Steering Problem

[rossman945]

Hey everyone,

I've got quite the problem, over the weekend I replace the struts on my car and have it aligned by firestone. Something just doesn't feel right so I take it to tires plus since I have the lifetime alignment tell them I just installed the struts and had the car aligned but it just didn't feel right. They aligned the car and say that it was was actually very out of alignment and showed my the paper to prove it. I compared it to the one from firestone and as a matter of fact firestone did a terrible job aligning the car. Then they said the the car pulled right after I said it pulled left. So we took it for a drive and discovered when you turn right the car pulls right and when you make a hard left turn the car pulls left when driving straight. Now is it possible that the install of the new struts, at 120 K on original struts could have unmasked a potential problem? They think the problem may lie in the rack and pinon steering system and its probably going bad. Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks,

Ross

[rossman945]

Anyone????

[ToyoSolV6]

ok im a service manager at a just tires and also an alignment technician.
what year is your car?
The struts should have nothing to do with your problem, of course you would have to align it after you did the work, sometimes you would have to get camber kits to get everything within specs. Now when you make left or right turns does it feel like you have more turn on either side. For example ive had cars here at my shop that the rack n pinion is bad because they had it replaced but didnt do a good job so the car has more turns to the right than to the left. or vise versa.

does your car feel anywhere close to that, because then it might be that. Otherwise you dont have camber or caster adjustments, so the only thing you could adjust is toe which should keep the car rolling straight. Make sure you check your air pressure on all four tires and make sure they are all proper, because if you have 35psi on the left side and 30psi on the right side, obviously its going to pull to the right.

Let me know exactly how the car performs and what's the exact problem going on, otherwise i hope what i wrote helped in some way.

[rossman945]

The car has been aligned twice, the tires has been cross rotated and tire inflation has been checked. I've been looking into rack and pinon problems and found that worn tie rods can cause this problem. My problem is if you make a hard left turn and go straight the car drifts left and after a hard right turn the car drifts right.

[ToyoSolV6]

^do your tires have any sort of alignment wear?

[rossman945]

Not at all, I'm trying to figure out if this steering thing has any relation to me putting new struts on, or if anyone else on here actually has had their steering system fail.

[ToyoSolV6]

well changing the struts shouldnt mess with any of that.

[rossman945]

Yea thats what I'm thinking, so maybe my steering just happens to be going out?

[ToyoSolV6]

yeah have all of your steering components inspected.

[rossman945]

Thats happening Friday, I'll let you know the outcome.