I'm not the primary driver of my Maxima anymore. Just this past week I had to swap cars with my better half to pick up business clients from the airport.
Immediately I notice the car is pulling to the right, mind you it was just aligned about a month ago and was driving perfectly fine.

I get out my trusty level and check camber. Left is a bit more negative then the right. So I jack up the car, loosen up the lower strut bolts and pull as much positive camber as I can. Tighten everything up, test drive, steering wheel is now cocked, adjust tie rod end to center the steering wheel. Check camber, it's almost at zero, just slightly negative. Car still pulls a bit to the right. OK, lets make the right side camber as close to zero as I can get. Jack up the car, loosen the lower strut bolts, pull as much positive camber out of it as I can, put it all back together. Check with my trusty level, pretty close to zero, just slightly negative, pretty close to exactly where I am on the left side. Test drive, steering wheel cocked slightly, adjust tie rod end to center steering wheel. My toe should be pretty close if not dead on still. Car still pulls to the right slightly, but seem to track better overall.

Pick up clients, got people in the passenger side front seat and passenger side rear seat, call pulls hard to the right, WTF?

So I start thinking, I overlooked the obvious. Took out my trusty 99 cent pencil style tire pressure guage, looking at the tires, they seem fine, but my trusty 99 cent pencil style pressure gauge tells me a different story.

35 psi left front, 22 psi right front. DING DING DING - WE HAVE A WINNER !!!!!!

Now I am much happier with the front end camber set as close to zero as possible, as well as it being exactly the same left to right. The car is definately tracking much better and holding a straight line very tightly.

Moral of the story, don't over look the obvious when troubleshooting.

 

Indeed, the assumptions always come back to bite you in the ***.

Can't count how many things I've had to fix because whoever worked on it before assumed some of the simple stuff, never figured it out, and brought it to a shop. Sadly, it's usually a fuse or a connector that's not plugged in.

 

Check your air tires lol

 

This is the very first thing I check when it comes to wondering about the car not tracking right or being off-center. Should be for everyone, right?

 

 

imma check my presuure in the morning.I too got aligned last two weeks and its still pulling...to the right.Couple guys say its a radial pull....and they can solve problem by switching the front tires around(l to r and r to l). Dont know if this is worth paying for and not sure if it will actually fix it.

P.S..i got directional tires in the front. non-dir in the back, but backs are wider and look better back there.

 

check to see if there is a slow leak on the rf tire. it doesn't go down to 22 psi for no reason. you might also want to keep an eye on how your tires are going to wear because you just messed around with all of your alignment settings.

 

That tire has a plug in it, I'm pretty sure that's where the slow leak is coming from. I'll deal with it until the winter comes and throw a new set of tires on the car.

I know camber is dead on, toe should be pretty close being I got the steering centered after each sides' adjustment. Going to check toe this weekend the old school way, with a measuring tape. As long as I'm ~1/8 inch toe in, I'm good to go.

 

man, I am usually pretty bad about checking my tire pressure. I do it, but not as often as I should

 

i check mine every two weeks or so

 

same happen to me

 

I took my 09' maxima in for a car wash and left to grab food without leaving the remote. Seem to have forgotten about the keyless thing. So upon returning i find that my car is over on the grass and an employee tells me he had to push my car and try and turn it with no power steering because the car was off. I think no big deal. But now my new car seems to be pulling to the right. Is it possible that trying to turn my steering wheel with power steering off could damage it in some way? I tried turning it myself from a stopped position and the thing barely budges so i can only imagine how they did it.

thanks
nick

 

No, there won't be any damage caused by turning the steering wheel with the engine off. Normally you'd just push out PS fluid or ATF all over the place, but you've got EPS.

However if it was completely off, the steering lock should've prevented more than a few degrees of wheel movement before it locked up.

 

pmohr,
thanks for the quick reply. the car was completely off so there was no power steering. It never locked because the car was never taken out of neutral. but you dont think any damage could have been done to any of the steering mechanisms from the hard turning?

 

Nope. Then again, with the EPS system, who knows.

 

nissans pull cause there man cars

 

You're an idiot. Why the post whoring? If you have a question, use the newbie thread.

 

Mine pulls right, but direction really doesn't matter much in my situation..tell you why.

Pulls right a little bit and steering wheel is on small angle to the right. Not much, but just enough to drive me nuts.

However, if I stop and turn LEFT the problems seem to go away. Seems to track ok and if I'm not seeing things I'd say the steering wheel looks straight, too. Then when I turn RIGHT after stopping the problems definitely return.

I can feel just a slight looseness in psgr tie rods (planning to replace) and I do need new front tires (rears are new). Air pressure fine. Car tracks normal while braking.

Is this definitively from the tie rods? I could rotate tires to see if it goes awAy but just wondering if this coming and going of the problem can stem from the rods or in no way is rod related.

Thoughts appreciated.