My car pulls to the left... I think it started (but not positive) when I ran over a big pothole that dented my rim about 2 months ago. When that happened I got one new tire, it was in the rear passenger side. This weekend I got my tires rotated (the newish tire went to the front passenger side) and now my car pulls even harder to the left. I went in for an alignment last night and they said everything looks pretty normal. They suggested it could be a tire that is making it pull.

I am lowered with RRM springs and 235 tires.

Any ideas?

 

If the other three tires are worn down, then, yes, the slightly-larger fourth tire could be the cause. FYI: some places with shave a tire for you (for a fee) if you're adding one new tire to an AWD.

 

I remember reading about this in the past. I will look into this too.

Does anyone think it could be part of the suspension? Or strictly a tire issue?

 

I know a lot of us have an issue with the car pulling to the left. If the steering wheel is straight the car goes to the left and I've had this issue since I got the car. It's been aligned and everything but still does it. Search around I remember a thread about this.

 

Yeah, a minor pull is fine, but my car will really pull pretty good now. It wasn't like this a few months ago.

Maybe I should rotate my tires back to where they were and see if that is better.

 

Move the new tire from the front-right to back-left. That will be the most diagnostic.

 

That's because your tires shop has no clue what the numbers on the alignment machine screen mean in all likely hood.

But, you should always replace tires in pairs man, especially on a driven axle (both axles in awd cars). How many miles were on the other 3 tires when you replaced the 4th?

 

I had a pulling left issue when I purchased my 'previously enjoyed' RA. 4-wheel alignment sorted things out, as all 4 corners were out of spec.

 

its got to be an alignment issue, check the tire air pressure too, i had a shop put too much air in one tire and that caused it to pull in one direction too

 

Question: does it only pull when you're in the left lane, vs being in the right lane?

The road surface isn't actually flat - it's angled so that water will run off the surface.

I notice that when I'm in the right lane, my car drives straight. When I'm in the left lane, I feel it being pulled to the left (the direction the road slants).

 

Just haven't had time to fool with this....

I will check all of those though... and figure out the mileage on each tire.
The 3 maybe have 5-8 k miles on them, not positive though.
I'll check the air pressure tonight.

Yeah, my "tire shop", Discount Tire, suuucks... They've already scratched my rims in the past. Too bad I have lifetime rotation & warranty there, and lifetime alignment elsewhere. I need to get a custom alignment with my lowered suspension for it to be perfect. Then I could take those numbers to my regular alignment shop for future work.

And it doesn't depend on where I'm at in the road, it pulls as if I'm gonna change lanes to the left.

 

My front tires were extremely worn on the outside edges and the car pulled to the left pretty bad until I replaced them.

Had the alignment done and the guys there said that they could not adjust the camber beyond the factory setting. They installed camber adjusting bolts and problem solved. Now my tires are wearing much more even.

Seems that a lot of shops that do alignment aren't very good at it or have people working that really know what they are doing.

I had to pay a little more and wait 2 weeks to get my car in the alignment shop I went to but it was nice to have the guys that work there put me under the car and explain in detail how it's done and how changes in toe, camber and caster affect how the car drives. They also asked me how I drive the car and how aggressively I wanted the alignment settings.

 

I thought I had the same issue. I got the car aligned and it still did the same thing....slight pull left. I started paying more attention to the road surface. Most of the surfaces I drive on happen to be the left lane....go figure. Whenever I get on a flat/even surface it is straight as an arrow.

 

i wish my alignment shops were like this, i like watching when ppl do work to my car. i rather do work myself but whenever i need someone else to do it i like to learn and keep an eye out.

 

Did some back tracking...
I had 5k miles on the 3 when I put the new on in the passenger rear.
I had 3k miles on the new one (8k on the others) when I rotated all the tires.

It didn't pull that much (just the typical pull that everyone seems to get) when the new tire was on the rear. It pulls like crazy when the new-ish tire is in the front.

I have not had a chance to move the new-ish tire back to the rear to see if that helps. Nor have I had a chance to go to a custom alignment shop for some custom numbers.

It sounds like I need to shave the tire and get a custom alignment, and order some camber bolts. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't my suspension causing this problem.