Steering Wheel Pulls to Right

"Tube Audio" wrote: (1990 Lexus ES 250 - Basically a Toyota Camry)

The steering wheel pulls to the right. If I hold the steering wheel centered the car will drive straight. If I let go of the steering wheel at high or low speeds the steering wheel turns a bit to the right, and stays there. This is its natural position. I've had the car aligned and rechecked and the problem still exists. What should I check? ___________________________________________________

When you let go of the steering wheel and it turns a bit to the right and stays there, does the car turn to the right or keep going straight?

If the car goes straight: The steering wheel was not centered during the alignment procedure. Have it adjusted.

If the car turns right: Swap the front tires and see if it then pulls to the left. If so, one of the tires is bad.

Good luck.

Rodan.

Had that problem on a car once-was a tire out of round-had to get a new tire

I see that happen on lots of cars on our local roads. They make the roads with a crown in the middle so water drains to the side. This driving 'on the side of a hill' has the effect to make most cars want to pull to the right slightly.

Just a thought for you.

Mike

Did you tell the mechanic to align the car, or did you tell them it pulled to the right? There's a fine line of difference here...

There is a phenomenon known as "radial pull". Switch your front tires around and see if the pull shifts to the other side. At least then you will know your car is fine.

Go to a real alignment shop. Not a tire store with kids who know how to put the car on the rack, press a button, and do what the computer tells them to do, but a shop where people actually know how to do alignment by hand. They will find it.

Odds are your wheel just wasn't centered properly when they did the first alignment, but you never know until you look underneath.

--scott

Howdy,

I would suggest that the (wise) test you offer would not tell the OP that the "car is fine" if the pull shifts.

It would show that the tires were not fine, but there may well still be other problems.

All the best,

Try a level parking lot before going further.

Another force is the "Coriolis Force." It is difficult to detect unless you can ship your vehicle to the other side of the equator. If this force is the culprit then, on the other side of the equator it would have a tendency to pull in the opposite direction; in this instance, "left."

dennis in nca

That's what it was with my car. I should have know when I found the boomerang in the trunk. Easy fix, just leave the gas cap door open.

Same reason the bowl swirls in the opposite direction?

__________________________ Well since the original poster (Tube-) hasn't checked back, assume he's gone back to the shop and might check back with us in a few weeks or a month. In the case he's reading, here's a few more details on alignments.

If he lets go the steering wheel and it stettles into a 1-2 o'clock position and the car tracks reasonably straight, then it is an issue of toe either with the front wheels, the backs, or both sets.

If one lets go the wheel and it returns to 12 o'clock but the car goes to the left or right, then best case scenario is a cone-shaped tire or unequal air pressure left-to-right. A worse case is unqual camber or caster - car pulls to the side with the least of either.

I finally drive a car where the position of the steering wheel and the direction the car travels matches - almost - exactly. The car pulls to the right verrrry gradually at first and then starts to pull more rapidly, as I'm about to run off the shoulder of a crowned road. This is NORMAL. I'm driving a Korean car that wasn't ridiculously overcompensated for road crown like domestics are! :D

-CC

__________________________ Well since the original poster (Tube-) hasn't checked back, assume he's gone back to the shop and might check back with us in a few weeks or a month. In the case he's reading, here's a few more details on alignments.

If he lets go the steering wheel and it stettles into a 1-2 o'clock position and the car tracks reasonably straight, then it is an issue of toe either with the front wheels, the backs, or both sets.

If one lets go the wheel and it returns to 12 o'clock but the car goes to the left or right, then best case scenario is a cone-shaped tire or unequal air pressure left-to-right. Swap the fronts or exchange the cone for another tire. A worse case is unqual camber or caster - car pulls to the side with the least of either. THE worst case is that a suspension component or the body is bent.

I finally drive a car where the position of the steering wheel and the direction the car travels matches - almost - exactly. The car pulls to the right verrrry gradually at first and then starts to pull more rapidly, as I'm about to run off the shoulder of a crowned road. This is NORMAL. I'm driving a Korean car that wasn't ridiculously overcompensated for road crown like domestics are! :D

-CC

Coriolis force is negligible on movements of smaller, concentrated masses like cars. It doesn't even show up much on trains, and certainly not the water in drains. It affects movements of huge air masses and ocean currents. It's caused by the conservation of momentum imparted by the earth's rotation. If air moves from the North, it's also moving toward the east as the earth rotates. In the north its speed is low because at higher latitudes the radius of the earth's rotation is small, and as it moves south it has little eastward momentum so the earth turns under it and it appears to be deflected to the right, or west. Moving from southerly latitudes but still north of the equator, it has much rotational momentum and moving north it pulls to the right again, but eastward this time. The net effect has air moving inward toward a low- pressure area (from both north and south) turning right and ending up rotating counterclockwise around the low. Moving out from a high- pressure zone it pulls to the right, again, and circles clockwise around the high. Everything is opposite in the southern hemisphere and at the equator it has no effect at all. And it sure has no effect on a car's steering. For those who would argue, see:

I guess that rules out Coriolis force as a possible cause of the pull to the right...

Now we have to explore the possibility of a 300 lb person in the passenger seat and a 120 lb driver. :-)

Try getting a European car, they tend to pull more to the left.

... but that would depend on the distance between the vehicle, and the equator.

All the best,

Tread separation can definitely cause this. The cure is tire replacement. A quick diagnosis, as others have mentioned, is to rotate the tires to different positions and see if the problem moves too.

As Scott Dorsey mentions elsewhere, a good alignment shop can make sure everything is right, and look for damage or abnormal treadwear, too. It can only take one thing to make a suspension setup wrong, but it takes everything all at once to make it right!

Cheers,

--Joe