I was driving behind a Mercedes today. It was an early 90s model, but it had a temp dealer tag on it. I guess this guy had just bought it. It as driving crabbed down the road. He was going straight, but I could see the entire left side of his car. Is this just alignment or was the frame bent?
My bet’s on crash damage, but I guess it’s possibly a really bad alignment. It doesn’t have a ‘frame’, it may be the mounting points for the suspension that are out of kilter.
probably frame, or the alignment so off with limited ability to correct on the older car.
I used to see an crappy nova a number of years ago (10-15) often on the highway, that must have lived me. That thing was more than a full tires width off. That is, in dirt, it would leave 4 distinct tracks if it went straight. Freakiest thing
I could see all 4 tires too. It really looked strange.
The rear axle is twisted and going in a different direction. So either the underside axle mountings are bent or it can be corrected with alignment. Never had that problem but its not a bad idea for someone to drive behind a car being test driven just to make sure it is tracking straight. I got a feeling it was rusted to heck.
That’s called Dog Tracking.
It’s caused either from a bent frame and/or broken rear suspension components.
Tester
Where I’m from we call it “crabbing”. Crabs walk sideways.
I agree that when it’s that bad it’s more than likely from crash damage. On vehicles with four wheel independant suspension it can be introduced by a bad alignment, but I’d be hard-pressed to imagine anybody doing that poor a job.