I just recently took off my ASPEC 18's and replaced them with the stock 17's for the winter. I did it my self. Yes i Torqued the lugs to 75lbs.

I noticed right away that the car was pulling slightly to the right and I dont know if I am just noticing it now becuase I changed the tire size or what.

Is there anything I can do to take a look and see what is wrong or is this normal? Or do I just bring it to a mechanic.? I did not hit a huge pothole or anything to throw out alignment, that is why I am assuming it had something to do with replacing different tire size and wheel on the car.

Thanks in advance

 

switching wheels shouldn't matter, where did you test this? how bad is the pull? I don't know if its a characteristic of the car or the Turanzas but I know a lot of members have mentioned that the slightest variation in the road can cause the car to pull to one side. If its really bad, you may have an issue, but to answer your question, changing wheels won't mess up your alightment

 

Thank you-that is what I thought. Maybe it just is more noticeable now to me since I m looking for something after going from different tires. On some roads it is not as bas as others. For instance I would set myself up straight in the left hand lane, and it would take approx 4sec to be completely in the right lane-just an estimate...

 

Most roads are built with a grade so that water drains off. Take a look closely and you'll see. Some roads, more than others. Your car will always want to follow the direction of the slope.

 

Ok, maybe I am just being more paranoid then I should be. I just compared it to my wifes civic...and that thing is straight as an arrow though, that is why i was concerned

 

I don't know why the change in tires caused the pull but maybe it's an alignment problem. When they align the wheels the're supposed to account for the slope of the road. Obviously they can't get it right for every road since they all have different slopes but they should compensate a little bit.

 

I have had severe tire pull for a while now. I've had the alignment performed at 3 different shops to no avail. They finally determined it to be tire pull. Well, guess what - they replaced two of the tires and it STILL pulls to the right. Then they did a GSP 9700 RoadForce balance on them and found that one tire has 28lbs of road force. Not sure what that means, but the dealership insists that the one with 28lbs of road force needs replacement.

 

with your dealer.

Mike

 

svtmike,

Thanks - but can 28lbs of roadforce on the rear right tire cause that much pull? I thought roadforce primarily affected the smoothness of the ride, not drift.

 

From what I understand roadforce can cause either - it's a sign of a large imbalance in the strength of the tire. I'd guess a belt problem causing pull, but I'm not a tire engineer nor do I play one on TV.

IIRC, you have something other than EL42s on your car, don't you?

Mike

 

tire pressure or wheel alignment

 

Yah, I have Bridgestone RE750s (high performance summer tires) on my car.

geminis2: tire pressure is 39 front 36 rear (I check every other week) and the wheel alignment, as determined by 3 shops, is "within spec."

 

Bridgestone. I'm not impressed with them.

Mike

 

Thats how should be - ...and that thing is straight as an arrow though, if not - dealer should fix it.

 

I was told that wheels can be positioned either for least vibration or least pull. I tried both options on my car and there was a noticeable right drift with the least vibration option that disappeared when the wheels were positioned for least pull.

So, I am sure that swicthing the wheels around _can_ make a difference.

 

My 2004 6 speed manual TL manifests an annoying problem. It pulls to the left on acceleration. Always to the left . This is not alignment - because it tracks dead straight in neutral on a flat road and doesn't pull on braking. I am familiar with bump steer and I don't think that is the problem because it is most noticeable happens on the smoothest and least grooved roads. The problem is less evident with less air pressure in the right front tire and more in the left. Could this be a motor mount or suspension problem ?

 

Interesting thought. I am having the bum tire replaced soon so we'll see how it behaves then. Since the other 3 tires were roadforce balanced, if the replacement isn't defective it should behave correctly.

 

Do you know for sure it's not an alignment problem or are you just guessing based on the symptoms when you track on a neutral road?

While my car pulls heavily to the right, I know for sure that my car does not have an alignment problem (I've had it aligned 4 times when they were trying to figure out the problem with the pulling) so it's narrowed down to the tires now...

 

I am an idiot . I was running about 20 psi in the front right tire....hence pulling to the right...It has been corrected, just minimal pull right now. I dont know how I could of not had noticed that it was that low.....Apologies! Sometime the obvious never occurs to me.

 

tls6,

I have an 05 TL 6MT and my car pulls slightly to the left as well. This is not a problem as all sticks pull a little dependent on how fast you accelerate. My 00 Civic SI would do the same thing when I would get on it. The car was built by a shop in SD called AEBS.

Everyone talks about having EL42's WTF. On my 05 I have Bridgestone Potenzas RE 030's. These tires seem to be pretty good. Sorry to hear everyone having probs. w/ theirs.

 

Lore-


28 pounds of road force is alot. I can't say that it's a cause for pulling, but I can say I'd be surprised if you didn't notice a shimmy because of it.

The first thing I'd try to eliminate a pull is cross-rotate the front tires & see if it goes the other way. Of course, this can't be done with directional tires (are the B-stones directional? I gotta plead ignorance here.) I've also dismounted a tire before & flipped it on the wheel, so the inboard sidewall becomes the outboard sidewall, etc. Can't say it was on an Acura though, if I recall it was a Sentra SE-R.

Honda/Acura's rule of thumb is this: if a car changes lanes within 10 seconds at 55mph on a flat road, you have a 'pull.'



after all that typing, i just read that the tire pressure was low. oh well!

 

The Hunter GSP 9700 can try different combinations of the tires and it also calculates the pull (in pounds). The mechanic showed me the charts for the least pull and least vibration. The least vibration had 7lbs of left pull. I asked him to go with the least pull instead and the car drives now as straight as an arrow ... but it is still vibrating slightly ...

I have the Falkens, which are directional. BTW, what is the advantage of directional tires over the non-directional tires? The directional tires half the number of options they can be mounted, so what are their advantages?

 

I am bringing my car in on Dec 16th, (that is the 1st day available that will have a loaner car available for me to take) hopefully to fix my car that is pulling to the left after less than 2,000 miles and I never hit any pot holes. I have a 2004 5AT, bought Sept. 29, 2004 and have those new reformated EL 42's. Hopefull they can fix it, I spoke to the service guy and I mentioned some various problems the TL has that I have read on the board and he really didnt know about most of them, pretty clueless. He did thought agree that the leather seats suck in regards to the butt prints but said they havent replaced any.