly. In any event, the problem was fixed. Now on level roads the car does not tend to wander to the left or right. It tracks straight. However, on a road that has a slight tilt (or camber), the car wants to wander to the low side. This means that you often have to feed slight pressure to the steering wheel to counter the tendency. I think the set up is not as good as it could be. It seems to take too much pressure. In an attempt to create "road feel" I think they built in too much resistance to the steering. This is most noticeable on poor roads that have high camber. You should be able to check it out by taking notice of which way the car is pulling and carefully noting the road characteristics. I've gotten used to it. I learned to drive on a '58 Dodge with power steering. It had NO road feel. I think the CC boys overcompensated.

But, I did have a problem, and the dealer did send the car to an alignment specialty shop to have it fixed. The dealer said he did not have the necessary equipment.

Actually the steering is stiff when the vehicle is stationary, but there is hardly a need for power steering when the vehicle is moving. I've tried it before no problem. At speed the steering is only slightly stiffer than normal. As for the brakes, the booster holds enough vacuum for 2-3 full applications. If you need more you can always fire the engine up.

If the pull isn't PS related it should experience the same amount of pull if you are on a flat road and let go of the wheel with the engine off, shouldn't it?

However, one should still only try this in traffic free safe conditions.

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