Pulling To The Left

[Handson29]

Just had set of new toyo proxes fitted to the front of my celica, have them on the back. Since the tyres were fitted it pulls to the left, i've been back and had the tracking done, it was quite badly out but it has made no difference. I've also check the tyre pressures which were all out, put them all to 32psi. What else will cause it to pull to the left?

[Moh]

Just had set of new toyo proxes fitted to the front of my celica, have them on the back. Since the tyres were fitted it pulls to the left, i've been back and had the tracking done, it was quite badly out but it has made no difference. I've also check the tyre pressures which were all out, put them all to 32psi. What else will cause it to pull to the left?

If its pullin to the left but not rly rly badly, it cud jus be coz of the road slant. The roads are all slanted to prevent water gathering on them...u've probbaly taken this into account tho right? Generally all cars pull to the left a tiny bit coz of this reason.

[Handson29]

its not the road, it pulls much more than that and additionally only started since the tyres were changed.

[GT4 BOOSTER]

its not the road, it pulls much more than that and additionally only started since the tyres were changed.

adding more rubber can upset the geometry ie , castor,camber angles. stress ball joints and wishbone arm bushes.

what id try is swap a rear wheel to the passenger front and see what happens , chances are it will stop pulling if not maybe slightly less ..

Be interested in your return and findings.

[T600]

Did you just have tracking done, or full four wheel align? If the former then forget it and get the latter; £70ish from Mr T and worth every penny.

Also check you don't have a binding caliper front left (or rear left possibly).

Your old tyres may have been masking a problem that was there all along.

[aquazi]

Yeah def sounds like a laser alignment job would fix this... cost about £50 from non dealers.

[dawesy]

this is worth a read

click me

especially the bit about coloured bands on the tyres

[Handson29]

thanks guys, given me something to work with there, loads of info on that link! i'll read that later. I had the tracking done, the guys who did it said that if i still wasn't happy that i could get the geometry checked but that was likely to cost over a £100 and they didn't do it. I assume that is what you are referring to above, however the costs are quite different. Pretty sure it's not a binding caliper but again that is easily checked which i'll do. The other one about swapping tyres from back to front, good thinking, i'll try that.

[GT4 BOOSTER]

i had a ford escort td do this to me , it was the rubber bushes in the front wishbone arms , i ended up having to replace both arms , which at the time were £ 140 each .

celica arms of course may run into about £400 a side.

[Handson29]

don't tell me that, i'm hoping it goes away after i try some of the less expensive ideas!

[GT4 BOOSTER]

i swapped rears for fronts and it worked , shame though new tyres on the front is what you want really on a fwd car .

[T600]

i swapped rears for fronts and it worked , shame though new tyres on the front is what you want really on a fwd car .

No! New tyres always on the rear whatever the car (except MR2 etc with different size front to back and even then you should make sure rear tread is very good).

[GT4 BOOSTER]

i take it you've never had a front tyre blow out then ???

[T600]

i take it you've never had a front tyre blow out then ???

Never had a tyre blow out at all. But I imagine it's pretty bad whichever end it happens at.

Many tyre manufacturers agree that it is no longer good practice to rotate your tyres in order to extend their legal life. The reasons for this are;

* Partly worn tyres are more likely to experience punctures – particularly in wet weather conditions.

* Front tyre deflation will create an under-steer effect which is easier to control than over-steer (the effect produced by a rear tyre deflation)

In the unlikely event that a tyre deflates suddenly, then it is easier to control the vehicle if this occurs at the front of the vehicle. For improved handling and stability it is now recommended that the ‘best’ tyres should always be fitted at the rear of the vehicle. This is irrespective of whether the car is front or rear wheel drive.

