Noticed a strange issue with my TL - seems that when I accelerate from a standing start and sort of press the throttle a little harder than normal, the steering wheel turns to the left i.e towards the drivers side and I have to correct it right away.

Regardless of the road, it always pulls to the left when I accelerate. Funny thing is it never drifts left or right if I let go of the wheel when on highway speeds....

I did a quick check of the suspension but dont see any issues.......


Also, while this may or may not be related...one other issue Ive noticed is that occasionally when accelerating from a standing start, the accelerator hesitates for a few seconds, the car jerks just once, then the rest of the acceleration is smooth. Could this be the throttle body...as I feel the acceleration should be a lot smoother than what it seems to be right now...the accelerator feels a lot harder than normal.

 

Is the model year of your car either 2004 or 2005?

 

Actually its a 2007....bone stock but still a 2007 !

 

I want to say your compliance bushings are shot.

 

It's most likely bad alignment or compliance bushings. I had hit a bad pothole before which damaged the tire. Got the tire replaced but the dealer didn't do anything else since the car still tracked perfectly straight. However under hard acceleration, the car darted off hard to the left. They checked alignment and it was a mess even though it was tracking perfect.

 

Thanks guys - Would compliance bushings also account for the hard throttle pedal and the occasional hesitation when accelerating from a standing start?

 

No. If the pedal is hard, that is something mechanical between the pedal and the TPS. There isn't much to that system. Pedal has a cable attached which routes into the engine bay to connect to the TPS on the passenger side firewall.

 

The hard throttle pedal could be related to the sensor then I'm guessing as I went through some threads and people reported a big improvement in obtaining a softer throttle pedal after they changed the throttle sensor....

Just don't want to order the part unless I'm sure it's the actual issue!