Steering Alignment

[Corolla_liftback]

Since i have bought my car i have had a problem with the steering wheel alignment/tracking. I thought this would be a problem easily repaired when i bought the car. Since buying the car i took it back 1st time on warranty and had " 4 wheel Alignment" completed, and the when going in a straight line the alignment was still out. A few weeks later i swapped the front and rear wheels around to get the most out of my tyres, and this made the tracking even worse. i then took the car back to toyota and had the 4 wheel Alignment, completed again and the tracking was still out with the wheel at 5past in a straight line. I then took the car to my local garage and had the tracking done and they have got closest to getting the problem solved. My front wheels and steering wheel are still not correct i as wondering weather it is actually possible to get them perfect like a brand new car. It really anoying driving when the steering wheels isn't centered,its driving me mad. Has anyone else had this problem, and know of any good garaged who can get my steering perfect?

Thanks...

[Chosun Wan]

Sometimes, the road camber can make it feel like the tracking is out.

Obvious things like tyre pressures can influence it too. Have you hit any curbs? My S2000 felt like $hit after the wife hit a curb and bent a steering arm... Bless her!

Out of interest, has the steering wheel ever been off? My train of thought is that some spanner monkey may have put it back on, and offset the wheel by a few splines???!???

Alternatively, is your car Cat D? ;)

[seveer unaek]

Yaris are well known for the wheel not being 'dead-on' when wheels are straight. Local garage was bemused but tracking is now dead-on balls accurate.

[moonstone mart]

The 'tracking' may well be spot on perfect as it should be. But when they have set the geometry they may not have 'centred and locked' the steering wheel in a perfect level position before adjusting the rack ends.

I do alot of alignment at work and sometimes it takes a couple of goes to get the steering wheel perfect but wont let the car go without it being right.

Mart.

[Corolla_liftback]

thanks for all your feedback!

especially yours moonstone mart, as you have said that it is possible to get the alignment perfect. im going to take the car into a different toyota garage near me as i dont have a good relationship with them as my local garage as they hate doing anything under warrenty for me. I will have a full service and the tracking done again and hope they can get it spot on because it does my head in not having it perfect! im sure im going to have a very light wallet this time next week....

[moonstone mart]

No probs - but i dont think you will get any dealership to do an alignment check/adjust under warranty (if that is what you are expecting)

The only time we do a free alignment check/adjust is if on a PDI, if we are repairing any crash damage or have removed subframe/suspension during a job.

As i said above, it should be pretty straight forward for someone who isnt blind to centre a steering wheel and adjust alignment correctly ;)

Hope it gets sorted.

Mart.

[Corolla_liftback]

lol nope im not that cheeky i dont expect them to do wheel alignment if its my fault, but when i bought the car the steering alignment was out, so i took the car streight back and asked them to do my tracking which they was very arragent about doing. He did the "4 wheel alignment" and the wheel was still at 5 past when going streight, i then took it back and had them redo it and then the wheel was at 5 to. I also had a noise comeing from the engine bay which the mechanic told me was nothing to worry about, so i left it a month and it got worse, so i took the car back and he still after hearing the noise said it was normal. I got a second oppinion and found out that the water pump was causeing the noise and had

it replaced under warrenty. The garage just seems to hate replaceing anything on warrenty and the after sales service has been very poor, and the main mechanic has an attitude problem. I have now started going to the slightly further away RRG garage where the staff and service are good, and have this week arranged for the "geometry" to be done on the car, so hopefully this should sort things out (fingers crossed)....