Hi, hope you have a great day,
My car is shifting/drifting/moving to the right when I let go of my steering wheel on a flat and straight road. I've verified the parallelism and the geometry of the car (I hope it's called like that in English), and the tire pressure is perfectly fine as it was verified too, at the same time.
What could cause the car to shift to the right? I would like to solve this problem but don't know much about cars, even though I'd love to learn more!
Thank you to anyone who read this post and tries to help me!

1 hour ago, Aeeluo said:

What could cause the car to shift to the right?

It has been claimed that this is drifting down a camber or a built in geometric safety effect carrying an unsteered car away from oncoming traffic.

If the front crossmember has been removed to replace the clutch (not sure if thats the case on your vehicle) or for any other reason, or the rear subframe then they need very carefull aligning to avoid crabbing.

 

I thought that I had taken every effort to line up the dirt marks under the clamping washers on mine but I could almost drive it looking through the side window , I aligned it using a pair of laser spirit levels mounted on the front & rear wheels using adaptor plates (wood battens cut to length & tywraps) a tiny movement moves the laser pointer a massive amount at the mid line of the car.

 

I assume when you are holding the wheel to go in a straight trajectory then the steering wheel is  centralised with the spokes equal angles either side of 12 O clock, it could be that someone has moved the wheel on its splines to hide the crabbing and the pull to the right.

 

At rest turn the wheel from lock to lock, if the wheel spokes on L & R lock are not in the mirror image position of the other lock then either something is bent or more likely the front, possibly rear crossmember misaligned.

Edited 15 September, 20214 yr by J.R.

Have you just bought this car? Is it new to you?

I bought my Fabia VRS a short while ago and it was drifting to the left. I thought it just needed to be aligned but that did not cure it. It turns out upon close inspection that the left hub was bent. I have replaced the hub and now it drives straight.

For over a decade it has been common that UK drivers of right hand drive Mk2 Fabia have had issues with pulling to the left.

More than just to do with the camber of the road, actually a fault how they came from the factory.

It was not common that any drivers of left hand drive cars complained of the pulling to the right with cars from new.

But then after use or wear and rear or incidents with kerbs or potholes things can go wrong.

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/496942-skoda-is-pulling-left-shoulder-pain-started

 

15 hours ago, J.R. said:

If the front crossmember has been removed to replace the clutch (not sure if thats the case on your vehicle) or for any other reason, or the rear subframe then they need very carefull aligning to avoid crabbing.

 

I thought that I had taken every effort to line up the dirt marks under the clamping washers on mine but I could almost drive it looking through the side window , I aligned it using a pair of laser spirit levels mounted on the front & rear wheels using adaptor plates (wood battens cut to length & tywraps) a tiny movement moves the laser pointer a massive amount at the mid line of the car.

 

I assume when you are holding the wheel to go in a straight trajectory then the steering wheel is  centralised with the spokes equal angles either side of 12 O clock, it could be that someone has moved the wheel on its splines to hide the crabbing and the pull to the right.

 

At rest turn the wheel from lock to lock, if the wheel spokes on L & R lock are not in the mirror image position of the other lock then either something is bent or more likely the front, possibly rear crossmember misaligned.

I doubt it's the case. The old owner always brought the car to a repair shop when she had things to do on the car (I have every bills but haven't looked them in details, I should...). I'm gonna try to see if the wheel is well aligned and tell you, but she never mentionned changing the clutch.
 

 

11 hours ago, Cocain said:

Have you just bought this car? Is it new to you?

I bought my Fabia VRS a short while ago and it was drifting to the left. I thought it just needed to be aligned but that did not cure it. It turns out upon close inspection that the left hub was bent. I have replaced the hub and now it drives straight.

I bought the car used, it's been almost a year since I bought it and never really bothered thinking about the car pulling to the right. I'm gonna check the hub, thanks for sharing your experience. 👍
PS: the car is a first hand, it has 47km now (or 46k, my memory is ****).
 

 

7 hours ago, e-Roottoot said:

For over a decade it has been common that UK drivers of right hand drive Mk2 Fabia have had issues with pulling to the left.

