Right where do I begin.

Well for the past four months I have been experiencing problems with the steering on my Octy vRS.

The basic problem is that in normal driving I have to pull/hold the steering wheel to the right to stay in a straight line. I know that cars are set up to pull slightly to the left for safety reasons, but I am having to hold the wheel at about 25 to 30 degrees from centre (although it does depend on the camber of the road).

To try and get this fixed, I have now had the car four wheel aligned at two separate places. Both of which are proper set up places, not just quicky tyre places. At no time do have I been suffering any strange tyre wear, and indeed both front tyres are fairly new and have plenty of tread left, and keep their pressure.

The one thing I haven't tried is getting the tyres balanced at the front, what are the chances that this is causing the problems?

I have to admit that the problem isn't that great just irritating.

Any help much appreciated.

Thanks

Zetec-s

Did it start when you had the two new tyres fitted to the front?

If so try putting the rear pair on the front and see if it goes away.

IIRC tyres have a kind of balance line somewhere down them and if you install a pair of tyres with these lines both to the right, for example, on the front axle then the car will pull to the right and vice versa.

May not be anything to do this, but I'd say worth a shot of swapping fronts and rears to see if it changed as it costs little/nothing to do.

Think what I will do is take the car to the local tyre place (which I trust) and get the front wheels balanced, and ask if they were out much. If they were not out much, I will then the rears swapped for the fronts.

When my Fabia pulled to the left like that, and everwhere I went insisted there wasn't a problem I had to put me foot down with the dealer. Eventually they found the track rod was bent....just another possibility..?

Had the front wheels rebalanced, and no improvement. Now at a real loss. Tyre place also swapped the two wheels around but makes no difference.

Rossm; I did ask the dealer at the last service January to drive it, and although they only took it out for 10 minutes, they claimed nothing was wrong.

I am starting to think however that something in the suspension is bent, the only problem is that it is definitely camber related, as on a perfectly flat road things are fine (although where in the UK are roads perfectly flat).

At the moment I am going to have to seriously considering a change of car, as this is really starting to annoy me.

What machines did they use? And did they print a before and after shot of all angles?

Pity your not south....... I have just "fixed" Bengies despite his rear cambers being way out

If your lucky he may post the before and after plots.

Try finding a "Proalign" place near you

Phil

I have had the car four wheel aligned twice now. The first place was using a Hunter DSP machine and the second place is a well known North West tuner, which I have no reason to believe will have not known what they are doing.

Therefore I am fairly sure that something most actually be strong in the suspension or steering. Although having siad that, when the car was serviced in January the dealer claimed all that was potentially wrong was slightly worn anti-roll bar bushes. Could that potentially be the reason?

Zetec-S

Not sure about the anti roll bar, be worth sorting anyway.

:confused: Whats the camber and caster figures like? If caster is miles out you have problems:thumbdwn:

Phil

:confused: Whats the camber and castor figures like? If castor is miles out you have problems:thumbdwn:

According to the print out I have caster angles are 7.58' and 7.56' (Left/Right)which appear to be well within the specifications which I believe are 7.20' to 8.20'.

As for front camber that is -.55' and -.48' which again appears to be within the manufacturer specifications. (Where the . symbol should really be a degree symbol)

Have to admit that as a complete non-techie I don't really know what this figures actually mean in terms of the angle of the wheels.

Any clues from that??