Fiat Punto Pulling to Left

degrees!

tracking

I would suspect the brakes. One side is probably grabbing, when you brake, the other opposite brake will be braking by the same amount and it won't want to steer to one side.

Is it happening all of the time? You can work out which side the faulty brake is on from the direction it is turning. If you jack it up, and try turning the wheels you may be able to find the wheel. That's my idea anyway.

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Have you kerbed hard it recently? That would account for the tracking being out, but may have done other damage not corrected when the tracking was reset. There's more to steering than just making the wheels point in the same direction.

Alternatively - you may simply have worn one tyre rather badly while the tracking was out and now you're noticing it. Unevenly worn tyres can handle atrociously.

assuming the mot check of the brakes was done correctly, then that should rule out brakes as the cause, recent tyres and tracking rule those out. Things to check include tyre pressures, all suspension for damage or faults (may not show on mot) and wheelbase each side. Park the car on level ground, make sure the steering is as straight ahead as possible, get an assistant and check some dimensions: front to back wheel each side and each wheel to a body part, each side should match pretty closely (5mm max difference) with a spirit level and a ruler you can get quite good comparisons of wheel camber angles. If everything seems ok, then just try swapping left and right front wheels, sometimes this works for no visible reason!

mrcheerful

I had an issue similar to this with a 55sx, under braking it pulled to the right, this was due to a crack in the brake hose on the left wheel, causing the hose to balloon under braking. 10 quid to Mr. Fiat and 20 mins of my time and all was well again.

Hellraiser...........>

You haven't got a dodgy shock absorber/front strut mounting, have you?

Hellraiser...........>

Thanks for all the replies!

The fault is present all the time - when braking and when just.. er... moving! No worse when doing either. The wheel does turn on its own more when moving slowly though.

The tyres are both new on the front and they have been checked - the fault was present before the new tyres too. Tracking has already been done but the issue was no better. I thought it might be suspension too

- but i am not sure what to look for when checking for damage/wear. Can anyone help with that?

I did Kerb it ages ago but the fault developed a long time after - like over a year! So i guess that would not be related.

Have you got power steering, and is your steering rack centered?