Car Pulling to right

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

Hi,
My car pulling to right significantly at all speed. Alignment checked mechanic says its normar to have car goes to right. I have similar car for 10 years 140,000 miles never have this kind of pull with many tires changed and rotation of all kind. While mechanic was doing wheel alighment white brown greese / liquid came out from steering rack on right side. Mechanics says its just oil seal from steering rack oil seal. Car was pulling to right before this rack leak as well. Mechanic says need special bolts for this car to adjust some camber on this car and can make this better.

Read other posts on this topic and some people says that some pull is common. However I have never felt pull on several cars which i am driving for last 15-20 years.

thanks

2

Normal? Balderdash. You need a new mechanic.

If the seal on the rack was leaking, the fluid in the reservoir would rapidly depleat. Every time you turned in the direction of the leak, the pressure on that side of the rack piston would push fluid out. And that fluid is not a grease, but a thin hydraulic fluid, often the same spec as automatic tanny fluid. I’m guessing that the grease is really from a CV joint.

Bottom line? You need a new shop. A camber kit may end up being necessary, but if you’re accurately conveying what the mechanic said, I wouldn’t trust his diagnosis one bit.

3

Sounds like you have a camber or caster problem, possibly due to bent/worn out components.

Was this car ever in an accident?

Have you tried switching tires side to side?

4

Have you tried a new mechanic? This one is defective.

5

Did the pull come on suddenly? If so, what event took place immediately before?

6

I jjust bought this car and the previous owner cant even feel the pull. He says not sure what I am talking about.

7

Ok guys few discoveries… I opened up caliper and found brake pad shim was not seated properly and crooked. Made it to fit correctly. Also one of the caliper corner /ear was slightly bent (I guess last mechanic did not make it fit correctly and forced tight it which bent it). Also looking closely at wheel moving shows signs of wobble and runout. So swapped tires in the front. All this combined fixed the pull now only thing left is same tire on left causing some vibration on steering wheel. This perticular wheel is definetly has runout and wobble. Now I have to narrow down if it was only brake pad shim which was causing pull or wheel also adding to it. I will swap again and see what it does.

I will keep posting the discoveries. Still will look into rack leak if it is only greese or actually steering fluid is leaky as well.

Thanks all for giving direction it helped a lot.

8

@UT have a shop spin that rim on a wheel balancer to see if the rim itself is the problem.

If so, the rim may have had too many potholes and curbchecks.

Is it an alloy or a steel rim?

9

UT,

You made about three changes at the same time - and even though the pull has gone away, you can’t be sure what the cause was. It still could be that you’ve just offset problems.

I would suggest you swap the tires back to the original position and see what you’ve got. If the pull reappears, you have a problem with both the vehicle AND the tires.

10

Nice work.
It sound like you have a good head on your shoulders, and I’d be inclined to suspect that the caliper items you’ve correct are correctly done. If it were me, I’d replace the known bent wheel and bring it in to a good shop for a 4-wheel alignment. I’d avoid the shop you went to previously.