Steering Wheel Not On Center Position

[olobolo]

Recently I noticed that my steering wheel is not on center position when driving straight. It's slightly (around 2 degrees) to the left or right when driving on sloped road - depending on the angle of the road.

I've checked and adjusted suspension geometry at a decent garage and it's still the same. Is it normal? I have standard 185/55/15" tyres on (Goodyear HydraGrip) but winter ones 175/65/14" it was normal. Does the width of the tyres make that difference?

[sphinktar1988]

i had the same problem was just slightly out

had a full 4 wheel alignment done and the tracking was out

this sorted it but it is slowly gettin back to the same state it was in a year later

[skyliner34]

I've driven 3 yaris's and they all were the same including mine.

When I fitted F1s all round about a month ago, National tyres did the front tracking and it's straight now :) They told me to go back within 3 months to check it again as it's a free service after the initial tracking job.

[Mat-O]

Mine pulls to the left, however both my front tyres let pressure out, so it slowly goes central, then pulls to the right, as the right loses more than the left. It loses almost 1BAR per week or two

I may get them resealed as it's getting ridiculus...

[olobolo]

So it seems my tyres should be replaced or may be I'll go to another garage to sort it out :(

[olobolo]

...

had a full 4 wheel alignment done and the tracking was out

...

How did they do the 4 wheel alignment? The rear ones are not adjustable only front can be aligned.

[Joel13]

I had the same problem where the wheel is just off centre. Got my tracking sorted and made sure correct pressure was in my tyres and its fine now.

[olobolo]

I went to another garage and they said my car is ok - the suggested replacing the tyres. I did a 600 km trip and the car wanted to drive right or left again - depending on the angle of the road. I'm almost positive it's because of tyres.

I'd like to buy some Eagle F1 195/50 but I afraid they will be too wide. I'm I correct or they will be fine on standard TS'es rims?

[cfc1]

They will fit without a problem

New tyres might not solve the problem.. I know you have had the tracking checked twice, so will assume all is ok.. but did any of the garages check for faulty track rod ends or worn bushes?.. if bushes are worn on both sides it could cause those symptoms depending on the camber of the road, but the car would be all over the place if they were severely worn with a fair bit of movement.

It could just be down to the road camber and nothing else.. if this is the case then putting wider tyres on will make it feel worse as there is more of a tendency for tramlining.

Might be a stupid question... but have you driven a car with 50 series tyres (or lower) before?.. they feel a lot different to standard tyres in the way they react to different road surfaces.. this could be what you are feeling.

[skyliner34]

Those goodies will fit fine. I've got them all round, superb

Tremendous grip, love driving in the ****** rain. Weird handing at start because tyres aint worn in.

[olobolo]

New tyres might not solve the problem.. I know you have had the tracking checked twice, so will assume all is ok.. but did any of the garages check for faulty track rod ends or worn bushes?.. if bushes are worn on both sides it could cause those symptoms depending on the camber of the road, but the car would be all over the place if they were severely worn with a fair bit of movement.

Actually I've checked it three times but no one suggested checking rod end or bushes :(

The car feels stable on a flat surface just pulls toward the camber of the road - starange thing is it started one day as if something was damaged.

Someone at the garage suggested moving tyres from left to right and right to left to see if it start to pull the other way to see if it's tyres fault.

It could just be down to the road camber and nothing else.. if this is the case then putting wider tyres on will make it feel worse as there is more of a tendency for tramlining.

skyliner34 said this kind of tyres go straight so I think it should not be a problem.

Might be a stupid question... but have you driven a car with 50 series tyres (or lower) before?.. they feel a lot different to standard tyres in the way they react to different road surfaces.. this could be what you are feeling.

Not a stupid question :) ... and I haven't driven a car with 50 series tyres but I suppose that it should go straight... but maybe I'm wrong?

[cfc1]

In response to your last two points..... not all tyres go straight, if you look at a new tyre it has coloured lines going round the tread, one of these lines represents the "track" of the individual tyre. Lets, for the sake of argument, say a Red line on the left side of a tyre.. this means that particular tyre will naturally track to the left, a red line on the right will mean it will naturally track to the right... now, if you were to fit two tyres on the front of your car where both red lines are on the left, even on a flat road with the car set up 100%, your car will pull very slightly to the left.

The reason these lines are on the tyres is to aid the fitting, it helps the tyre fitter deceide which tyres to put on to prevent a car from going slightly in one direction, it is best to put tyres with the lines on opposite edges to balance out the natural track of each individual tyre.

As for the 50 series tyre question, (although the above still applies) a driver who uses low profile tyres for the 1st time won't be used to the feel they get, undulations on the road, going over the white lines and the feel you get from the road camber ALL get exaggerated and to some drivers it can be mistaken for a problem with the car... this takes a bit of time to get used to.

[olobolo]

Thank you for you explanation! Now I think I'll check the tyres first and then decide what to do next. As I written earlier the problem started suddenly one day so I can't blame the road camber of doing this :)

As for the 50 series tyres I expect they will feel different and will be very sensitive to any undulations of the road. I noticed it earlier moving from winter tyres (175/64/R14) to 55 ones.

[skyliner34]

Wider tyres do tramline more. But not that much more. It totally depends on the road.

[olobolo]

I swapped the front tyres (left to right - right to left) and car drives almost like it did before. Now I'm thinking of buying some new grippier tyres as driving straight and on some corners mine goodies hydragrip feel like they have not as much grip as I expect they should have. But they are great at rainy conditions :)