I noticed the car has been pulling to the right excessively lately - to be honest i thought it had just needed an alignment the whole time...

I brought it in and got the alignment done. The tech also noticed it pulling to the right a lot. He aligned it to spec, but it didnt correct the problem. He suggested it might be a bad motor mount, but he took a visual look and said the mount seemed fine... at that point he couldnt diagnose it without looking further into it.

The car now travels in a straight line while coasting but the minute you get on the gas it veers off to the right, the harder you push the more it turns.

Im not talking a subtle off course veer, i mean it pulls hard.

I found a couple of threads with people having the exact same problem, but no fixes.

I visually inspected the wheels and tires the last time i rotated them, but no bends to the naked eye

THIS was one of the threads where a bunch of people replied with the same symptoms, but no fix

 

boots, axles or weeak suspension so that its stressing to one side ??????????????????????

 

mine was doing that but that cuz i needed alignment, after that it was all good

 

It's called "torque steer".

Really though if it isn't a motor mount or alignment and it happens under gas, it seems to be drivetrain related. Could it somehow be LSD even?

 

To test......

Swap the front wheels with each other. If the car pulls left now, it's the tire/rim. If the pull remains on the right it's something wrong with the car.

 

mine does the same. i always assumed it was inertia from accelerating forward

 

Mine did that too right before I replaced the springs and struts. It stopped after. Check the caster. It is difficult to adjust but if one side is significantly off it will cause it also.

 

This should be your first move... For some reason this has happened to my car twice and it was the tire twice

Also does this happen on every road your on? At least around here the roads are slopped quite a bit to help with the water run off. So my car always "feels" like its going right but its just the road

 

Also one thing that differs from the tires and tq-steer.... If your car keeps pulling while you're accelerating it's most likely the tires, but only a jerk to the right as soon as you jump on it, that's just tqsteer.

 

I'll give you this little bit of information...may help, may not. I bought my 03 6 speed last November. Drove 2.5 hours just to test drive it. Pulled hard to the right under acceleration but tracked straight under no load. went back to the dealer and he said it was "torque steer" and was just a characteristic of this car. I called bullshit!. Told him to check the air pressure, so he did and said the tire was low. Test drove again, still pulled hard. I told him to get it fixed and I would come back and buy the car. He ended up replacing the front tires.

Good luck.

 

I never thought to look, because the only rotation i did was FL-RL and FR-RR but are the stock michelins directional?

edit: Few posts above was to swap front for front so i would assume they are not directional

 

Stock tires are not directional.

The stockies are the first tire I had problem's with pulling, and the dealer at that time told me to stick with a front to back rotation, as if the tires were directional. This always keeps the tires turning the same way, and I haven't had a problem.

 

I've got that issue. Does torque steer ever pull left or is it always right?

 

They intentionally designed our cars to have equal length axles so that the torque steer would be as neutral as possible. With an open differential though, if there something causing a drag on only one wheel, it's going put more power down on the other wheel. If that were the case, suspects would be dragging calipers, wheel bearings, CV joints or possibly the differential itself.

 

Well, since the CL has been hibernating over the winter i felt the urge to take it out for a very quick spin. Beforehand i swapped the two front tires and to no surprise the car now pulls slightly left

problem = tires

 

Tires are often the cause for pulling issues.

 

I read a long time ago about our cars having a helical slip differential(Read Below).
So when I got a flat on my front tire awhile back I read the manual, just in case. Luck would have it that you shouldn't put the spare on the front tires or you could damage the differential. If this is damage, you could have the problem you are having. Check with a mechanic to find out for sure.

"Unlike many limited slip differentials, the CL Type-S uses a set of gears to direct the appropriate amount of torque to the right and left driving wheels by sensing wheel spin. If the inside tire loses traction and starts to spin as the car negotiates a tight turn, the differential redirects torque to the outer tire. This transfer helps keep the inside wheel from spinning, allows the driver to apply throttle sooner through turns, helps maintain a more neutral handling balance and results in an extremely responsive steering feel."
Reference: http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2...06/034104.html

"However, the real news is the arrival of the 6-speed, close-ratio, manual transmission. Opting for this do-it-yourself cog-changer also brings a new helical-gear limited-slip differential in place of the stability system and traction control found in its autoshifted counterpart. "
Reference: http://www.automedia.com/2003_Acura_...ts20020801cl/1

 

Thanks for taking the advice. I wish more members would listen.

If you don't want to replace the tires, you should be able to move the tires to the rear, & the rears to the front. Assuming the rears are ok you can run them till they die & then buy new tires.