Got 4 new tyres and wheel alignment done; car now pulls left

[zmk]

Hi all

I just got 4 new tyres on my MY07 Lib last week (Bridgestone RE002's 215/45/17) along with wheel alignment. After driving to work and back (local roads) I never got a chance to go onto a freeway/highway etc.

On Saturday I was driving on beeliar drive and when I let go of the steering wheel for a few seconds I noticed the car veers to the left quite badly. Same thing happened on Kwinana freeway and Roe highway, if I let go of the steering wheel for a few seconds I change lanes with the car veering off.

I'm obviously not going to drive around town without holding onto the steering wheel, so thats not the problem, I am more concerned about the fact that I could be chewing up my brand new tyres if they're misaligned. I dropped of my car at Bridgestone again and they've said that it could be 'radial drag/radial pull' on the tyres, and since they're asymmetrical they will just swap the two front tyres around and see how it goes.

Am I being taken for a ride by Bridgestone? or could that be the actual problem. Even though the tyres are asymmetrical surely they would still have a recommended 'this side goes outside' label? - see thread: http://www.bridgestone.com.au/lib/images/treads/treadRE002.jpg

Will have a chat to them when I go back to pick up my car this arvo, but figured I'd get some advice for now.

tl;dr: got new tyres/alignment and car starts veering left - bridgestone claims its 'radial pull' and not sure if they're bullshitting

cheers

[TJ]

Claim?

Did they double check their work?

[Firstround]

radial pull should be eliminated by a good tyre jockey doing a rotation.

if alignment is correct it will pull slightly left on a flat road but im talking a slow drift not feeling like your gonna run off the road

[f6rspec]

swap front tyre left to right if car pull the other way mean it a tyre pull
then go front to back
if the car still goes hard left take back to tyre shop and ask to recheck align

[joshg123]

It happens, not a unusual thing to have

Can be a number of things, rotate tyres, drive again, if still pulling, recheck alignment particularly caster.

Not to say this is the case, but in this day and age, most tyre shops will just smash wheel allignments in and out only doing toe adjustments (leaving these sorts of dilemmas) Depending on the car, it either may be adjustable. Or Shimmed. Or fixed

Previous toe adjustment could have been out, masking a caster problem, masked by old poop tyres.... Work with them for a bit, and if your still not satisfied after a recheck of allignment then perhaps take a visit to WA suspensions and they should be able to sort it.

[Steppo_GT]

+1 WA Suspensions.

[Dalspec]

I'd check tyre pressures first. If the passenger side front is lower than the right it will be at least part of the problem.

Next I'd look at caster. I normally add 0.25 to 0.5 degrees more caster on the passenger side of road cars to account for the camber of the road. Track car? I'd give you even caster and it would pull noticeably to the left if driven on the road - more so if caster has been wound right up.

Camber would be next. A difference in camber left to right presents different contact patches and the car will pull.

Got a spec sheet from the alignment?

Cheers,
G.