Hi Guys,

I was experiencing a left pull (pretty nasty one at that) and decided to bring my car for alignment.

Here is the result:

Left Front Right Front
Camber -0.5 -0.9
Caster 2.3 2.6
Toe (!!) 0.04 0.05

...now my question is, why the car is still pulling to the left after alignment? The figures above are for "after".

I searched...and found that the toe specs for our cars is 0.05 - 0.14 (each) with total toe of 0.09 - 0.28...so the car is actually within spec, but it is pulling to the left.

The guy said that the chamber on the right is causing this...but I personally think that the toe needs to be more "tuck-in".

I am planning to get my car backk and specify the toes to be in 0.10 on the left and leave the right front as is.

What do you guys think?

 

Oh...need one more detail, the car is lowered with Maxspeed and AGX, but this should not be a problem, though.

 

The guy is right. The lesser value of camber on the right side causes the left pull. The toe settings will not cause the pull. Read the MAX FAQ:

http://home.earthlink.net/~maxfaq/suspension.htm#pull

Hope this helps.

 

The good people at Campbell Tires used to tell me if I use radial tires, they may drag you in one direction...

Right now, my camber, alighnment, ever'thing is good but car pulls to left. and I know it's b/c of my Bridgestones b/c when I had z-rated slicks it didn't pull

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the reply guys. I have a feel of very loose center, and I think the toe needs to be increased just a bit.

Furthermore, the pull to the left is not "unsignificant". Even if I am driving at 20mph, put the steering wheel straight, the car steers to the left.

I want to change the tire on the left front to the back and see if this cures the problem. If this does not do it, I am calling a special alignment place and see what I could do. My shoulder is getting tired of holding the steering wheel to the right....everytime.

 

I've had this ever since I owned my Maxima

Also, make sure your strut mounts are good, if they arne't good everything gets thrown off.

AGX are real problematic with strut mounts, if you didn't put new mounts in with your AGX then you can pretty much gurantee that they're bad, the threshold is so small with AGX.

 

Hi Brian,

Thanks for your reply. I did lower my car last summer and did the alignment about 3 weeks after (to let everything settled) with 15 inch tires and it was fine. The car goes straight, with no pull.

Changed the tires to 17 inches 2 months afterwards, everything is still fine and dandy. Now, the winter is here, and I change the tires back to 15 inchers. However, this time I swap the right front with the rear front since the right front was showing toe wear (evident before lowering the car).

Now the car pulls to the left...badly, I might add and I don't know what's wrong. Strut mounts are good, since every bit in the suspension is new. I bought everything from Nissan dealer and assemble them from ground up. So, basically I just did a complete swap when I change my springs and struts (I have the stock ones completely assembled in the storage room shall I want to put the stock height back in).

The original fronts have not been rotated for more than 23000 miles, so I suspect this could be the culprit as well.

Thanks for your e-mail, and I am still open to other suggestions.

Armand

 

im guessing on the tires themselves....I had bald spots on my tires in some spots, and just general wear, and it would pull to the right...after rotating the tires (tires were in the back were practicaily frickin new for some reason) the pull was surely gone

 

Perhaps it's the right front tire. I will to put the rear left to front left and let's see what happens.

I hate the stock tires anyways since one of the wheel is making a "dug-dug-dug" noise while rolling. It's not really noticeable when you are doing, say, 80mph, but it's very evident when you are doing only 30mph, and more so under braking (since the wheel is gradually stopped, the sound is more enhanced). And no, it's not the disc brakes since I changed them about 12k miles ago and the sound is not there when I am putting my 17 inchers.

 

A lot of the time this has to do with the crown of the road and the wear on your tires (if u don't rotate them).

try switching your tires to the opposite sides to go against the pull...most of the time this is a temp solution, if your tires aren't new u might need new tires

 

steal belts might be falling apart inside the tire

 

Unibomber,

Really?? Wow....if it's true....I am due for another tire/wheel combo anyways....

Thanks!