Slava

When I am driving straight I just noticed that I have to hold my steering wheel turned about 1 or 2 degrees to the right for me to go straight. If I find a straight enough road I can let go of the wheel and the car will go straight as an arrow for miles so I don't think it's an allignment issue.

Is anyone else haivng issues with the steering wheel like this? The car only has 600 miles on it and I don't wanna take it to the dealer quiet yet, but it is starting to bug me already.

Aspector Gadget

Get them to fix it at the first oil change

cliff

the road might have an angle on it. if the road is slanted on an angle, your car will pull towards one side. if your on a highway, it will mostly run straight because it is flat.

Slava

That's what I though at first. I drive mostly in the left lane which tends to be a little slanted. But the steering wheel is still a little off-center (not as much) even if I drive on a straight (as far as I can tell) road.

My question is if anyone else ran into this problem and how hard would it be to convince the dealer to fix this problem since it is only so slightly off-center and it does take driving on straight road to confirm it.

Aegir

It's an alignment issue - toe adjustment. If it is off enough to bother you, then I think the dealer should be willing to adjust it.

milesstylez

yeah mines been fucked up like that since i bought it.
i told acura, and they said it was fine, alot of people have this problem.
i just got used to it already

imax

It's how the steering wheel is mounted.

Have the dealer center the steering wheel.

Bitium

It is an alignment issue, they also have to make sure they perfectly center the steering wheel and that the toe is not just under the specs, but 0.0 for both sides.

cpurick

Roads aren't flat. They have a little "crown" in them to facilitate drainage. When you're on the left lane of a two-lane surface the road is tilted differently from when you're in the right lane. At times you will have to hold different pressure to travel in a straight line.

Even if they align your car perfectly, the technician may not level the steering wheel. When he stands outside the car and levels it, he may be aligning the wheel with interior features that aren't level, or which are canted off of a perfect lateral line.

If it's only a degree or two, and there's no consistent pull one way or the other, I wouldn't worry about it. But if it changes at all after brushing a curb or hitting a pothole you would want to get it checked out.

Your definition of "perfect" may be a little more precise than their definition of "within specs." It often comes down to who's paying for the adjustment -- you, or Acura?

RTDyer

This is a steering wheel adjustment issue not a wheel alignment issue. Easily fixed.

GunnmeTaLCURA04

Heyy There Have Been About 3 Post Today That I Was Thiking Of Today On My Way Home On Posting. Wow..... Ok This One. Steering Wheel Is Not Ppperrfectly On, On Mine. Its Like Lets Say You Are Holding It At 9 O' Clock And 3 O' Clock.. Right.. And Same To Say That You Could Concider It Ummm 3:45 Right... Lol.. If U Want To Be Technical About It, I Would Say Instead Of The 45 Min (9 O Clock) Its At 47 Minute.. And The One That Was At 3(o Clock) Or 15 Minute Hand, Its At 17 Minute.. Not Alot.. I Hope I Didnt Confuse Any One. I Will Take A Picture In A Half Hour To For Better Idea..

jefffree

Me too, me too!

nick04tl

well how would you fix it? anytime a customer comes into my dealer it is corrected by centering the steering wheel on the alignment rack and performing a four wheel alignment

Road Rage

Mine was the same way - it seems to be comoon - the machine at Marysville must be off. or the operator cockeyed.

When I went to Acura for correction, I told them to check the alughment, but not pull the wheel, as it is likely they would muck it up, and there is not guarantee that the splines would align right.

The best way to do it is to adjust the tie-rod links - once the service writer knew I knew my shiznit, he started to assign me to "our best tech"; which he found I had already done. My car came back perfectly straight, and the alignment was dead-on, as it was anyway.

Even my "lousy" EL42's are peforming well.

GunnmeTaLCURA04

Hybrid

Like others have said, it's a toe-in issue. It's not that the steering wheel itself needs to be taken off and put back on. That wouldn't work anyway, as there are splines that it fits onto. Adjustment would be rough only and you'd have to get really lucky for it to work out. Assuming the total toe-in is correct, both sides need to be adjusted the same, and the effect will be to only rotate the steering wheel for the same straight ahead direction of the tires.

In other words, the problem is that when the steering wheel is straight, BOTH front wheels are pointing toward the right slightly (or left). The total toe-in adjustment may be right on. The adjustment needed is to bring both front wheels into the straight ahead direction. It's not a tire wear issue, or really anything other than a cosmetic defect.

There are other issues that can cause this, however. One of them is that one or both front tires is pulling to the right or left. As someone mentioned, crowns in roads can also make it seem like the steering wheel is off center. If the wheel used to be centered, and it no longer is, there may be other problems such as bent suspension components (or maybe it happened when tires were rotated or changed out).

gregory28

I had a my 4 wheels aligned and the problem was corrected. My steering whell used to point slightly to the right.

Greg

Bitium

It is a wheel aligment issue.....sorry buddy. The steering is adjusted with a wheel aligment.

