hi

i am a novice in cars but have to do 170 miles a day for work.

therefore needing a reliable car i got myself a 3 year old deisel estate Skoda Octavia last month.

over the last 15 - 20 days i have noticed that there is a gentle tug to the left when i am on the A19. i mean i have to kind of keep a slight pull on the steering onto the right to keep going straight ahead. the car itself is running great but this is causing me worry now.

i have had my wheels checked yesterday at Kwikfit and the tracking and balance seem to be fine.

the car in qustion has 2 new front wheels put by the dealer before i took the car away

can any kind person please suggest what could be causing it or what i should do about it?

many thanks in advance

Welcome to Briskoda. Did you buy the car from a Skoda dealer and why did it need new front wheels?

I'd get the wheel alignment checked over.

it was not a skoda dealer but one that is a family business with 30 years behind it.

the front tyres looked worn and the dealer offerred to change them if they caused an MOT failure. he kept his word and changed them when the tyres failed the MOT.

i would have simply taken the car back to the dealer for this problem but he is 30 miles away.

any help is appreciated.

So 2 new front tyres not wheels? As Ross (Lummox) says above, get a full wheel alignment check, ie all 4 wheels, done. It will work out cheaper than having to replace the front tyres prematurely.

my apologies for saying 'wheels' in the original post - i really meant tyres !

do apologise.

where do you reckon is a good bet to check the alignment - i have Halfords, ATS Euromaster, Kwikfit here and there is also a locally popular TipTop Tyres.

grateful for further suggestions.

any of those are capable of doing it,the problem is that most of the time they just let the village idiot of the garage have a go at it which is why people have so many problems with wheel alignment;).

Probably none of those - or at least I wouldn't use them! You need to find a specialist 4 wheel alignment centre in your area with the necessary equipment to carry out a full check. This involves raising the car on a hoist with the wheel resting on plates which allow some freedom of movement. Computerized alignment equipment is then used to graphically display the alignment measurements for your car and adjustments can be made where necessary and feasible.

My son's Audi S3 had its wheel alignment checked and adjusted on a rig like the one in the first photo here.

many thanks for the replies but I'm afraid the best i can get for alignment in this area (newcastle upon tyne) is Benfield Motors. what do you think of them??

A bit back to basics here, are the tyres at the correct pressure and are they at an equal pressure and the same make and tread pattern on the same axle?

Does that particular road have a significant camber?

What model Octavia is it? SDi s have different size wheels to TDi s.

I have a gentle pull to the left on my Octavia too. The car has done only 15k Kms. The alignment and balancing is fine. Checked twice. Air pressure has also been checked. The dealer told me that a slight pulling is there on all Octy's. Got the car checked at one of the best alignment shop. They too said that all octy's pull to the left. Checked three other vRs's of my friends and they all pulled to the left. So now I'm just living with the "feature" .

Naive - I don't know the road you refer to, but does the car do this all the time, or just on certain stretches of this one road? I'm asking cos mine (TDi Elegance) does this on a few stretches of the road to work, but that's down to a worn surface and spalled top dressing on those stretches.

hi sam b

i am kinda reasurred that i am not the only one to be gently veering to the left. to be honest the only reason i am bothered is to avoid any damage to the wheels/tyres.

you seem to have investigated this quite thoroughly. just out of interest how long have you had this feature now??

btw mine is a TDI 1.9 ambiente octavia - my first skoda and just love it.

good question Ken

seems to happen on the entire stretch but i think i notice it a bit more sometimes. i'll try and identify the stretches where i feel it the most.

My Octavia tdi estate does the same, as did my Mk IV Golf 1.6 before it. I did a lot of investigating online and around various wheel alignment centres who advised that the road camber to the left on our local motorway (where I do most of my driving, and where the pull feels most noticible) causes this on all Golf based cars.

I was still a bit dubious, but further investigation found a lot of reports of pulling to the right on the continent for LHD cars, and when I recently moved house I found that the outermost lanes I now use where the motorway splits resulted in pulling to the right!

You might notice that the camber on the worst spots on the road you mention is more noticeable (to let water drain off the surface more easily).

Apparently it's a "feature" of the chassis setup that VW seem to have removed in their new Golf : - does anyone know if new Octys do it?

Naive,

This happening from the day i took the car from the showroom. I bought the car new in sep '05. Thereafter I drove as many Ocatvias as I could lay my hands on and they all pulled left.

I finally put it down to german bloody mindedness towards safety. The median is on our right so by their thiniking if someone nods off then the car would go left and not hit the median. That's the best explaination I could come up with.

By the way all opel astras too pull left and so does my friend's BMW 316i.

Maybe a left hand octavia pulls right . Does anyone have any experience with LHD octavias?

My 4X4 doesn't pull either way except on pronounced camber so I am not convinced it is a design characteristic. But if mine did pull, I would keep a check on tyre wear and swap the wheels from side to side to even out the wear.

Bought my vrs when it was 1 yr old and noticed pulling to left after I'd been driving for a week or so.

Took it back to dealer and they changed something on rear suspension which improved things although car still pulled to left slightly.

I had the wheel alignment checked independently afterwards and was told everything was in tolerance.

Had car just over two years now and I don't really notice it now.

Hope this helps.

My 4X4 doesn't pull either way except on pronounced camber so I am not convinced it is a design characteristic. But if mine did pull, I would keep a check on tyre wear and swap the wheels from side to side to even out the wear.

I get alignment and balancing done every 5 thousand kms. I switched the tyres from side to side and then even tried turning the tyres inside out. No luck....still goes left. Just slightly though but enuf to irritate.

just to keep you posted:

spoke to the dealer on Wednesday - said it was the tracking (sounded confident)

i also said that i had noticed i had to keep the steering wheel turned slightly to the right by a few degrees to keep going straight - he said it was "definitely the tracking"

got it checked at ATS Euromaster - said tracking was out by 1.5mm - enough to wear the tyres unevenly but could not give gaurantee that it would fix the problem.

got tracking done and tyre pressures sorted.

bottom line - problem is slightly better but still there.

any thoughts???

just to keep you posted:

spoke to the dealer on Wednesday - said it was the tracking (sounded confident)

i also said that i had noticed i had to keep the steering wheel turned slightly to the right by a few degrees to keep going straight - he said it was "definitely the tracking"

got it checked at ATS Euromaster - said tracking was out by 1.5mm - enough to wear the tyres unevenly but could not give gaurantee that it would fix the problem.

got tracking done and tyre pressures sorted.

bottom line - problem is slightly better but still there.

any thoughts???

As for having to keep the steering turned slightly to the right, that's a steering wheel centring problem. It's usualy corrected by correcting the track of the vehicle and then centring the steering wheel.

However it still wont solve the problem of tugging to the left.

My car's steering wheel is absolutely centred, but if I take my hands of the wheel the car goes left.

Is it just me that cracks up when I read this thread title?

Is it just me that cracks up when I read this thread title?

Hadn't noticed till you mentioned it