Because of this at Kwik Fit we do not recommend tyre rotation and we do recommend fitting your best tyres at the rear of the vehicle. If you are replacing a single tyre then this should be paired with the rear with the tyre having the most tread depth. There are some circumstances when this advice does not apply, such as;

* Where front and rear tyre sizes are designed to be different

* Where a vehicle is designed to have directional tyres at the front and asymmetric at the rear

[Handson29]

ok, i swapped the front and rear wheels round. So i've got the brand new tyres on the back and the slightly worn ones on the front now. Verdict....it's definitely an improvement, still pulls to the left but noticably less and probably good enough for me to not worry about it. Question is what does that then narrow down as the issue? Is it possible that the alloy wheel could be damaged in a way as to make the car pull to the left. Apart from cuffing around the edge where it hit the kerb there are no cracks and no other visible defects to the wheel. Is it worth getting that wheel swapped for the spare (i'd need to get the tyres swapped on them as the spare tyre is different from other 4) or is that a waste of money?

[T600]

Did you read the stuff Dawesy posted about the bands on tyres; quite interesting I thought.

Maybe that helps explain why the problem is reduced with the new wheels on the rear. Do you have the coloured bands the article refers to?

[GT4 BOOSTER]

GOOD NEWS .....swap them around again after a few mm have worn off the new tyres , see what happens.

[Handson29]

yeah i read the bit about the coloured dots and bands on the tyres. One of them (the one that's the problem) had the yellow dot bang on where the valve is but the other was no where near it. Both tyres have two coloured bands (orange) in them but they are evenly spaced across the tyre so doesn't help.

[T600]

yeah i read the bit about the coloured dots and bands on the tyres. One of them (the one that's the problem) had the yellow dot bang on where the valve is but the other was no where near it. Both tyres have two coloured bands (orange) in them but they are evenly spaced across the tyre so doesn't help.

OK, just wondered. Glad it's better than it was anyway.

My new Proxes, fitted to the front wheels, have a red and a green band, and the red is to the right hand side on both, which in theory means it should pull one way or the other, but in practice it doesn't.

[Handson29]

ok, contrary to what i said before it's not good enough, driven quite a lot of miles in it and it's a pain in the neck, mostly on motorways where you want the think to go in a straight line for miles on end. So question is what is next step, is it worth getting the rubber swapped from the wheel i hit the kerb with to make it the spare or is that a waste of time? If so do i then get a 4 wheel geometry test thingy done? what's the proper name for it!

[Handson29]

I've done a bit more research on this and also spoke to a guy who runs wheels in motion, seems to be quite highly regarded as knowing is stuff about suspension geometry. I explained the problem and he said even though the toyo proxes i have on it are directional (rotational) tyres, swap them side to side (ie the wrong way round) and just test drive it to see what effect it has. The point being if the guy still pulled in the same way then it was a geometry problem but if it pulled differently then it was a tyre problem.

So i tried it and under heavy acceleration it was now pulling right instead of left. Spoken to him again and he's said that it must be the tyres that are the issue and to take it to a garage and get them to swap the tyres on the alloys from side to side. I am tempted to put the newer tyres back on the front and 'scrub' them somewhat to see if it settles down before paying someone to swap them side to side.

[GT4 BOOSTER]

stick em on the back again , get your wear out of em that way , dont waste them away to try n solve a problem.

put your spare on the front , see if that does owt.

[Handson29]

spare isn't a toyo but yeah that would be interesting to see what effect it has. As i just had the jack and the spare i did 6 tyre changes to swap the fronts from side to side and back again so maybe i'll leave the spare test till the weekend, not using the car much at all this week so it'll wait!

[GT4 BOOSTER]

invest in a trolley jack bud. i have been there and done that what you had to do. PITA .

[Dave Featherstone]

Front wheel camber can cause pulling to one side. If one wheel has more positive camber than the other side it will pull to one side. If the car has a had a knock on the nearside it would pull to the left ( a heavy bump in to the kerb can cause this ). You can can do a quick check yourself by measuring from the inner edge of the wheel at the top to the same place on the strut each side. If the measurement is higher on the passenger side this might be the problem ( the tyre depot can do a camber check quite quickly ) If the camber is out we do adjustable camber bolts that allow you to set both wheels the same ( you have no adjustment as standard ) I hope you find this useful.

Regards

Dave Featherstone

Demon Tweeks

davef@demon-tweeks.co.uk 01978 663042