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Hey guys....Im brand new on here and Im proud to say I bought my first Acura TL 3rd gen last week. I took it in for a 4 wheel alignment because the steering pulled to the left. Afterwards...it still pulled the same. I myself swapped the front to rear on both sides since they were directional tires and now it pulls to the right. Took it back and they readjusted then told me that "all vehicles mfg the past 10 yrs or so are designed to pull slightly to the right in case drive falls asleep to avoid crashing into oncoming traffic" The Mgr told me to bring it back if i wasnt satisfied. Huh? I know you guys are the pros....HELP!
you yourself swapped the tires and now it pulls to the right...uhhh that's a clue!
Hint, it may be the tires.
I thought that too ..but he said my tires were good on the front. Everything chked out...BUT they tell me if Im not satisfied then come back. If they did all they can do..then why tell me to come back? Ill get it right. Just pulling to the right is the norm bugs me...Thanks for your reply justnspace....wished i was..lol...me & my Acura.
Pulls to the right by design....wow....you need to find a new shop. They are completely full of it. I can drive for miles across Iowa and Kansas without touching the steering wheel.
If the pull changes as you rotate the tires...the tires have issues. Guess is they are worn funky and causing a pull.
when my tires are "worn funky" and I rotate them, sometimes, it does develop a pull...
but it usually "wears" itself out;ie the rotation will wear the rubber down over the course of a couple weeks, less if you drive more
Hey guys....Im brand new on here and Im proud to say I bought my first Acura TL 3rd gen last week. I took it in for a 4 wheel alignment because the steering pulled to the left. Afterwards...it still pulled the same. I myself swapped the front to rear on both sides since they were directional tires and now it pulls to the right. Took it back and they readjusted then told me that "all vehicles mfg the past 10 yrs or so are designed to pull slightly to the right in case drive falls asleep to avoid crashing into oncoming traffic" The Mgr told me to bring it back if i wasnt satisfied. Huh? I know you guys are the pros....HELP!
Run as far away and as fast as you can from this place... Bunch of idiots there if that's what they believe! Check the wear of the tires. How old are they? What is the thread depth?
It may be common to drift right because of the slope of the road, but if you have to keep an "annoying tension" on it, then the alignment is likely off.
The rear has to be as zero as you can get it. It should not be merely "within spec", like most hourly employees want to do.
If you get it to zero, like within .01 degrees, then If it still drifts to the right too much, then you can adjust the net rear toe to be slightly positive which is toward the passenger side. So the toe on the passenger will need to go slightly out, while the toe on the drivers rear will need to be slightly In.
The "net rear toe" is also known as "thrust angle".
By the way, changing the thrust angle will also effect the steering wheel position. Even if you do not change the front toe on either wheel, if you change the rear toe, it WILL move your steering wheel.
You have to play with it.
by the way, if it pulls really hard, you may have multiple problems. Because I have seen unusual tire wear without any discernible pull at the steering wheel. So, in my opinion, if an alignment is anywhere within spec, you may not get a bad pull even though tire wear may indicate there is an alignment problem.
So in my opinion, what really cases a noticeable TUG on the wheel, is something else is wrong, or at least something in combination with a possible alignment variance that is not perfect.
Things like: Bleeding brakes, or a tire swap, and even the lack of Shims on your brake pads, may cause your car to pull.
Try Speed Bleeder valves for a 1 man brake bleeding. They work awesome and it is fast.
I bought Tenhulzen Automotive Toe plates from amazon and they are real good about showing if your car is toe out or toe in. But they will not tell you the thrust angle, so, good luck on finding zero, but you can get close by trial and error. If you set it, then drive and test, you can see how the rear thrust will change not only the rear toe, and the rear thrust angle, but it will also turn your steering wheel. But to set the rear thrust angle, you need to find "0" and to do that you need to find a reference point , and remember to keep check the rear toe with the plates so the net rear tow is 0. everything has to be set to zero on this car or very close to it. In other words, just being "within spec" is not good enough.
I also bought a laser light from harbor freight. So it helped me to put lines up on my garage wall, so I could put small Stick Pins up, that showed where my tire was pointing, and where my reference point was located, while all the while maintaining (or noting) a net rear toe of Zer0.
Here is where it gets dirty. I did all that tow checking, and adjusting the thrust angle to the left and then I moved it right... And under both circumstances I had a TUG to the right on my car! arg!! I was only able to mitigate the Tug on the steering wheel to a degree, but never took a bite out of it. So I got it close.. And that is all I could do. So, meanwhile, I ordered some new brake pads for the front.. Because I kept getting a shaking steering wheel when I braked. The brake pedal did not pulsate. Just a shaky steering wheel. And it was caused by build up of brake pad residue on the caliper. So, I took a heavy power sander to it yesterday and sanded off the brake residue and now it works fine with no shaking at all! But while I did the front brake job, I bled both front brakes again... And I also installed the full oem set of Brake shims... And I also swap the 2 front tires around..
And when I test drove it, 95% of the hard Tug is GONE. I was like, Oh my gosh! I still have about 5%, that may be alignment related.. But the hardest Tug on the wheel is gone!
I have swapped tires before, and I have bled the brakes before.. Neither of that fixed the Tug on the s.w. This is the first time I installed brake shims.. It is possible that without brake shims the brake pads might not relax evenly when you release the brake pedal. Thereby causing a drag on 1 side of the car. And that may have contributed to the pad buildup on the rotor (that i sanded off)... I am not sure yet.. I have to drive at least a few weeks to know more about the cause. but either way, I was surprised when I did the last test drive and the pull was almost completely gone. So again, the last 5% of very very light veering to the right may almost be the road... It is acceptable he way it is now.. but I think I can make it better Now that the Major pull is out of the way. See, it's hard to even know when the alignment is totally correct when other parts on the car are contributing to the pull. So, that I why i think I will have more success now, going back to the alignment thing again, now that the rest is fixed.. See? Like, the other issue was overshadowing the alignment so much that the alignment alone was not fixing the issue. So ya, you may have more than 1 problem especially if it is tugging hard.. Because I think most alignments that are relatively close to spec wont really Tug very hard, but instead, bad alignments most often show up in "unusual tire wear" more so that a hard Tug on the s.w. That is, as long as the alignment is not really wacked out bad.
So that is what I may attempt tomorrow.. going back to finalize the small touches on the alignment.. if I dare touch it! haha I mean its so close now..
btw, as of this post, I have never verified what I posted in the previous post for myself, in my own testing. All that bit about thrust angle that I posted above is from google. But I probably will have to perform that change in thrust angle if I want to remove the rest of the 5% pull. Because the net toe on the front is zero and the net rear toe is also zero. And to change the thrust angle on the rear , when the net rear toe is zero, you have to make the same change both side. For example, if the rear toe is zero but the thrust angle is 1 degree to the passenger side, then to move it toward zero, the right rear tire needs to come in, and the rear drivers side needs to go out.. So it is just the opposite. And not only that, the way you adjust the rear toe is confusing of the nut that shifts the toe arm.. You just have to keep repeating to yourself what you have to do so you dont forget which way you are going. I did that a few times. I went the wrong way, then test drove it, and it was worse! I was like, Did I turn it the wrong way?? Arg! It takes a lot of trial and error and time
06-20-2019, 07:22 AM