Commo

I used to be ASE certified in steering and suspension as an alignment tech until I got tired of the work and decided to get in to the IT field. Its true what others have said, you have to be in the vehicle "like you were driving" and correctly align the steering wheel to the center and lock it in place with a special tool. What I used to do was rock the wheel back and forth and slowly bring it to the center and lock it in place as to eliminate any play in the alignment of the steering wheel. Once you verify that the steering wheel is dead on center, you go ahead perform you usual toe, camber, caster adjustments according to the manufacturer specs. Afterwards I took the vehicle for a test drive to verify the correct alignment settings. One point to remember though, the tech should always check the air pressure of all the tires prior to doing anything. If one is off and the tech does the alignment with it being off, it could possible throw all the geometry out of sync and it could cause the vehicle to be aligned according to the way the vehicle is at the time of alignment. This in turn would cause the vehicle to drift one way or another after the correct air pressure has been put back onto the tires. One thing to watch out for is that sometimes other techs used to "ahem" correct any drifting issues by adding and subtracting air pressure from either side of the tires until the car drove staright. Just a heads up for you guys.

Slava

Yep, that's it exactly! Same kind of off-center missalignment. So the consensus is then that it is a toe-in allignment issue? How hard do you think will it be to convince Acura to do a wheel re-allignment under warranty on a brand new car with 700 miles on it? :o

cpurick

I think they'd do it, but your case really is "on the bubble." It's not bad. This is not uncommon -- cars get handled pretty roughly in shipping sometimes. The low mileage increases the likelihood that the car was delivered like this, and that this has occurred through no fault of yours.

Be sure to insist that they center the steering wheel precisely when doing the alignment. Many drivers aren't so picky about this, and so they tend to simply eyeball it from outside the car rather than taking time to be accurate.

lindros2

most cars have alignment issues from the factory -- should have been fixed in pre-delivery.

BenM

I've had mine in twice since it was delivered in April, and both times it came back exactly the same! The wheel is off about three degrees to the right when going straight ahead, as most others have mentioned. Any significance to most being off in the same direction? If this is a random alignment problem, you'd think it would be 50-50 left and right. Maybe something else is going on.

tl_soso

I would read this post guys:

http://www.acura-tl.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86137

our friend Kevin has/had the same issue and so do I. I have to hold my steering wheel to the right about a quarter of an inch for the car to go straight at times. And my car loves to go sideways to the left on certain roads. Never right, always left. I have tried on SO many different roads.

I have been to the dealer two times about this.

The beautiful part about this is that I know my car's alignment is fine because the first 5K miles everything was PERFECT. The problem with the alignment/steering started when I got my tires rotated. So the first time I went back, it was an air pressure problem - not true.

I went back the second time and they fixed the alignment. It is still not going away.

So I am convinced it is something to do with the tires as well. I have made my next appointment, my third for this issue for 9/17, so let's see what happens.

It is the tires, in my opinion!

smr2112

We aren't all having the same alignment issue are we? Will a statistics person
tell me what the probability is that this is a design or factor defect based
on the sample number of people reporting it? I have an '04 TL.

I have this same problem too and I had the
same thing on an old Saab 9-3 I had - almost identical.
On same roads, very similar off-centerness.

What's the wheel like driving 5MPH on a flat parking
lot (not a road) - mine is fine and so was the other car.
Certainly nowhere as bad as 60MPH on the highway.

Is everybody's off to the right?

There is no real pull of any type it's just off center.
And if you ask me, it's the steering wheel slightly off center +
it's the road crown/slant mainly I think - not real alignment or tires.

Have the dealer check and tweak it if it makes you feel better.

I've seen other cars do the same thing. It's "collective psychology"
causing the problem with all of us, that's what it is...

cvajs

my 04 TL built in June 2004 also seems to pull left slightly on straight highway. i also notice that when i turn the wheel around it turns off axis (wobbles).

Slava

Brought my TL in for a "unscheduled" maintenance (topic for another thread ) and while they fixed the other issue they did a full four-wheel realignment and fixed the slight pull to the right with no questions asked.

So at least it's a fixable problem. Sure beats squicks and creeks I am now starting to notice in my month and a half old TL with 4,500 miles.

Lore

I just had the second alignment performed on my car this weekend with 8450 miles on it. After I got it back, I noticed something odd (which may or may not have been there originally, but I paid more attention to it now after the alignment).

(The first alignment I had done was because I had the off-center steering wheel problem. The tech had me line up the steering wheel until it was perfectly straight, locked down the steering wheel, and then performed the 4 wheel alignment. That took care of it).

In any case, here's my current observation, and I wanted to get some feedback as to whether it was normal or not.

If I hold my steering wheel straight, the car drives straight. However, as soon as I let go, the steering wheel tends to turn slightly to the right maybe 2 degrees and starts to drift right. Is this because of my directional summer tires? I know those tires tend to follow the grooves and nuances in the road a lot more than all seasons, but I don't think I noticed this before.

To reiterate, if I want to go straight, I just hold the wheel straight, and it drives fine. As soon as I let go it usually turns to the right a bit and then tracks right. Is this normal?

Judith07

This is so annoying, Im having the same issue and cant seem to find anyone that can fix it. I bought my Tl over a year ago. The prior owner had a minor fender bender in the front end, thought it was from that. I had the front axels replaced, control arms, tie rods and upgraded suspension, 4 new tires and had an alignment done and it adjusted a little. Acura doesn’t want to fix it said it cant be adjusted.

thoiboi

go get an alignment

Pair of TLs

You've got to be kidding...