gitnby

There have been other post about this, but I noticed that my steering wheel is cocked to the left?

I actually measured from same point on both sides of wheel to seat back and it's over an inch difference?

If I stand outside of car on driver side and look in, I can really see it?

Please try this with yours and post your finding!

I'm no expert, but shouldn't the steering wheel be perfectly perpendicular to driver position looking straight ahead?

An earlier poster said his dealer said this was the way car was designed?

Love to hear comments from experts!

Thanks!

Kingmeow

Take it back to the dealer. They can fix this easily. If there are no alignment issues then it's just a matter of tie rod adjustments. Mine wasn't that off and I had no alignment issues but they took car of it.

gitnby

I actually saw another TL in the parking lot today and looked in the driver side window, and it looked like that steering wheel was the same way?

Can that be the proper design? Seems odd!

Kingmeow

Now that I re-read your post I misinterpreted what you said. I'll have to check tomorrow when I go to work. Off hand I don't notice it on mine.

You should have titled it as "steering wheel not parallel to driver".

gitnby

Had car at dealer today and asked about the steering wheel being off? (see my earlier post on this thread)

Guy said they were designed that way. I got in 2 others and sure enough, they were the same!

Why would a steering wheel, by design, align to the driver's left? Is there some technical reason?

In other words, the steering wheel is not perfectly parallel to the front axle.

Look at yours and tell me if it's not the same?

Why would that be?

charco

I brought my car back to the dealer for the same reason.
If I adjust the steering wheel straight, the car will drift to one side when driving on the highway.
My dealer also told me the same thing, it's the original design...but someone in here said that's a BS....and I have no idea is the dealer lying to me or not....

prepreludesh

This shouldn't be the case at all.

Take the car to an alignment shop, tell them you want a full alignment and you also want the steering wheel to be level. If they can't do both, then the dealer was correct

But that shouldn't be the case at all...

gitnby

If you look at the dash, it does seem like the whole console is slightly geared to the left hand side of driver.

Maybe that is the design?

Just can't figure out why that would be?

777mycoolangelo

Can you take a picture? I just looked at mine and it feels okay and looks okay.

draph

I believe what you are noticing is a design trade-off. My BMW 335i also has a steering wheel where the right side is closer to the driver than the left side. I've noticed this on other cars I've owned as well.

My mechanical engineering instinct tells me this is being done to eliminate the need for a universal joint on the steering wheel shaft, depending on where the shaft meets up with the steering rack. The shaft may need to take a turn or two to get around engine, transmission, and any variety of components in the front end of the car - if it starts out with the wheel perfectly parallel to the driver's seat back, it could force adding another U joint. Every U joint you add increases the amount of steering "slop", which would be noticed as "free play", poor on-center feel, and maybe some other negative things. ...and, if not, one less U joint might save a few bucks per car in mass production. ...and combining the TSX, TL, Accord, ...etc. volume, that can add up to significant dollars to Honda's bottom line.

My guess is that the ideal steering feel would be provided in a car with the steering wheel in the center with a straight shaft down to the center of the steering rack with no U joints in between. Since this is not feasible in a front-engined passenger car designed to be driven down one side of two lane road, the engineers have to compromise that ideology.

I empathize with the OP. When you drop 40K on a car,it's easy to get nitpicky in the first few weeks of ownership as the novelty begins to wear off and you start to doubt whether you made the right decision. If it helps, go sit in a BMW 3 series or any other "driver's car" costing more money, and see that the same thing is going on....and then continue enjoying your new TL and feel good about your decision to buy one.

gitnby

Wow!
Great info.

I'm sure I'll get used to the feel, but it is just different than what I'm used to.

Thanks again!

Kingmeow

draph, as a fellow mechanical engineer, good points! But, the TL has electronic steering so there's no direct linkage to the rack/pinion from the steering column, I think.

draph

I'm pretty sure electric power steering has to do with the power assist. Instead of an engine driven hydraulic pump, it's electrically driven. It's more efficient since there's less parasitic power loss.

I believe Mercedes had a test car experimenting with "steer by wire". I recall reading an article suggesting that approach was years away due to working out liability risk issues if such a system were to fail.

Motorista

Draph, you are right on both points. Electric assist does not eliminate a mechanical linkage between the steering wheel and column and the steering rack (although not impossible, such a design would be quite dangerous in case of power failures): on the contrary, it is just a means of providing power steering assistance. It made its first appearance over ten years ago in small-displacement engines (primarily in Europe and Japan) where it was preferred because it it absorbs much less power than a hydraulic power steering pump, which makes a difference in a small engine, where every fraction of an HP counts. It has since been perfected and is increasingly popular even in powerful cars, where it offers a simpler and more reliable system with fewer components.
As for offset steering columns, this is also not new: it made its first appearance in the late fifties and early sixties, primarily in European cars (the Peugeot 403 and 404 being among the worst offenders), precisely for the reason that you mention: bypassing other components under the hood without adding too many joints. A secondary reason was to try and avoid impaling the driver straight in the middle of the chest in case of severe frontal collision, at a time when collapsible steering columns were still few and far between. In addition, some British cars had it because they were originally designed with steering on the right: when converting to left hand for export, only the dash and steering column were moved but not other under-hood components, and this led to the need for by-passing them. In small cars, like the first Mini, this angle also forced the driver to rotate the body and aim his/her legs and feet towards the center of the car, where the pedals were located to avoid the left fender well bulge. This oddity was criticized by the automotive press of the time, but did not prevent Paddy Hopkirk from winning three Monte Carlo rallies in that tiny car! As for our beloved TL, I suspect it's in part to clear the transmission and differential, which are located to the left (i.e. driver side) of the transversally-mounted engine.

Kingmeow

You learn something every day! Thank you.