1994 Corolla, the first time for us with it on the motorway and when having to break a bit sharpish, it wants to pull to the left (nearside). Not serious but still enough to be disconcerting.
The tyres are all with plenty of tread. The tyre pressures all a tiny bit over 2.2 bar except the offside front which is spot on 2.2 bar. All the tyres are Bridgestone except the rear nearside which is Dunlop.
It is not a 'oneoff' occurrance, but is always happening when you brake more than usual.
Would anyone advise a layman what the cause is likely to be please?
On vehicles I've driven, in no special order, steering alignment, contamination on the offside disc, uneven pad or disc wear, or one of calipers sticking slightly. Also possible is a failure of the master cylinder which is preventing one of the cicuits operating, so you only have braking on one rear wheel. Check the brake fluid level in both parts of the reservoir, as it wouldn't be the first time the level sensor or warning bulb has failed or been disconnected in my experience. I've even had a stone jammed in a caliper, but the noise made that one easy to guess.
There *may* be a common fault on that model, but the above are a good start as a generic list of stuff to look at.
Worn pads, sticking calipers, leaky calipers, oil on the disks mixed tyres , misaligned steering geometry can all cause that to happen to varying degrees.Its probably happening all the time but your correcting it without realiseing it when your braking gently
I would as a first port of call take the wheels off and check the pads for wear and calipers for free movement ,leaks and any contaminant on the disks.
If thats ok swap the odd tyre over and see if the problem goes away or switches to the opposite side.
In many countries its ilegal to have different brands of tyre and different rated tyres of the same brand on the same axle / sometimes vehicle because they offer differing grip and stopping levels .
If that doesnt work get your steering geometry checked.
Germany for a start. When I got a large nail in my offside front the workshop replaced it free of charge (VW tyre guarantee). But as the original was Brand A and they had no Brand A in stock they had to replace both fronts with Brand B, even though there was nothing wrong with the nearside front. Both free.
Germans tend to dump their tyres well before this and there is therefore a huge market in used German tyres. The Brits used to import loads of them but I rather think that has been banned for some years now. But they still go out to other countries.
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