Does Your Car Pull to One Side?
 

Through a full four-wheel alignment and two new sets of tires, my car has always pulled strongly to the right. Anyone else have this problem?

-adam

Pull
 

Just curious....do you have aftermarket wheels?

Don

Mine stays straight with the stockers, and pulls right with the 17's.

Mike

Re: Pull
 

nah, not yet :D

-a

FMC alignment rack has wrong specs
 

My Dad noticed after an alignment, that the stored spec's on FMC alignment racks is wrong for the SVX. He wrote a letter to the right folks. (He used to work for FMC).

mine pulled to right even with stocks. at the shop i set the alignment twice on my hunter machine still cant get the drift out

Mine pulls to the right whe the road slants to the right and pulls to the left when the road slants to the left. What is it with the SVX being so damn sensitive to the angle of the road? I've never experienced this in any other car.

If the road slants to the right or left, any car will drift downhill. I haven't noticed that the SVX is worse or better than any other car in this regard.

You might get the impression that the car is fighting you, even just a little, because the SVX has pretty heavy steering at speed.

The reason this happens is because of your WIDE tires. If you drive a stock civic with it's tiny tires, it won't pull much... if you drive a vette or an SVX, it'll pull wherever the road leans.

If you drive that same civic with wider tires, it'll pull more.

- Rob

When I put my 17's on for the first time this weekend, I immediately noticed a bit more pull (to the right I think?). Why is this? My 17's have nearly identical offset to the stockers.

They're wider tires, or the lower profile tires.

If you run lower profile tires, or have wider wheels, it'll pull more (to whichevery directionthe road is slanting).

- Rob

Actually they are not necessarily wider unless he switched to 235's or 245's. The increase in diameter has nothing to do with cross sectional width of the tires if they remain at the stock width of 225. What might do it is if the new rims have a different offset than the factory rims which again has nothing to do with the tires themselves. If the rims sit out farther than the factory rims then it will likely be more sensitive to road angle. If you all notice a pull to the right on your cars, even when properly aligned, it is likely due to the fact that most of our roads are crowned to allow water to run off and not pool in the center of the road. Our good friends in the UK, where they drive on the left side of the road, will likely notice their cars pull to the left due to the same crowning of the roads.

Here:
dangit. I can't get the link to work.

Anyway, go here:

http://www.neons.org/faq/

then go to

3.6.11

It talks about 'wandering'.

To quote your quoted link:
"Lastly, big rims with low-profile tires tend to wander, rather than track straight, as they are influenced by waves and bumps in the road surface".

Note the key words..."big rims". Once you understand the physics behind it you will understand that it is the "big rims", not necessarily the corresponding wider tires that usually go with them, that cause the drifting situation, Rob. Those bigger rims, along with their wider offset are the cause. Remember that most of the Neon folks are going from 185/75/14 (or whatever) tires to 205/50/16 (or whatever) and there is a substantial increase in width (both rim and tire). When most SVX owners upgrade from the stock 225/50/16 they go to a 225/45/17 which has no change in tire width. If they notice an increase in wandering it is more likely due to a difference in wheel offset compared to the factory rims.

Think about it and it will make sense to you ;)

Actually, caster/camber/toe-in is generally (or used to be) set to compensate for the 'hump' one normally encounters in center of the roadway. It's set up opposite for right hand drive. My reference though, is to a automotive suspension college class I took back in '74. Roads (except country roads) have pretty much improved since then, so I might just be whistling Dixie on this one.