More than just to do with the camber of the road, actually a fault how they came from the factory.

It was not common that any drivers of left hand drive cars complained of the pulling to the right with cars from new.

But then after use or wear and rear or incidents with kerbs or potholes things can go wrong.

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/496942-skoda-is-pulling-left-shoulder-pain-started

 

I have a left hand drive car, I live in France. The woman I bought the car from never said anything about getting involved in an accident, but my uncle who used to work on car noticed that she changed the front bumper because it is missing the sticker in the engine bay and screws have paint scratches. I don't know if she changed the bumper because she bumped it when parking or something like this or had an accident... I'll continue searching and look into what the other members told me. Thank you very much!

On my car I noticed that the front alloy was badly scuffed and just thought the lady was very bad at parking near the kerb of the road. But upon further investigation when looking to replace a Lambada sensor under the car I could see that the complete let side of the suspension had been newly changed so it was obvious that she had just had an accident but did not tell me. The tyre wasn't inflated up correctly and that helped to reduce the pull. When getting the alignment I took it to 2 places as the 1st one could not get it to run straight and the 2nd place noticed there were differences in the gaps from the hub to the strut of the left side compared to the right side and also the camber on my left wheel was naturally too straight as you look at the wheel from the front. They suggested that the hub was bent. You could not tell until it was taken off and then you could see it clearly.

42 minutes ago, Cocain said:

On my car I noticed that the front alloy was badly scuffed and just thought the lady was very bad at parking near the kerb of the road. But upon further investigation when looking to replace a Lambada sensor under the car I could see that the complete let side of the suspension had been newly changed so it was obvious that she had just had an accident but did not tell me. The tyre wasn't inflated up correctly and that helped to reduce the pull. When getting the alignment I took it to 2 places as the 1st one could not get it to run straight and the 2nd place noticed there were differences in the gaps from the hub to the strut of the left side compared to the right side and also the camber on my left wheel was naturally too straight as you look at the wheel from the front. They suggested that the hub was bent. You could not tell until it was taken off and then you could see it clearly.

Thank you very much. I'll look into it!

On 15/09/2021 at 22:17, KenONeill said:

It has been claimed that this is drifting down a camber or a built in geometric safety effect carrying an unsteered car away from oncoming traffic.

...And drive straight in to pedestrians and/or cyclists!

9 minutes ago, mrgf said:

...And drive straight in to pedestrians and/or cyclists!

 

Exactly, it's nonsense.

It's the ASA 

Automatic Sleep Assist feature

 

 

 

On 18/09/2021 at 21:16, mrgf said:

...And drive straight in to pedestrians and/or cyclists!

 

On 18/09/2021 at 21:26, sepulchrave said:

 

Exactly, it's nonsense.

OK, which other laws of physics do you pair think are "nonsense"? Enquiring minds want to know!

23 minutes ago, KenONeill said:

OK, which other laws of physics do you pair think are "nonsense"? Enquiring minds want to know!

 

I wouldn't classify a conspiracy theory about cars being designed to pull away from oncoming traffic as a physical law.

 

You may be barking up the wrong tree Ken.

57 minutes ago, sepulchrave said:

I wouldn't classify a conspiracy theory about cars being designed to pull away from oncoming traffic as a physical law.

Neither would I, but I first said "drifting down a camber".

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

Neither would I, but I first said "drifting down a camber".

 

Ken, I didn't quote you because I was referring only to the erroneous claim that it's a built in safety effect.

 

You're in the wrong room for an argument, please head back to the lobby, sit down facing the mirror and wait until you see someone angry-looking.

...I too, was referring to the "OR" 

Drifting down the camber will not be a reason to make a vehicle steer incorrectly though as there are too many variables, such as some roads have slight camber, others more severe and sometimes, such as dual carriageways, etc, camber in both directions. So you can shove the comment about laws of physics up your tailpipe!

 

(Oh, and yes, that IS meant to be a light hearted micky-take, along with the first comment, despite being accurate. Put camber on to a vehicle to MAKE it drive over to the left , in the U.K. would be an idea invented by a moron).)