Just wanted to make a post and share my story about an alignment/steering issue I've had with my car for a while. For as long as I could remember, I had an issue (along with many other people) where the car wouldn't drive straight. I see a lot of RA owners complaining that the wheel usually has to be turned for the car to drive straight. I also had this problem.

The stock tires were wearing very quickly and the insides of the fronts were bald at 15k miles. Alignment issue, right? Brought my car to get aligned at a Mavis or wherever (yes I know, rookie mistake). Problem with the insides wearing quickly went away, but still had the problem with the car not driving straight. About 5k miles later, I replaced my stock tires with some new ones. Same size, 215s.

I've had these tires for about 8k miles and they are awesome. But about 4k miles ago, I had them rotated by a friend mechanic and he pointed out that my front driver's side wheel was VERY choppy on the outside and wearing very unevenly. The other 3 corners looked fine. We rotated them and he said to keep an eye on the same corner and see if the newly rotated tire becomes choppy after a few thousand miles. It did. My friend said this might be a strut issue or something. Bring it to the dealer.

Brought my car to the dealer today and he said it's an alignment issue. Ok. So I go to their recommended alignment guy (who really knew what he was talking about). He throws my car on the machine, and we found a bunch of problems with the alignment (see attached sheet). He said that this was probably something wrong with how they built the car at the factory, as our Lancers aren't able to adjust some things for alignment. I was also have camber issues on the rear.

You can see this all in the printout I uploaded.

Now I know that many of you are also having the same issue with the car not driving straight. I dont know if your tires are wearing as rapidly as mine are, but I just wanted to let everyone know that they should get their car checked out if they are having similar issues to mine. I know I don't want to be getting new tires every 10k miles. I'll have to pay the guy about $300 dollars for him to add parts to my car to make the caster, camber adjustable so this can get fixed.

Moral of the story: if something is wrong when you get a new car, bring it back to the dealer immediately. If I understand correctly, I could have gotten this fixed by the dealer for free if I brought the car back before it hit 10k miles (and this problem has been going on for a while).

Thanks for reading.

 

Positive Camber/Toe on the driver's wheel seems to be the reason for the "choppy" tire. Every time you make a left turn it's getting chewed up, let alone just cruising.
On the flip side the right rear looks spot on

 

The problem is that I was quoted $300 from the alignment guy because he said he needs to add something for caster to be adjusted. Same with rear he said he needs to add something to be able to adjust the camber. I wish it wasn't so damn expensive.

 

While they are in there, consider adding a set of front camber-adjusting bolts... probably another $100 or so, but well worth the cost. You can then get some negative camber on the front... just 1 to 1.5 degrees, but that'll be better than trying to chase pure factory setup.

Rich

 

Most factory cars come with toe-in as it creates more stability.

Stolen from google.

Front Toe-Out
Just Right
Reduced understeer at turn-in Improved steering response Counteracts natural tendency for front- and all-wheel-drive cars to toe-in under throttle load

Too Much
Instability during braking Straight-line instability, especially over single-wheel bumps or split-traction surfaces Unrecoverable understeer

Front Toe-In
Just Right
Generally helps make the car feel more stable

Too Much
Wandering under braking Refusal to turn in or rapid turn-in followed by understeer

Rear Toe-Out
Just Right
Easy midturn rotation. Less front tire load

Too Much
Violent on-throttle oversteer on RWD cars. Can help drift cars
Violent lift-throttle or trail-braking rotation

Rear Toe-In
Just Right
Easily controlled power oversteer in rear-wheel-drive cars

Too Much
Sluggish response. Midcorner understeer Instability at turn-in

 

For the record, Mitsubishi factory adjustment warranty in the U.S. is 12 months, 12 thousand miles. If you were within those parameters, it would have been a warranty claim.

 

Yep. I read this but I was at 20k when I found out. Sucks for me.

 

I also had pull to the left from the factory. I moved out of state so i could not take it to the dealer i purchased it from, and did not like the dealers in my area after talking to them on the phone. I nded up going to a trusted shop for alignments. They asked my weight, type of driving, etc and factored it into the setup. Since im still stock and it's my DD i had them just put it to factory specs. My tires were also moved around as they were worn on one side do to the factory alignment way out of spec.

 

^ How much did they charge you to fix everything? Did they have to add adjusters to the front or rear to get everything straight?

 

$179. no extra parts, just adjusting stock components, and tire rotation. car had about 5k on it.

 

Need some help here: Can someone tell me what is causing the pull to the left when the steering wheel is straight?