What causes your alignment to get off?

I added coilovers and I got my car aligned but now after 1 month my steering wheel is off I turn the wheel straight and the car veers off to the right and I can look straight at the car and when the steering wheel is turned to the left a couple of inches my left wheel is turned to the left but my right wheel is straight.

 

Did you bang up the wheels like hitting a curb or something? Unless when you did your coilovers you messed soemthing up. check your steering parts under your car. if not check your power steering fluid level.

 

Nothing has been hit. All fluids are good. Like all the sudden it started swerving to the right

 

maybe it was slowly swerving to the right and you just never paid attention to it? Honestly i just noticed a slight drag to the left on my car. That i never noticed for all i know it could of been there since day one. I never let my hand off the wheel really, So unless its a hard pull i wont notice it.

But yea a lot of times alginment issues are caused by bent components or worn one as well. Tire pressure been checked? maybe less air on the right side tires? Hows thread wear on all tires? How old are your suspension parts, springs, shocks. Slight drag in your brakes due to semi-froze caliper?


I've seen a lot of things cause pulls. Also factor in the road that you are driving on as well. There are crowds in the road like built in that might cause your car to pull at a certain spot or angle.


I would target coilovers since only 1 month ago they were aligned. You should have some 30 day warranty on alignments. I would target the shop not doing a good alignment if you honestly didn;t hit anything and there was no problems before.

Also this could be something. maybe the pull was there to begin with but you didn't notice it, untill you got an alignment and you just wanted to see if the car would travel true. I mean that would be something i would be doing.

 

check your brakes. The caliper may not be tuckin back into itself all the way and the pad may still be makin slight contact on the rotor. How do ur brakes feel?

Plus, doesnt it take some time for all new suspension setups to "settle" maybe it settled slightly and threw off ur alignment

 

The tire pressure is good. The coilovers have about 300 miles and the rest of the suspension stuff has 213K. But before I changed to coilovers the car tracked straight so I wouldnt think it would be something worn or bent. The tires are wearing fine, no inner or outer wear. All the calipers and lines were replaced by nissan about 18K ago or somewhere in there. I guess I can check the caliper. I know the right rear is dragging due to my e-brake sticking every now and then. But how do I go about checking to see if the brake is dragging? The rotor is smooth


Your right evolution the components have to settle so maybe that could have slightly thrown off my alignment. What do you all think?

 

Generally speaking you should give your suspension setup time to settle before you align it.

 

^ agreed..

after you got the coilovers did you have then pull then? I'm not pointing fingers at the rear brakes. But if you know you have a on and off problem with the right rear and it pulls to the right it might be a sign.

Have you tested to see if the pull is constantly there on all diffrent roads. See if you still have warranty on that alignment.

 

Well really the car doesnt pull to the right unless I turn the wheel straight the wheel stays kinda to the left. But I have to move the wheel some to keep the car straight.

Yea when I installed the coilovers the steering wheel was set off to the left like it is now but a little bit farther left then

 

After alignment, quite often the steering wheel will not be in the 'straight ahead' position even though the wheels are straight ahead. It's usually necessary to remove the steering wheel and reposition it on the splines. Watch out for the airbag.

 

Why would you take the steering wheel off and risk setting off the airbags and mess with any of that?

Just turn the wheel level, put a steering wheel lock on place, then do the alignment again. Several hundred alignments at school, never once have we had to take a steering wheel off to get it level after an alignment.

 

Removing the steering wheel makes no sense. Just lock it in place with that thing that pushes down on the driver seat or w/e else and redo it.

 

Yea I definately aint messing with the steering wheel and airbag that would be crazy. When the car aligned they are suppose to get the wheel straight. And I can just look at the car and notice the alignment off

 

Rotate your tires and see if it still pulls the same. Often time you can't see any physical problem with even just one tire, but it can cause a pull.

 

In this instance I would also make sure that the nuts on the outer tie rod ends are tight. If not it is possible that this condtion could happen.

 

when u get an alignment dont they are supposed to lock the steering wheel in the straight posistion...so whoeever said take the wheel off your retarded....our steering wheels are keyed to one posistion not splined.....then they adjust suspension ....then they adjust tire-rods and such to compensate and set alignment specs...check to make sure tie rods and ball-joints are tight and get teh car realigned.....if itso nly 1 month tell them u are not satisified and u want it redone at no charge.......or hopefully u got lifetime alignments they are great....i get mine done every year before auto-x season starts....

 

When the guy did my alignment. We know them and we watched but he adjusted the camber. Then moved the strut loosened the bottom bolts. Then he adjusted the steering wheel even though the wheel was turned to the left when he started the process. Then he adjusted the toe. Everything was in spec range when he was done. Took it for a test drive and it was fine and it was fine on the way home perfectly straight. Then I started noticing the wheel wasnt perfectly straight.

 

Sounds like a suspension problem from the coilovers, check all the suspension parts first.