Yesterday, I picked up a 2010 TC with 16 miles on it. Driving home on the freeway, it seemed like there was a little shaking/wobbling going on, but the road was pretty messed up. Today, i paid a lot of attention to it. No shaking/wobbling, but I noticed that when the road goes left, it takes very minimal effort to turn and when the road goes right, i have to turn the wheel and hold it with some force.

I tested to see if the car pulls. What i found was that letting go of the wheel, the car would go straight for a little while, then would slowly pull. But here's the weird thing, on some roads to the left and on others to the right.

The thing that sucks is the dealer i got it at is really far away, and my life is really hectic right now. I just picked up the car cause i thought I could go to any dealer for service and its supposed to be reliable. So now i don't know if I should go back to the dealer or not. I have no time. So thought i throw this up here, see if you guys have seen this before and maybe save me that trip. Also wonder if I could take it to the dealer near me.

 

All cars will eventually pull on the road. And depending on the tire, the more it pulls you. Everything your saying is normal, there is nothing wrong with your car.

 

perhaps an alignment?

 

thats normal, its brand new and seeing the road for the first time, i usually wait three months and have toyota do an alignment, they usually do it for free since its new and they recommend it being done after 3 months

 

That's funny, my car does the same thing but it's an 06. Mine is easy to the right, hard to the left. I did notice that my steering wheel doesn't exactly sit completely straight and lined up straight when I let go of it, and it has a tendency to sit turned just barely to the right. Not sure if that has anything to do with it. I had a 4 wheel alignment done in July and it didn't help it any. I also bought some Conti DWS's in July too at the same time, but it was doing it before I bought the tires too.

 

well you guys are telling me what i'd like to hear

any reference to where they recommend it done after 3 months? thx

 

steering wheel being off center is one thought i did have (which is different than alignment). i had that happen in another brand new car once, and when i came to fix it in a few months, the dealer said it was an "adjustment" and would have been free if i had come in sooner, but i waited too long.

 

It could also just be the roads since many roads are crowned to drain water.

You don't have to take it to the dealer where you purchased it, you can take it to any dealer.

 

thx for the replies, i called a toyota dealership by the house, they said they would look at it if i brought it by monday morning. said they are all booked tomorrow (kinda surprised considering toyota's rep for reliability). meanwhile i found a thread on another board with someone with a similar problem who got 2 alignments and it didn't help and then finally solved it by getting TRD springs.
a couple other people in that thread said they experience something similar. just fyi: http://clubsciontc.com/forums/scion-...problem-21971/

 

That could explain my easy to the right, hard to the left turning. But his goes the other way where it'd be easily turned against the crown.

 

Sounds normal to me. On my commute the highway is crowned so in the left or center lane my car pulls left (eventually) and I just got an alignment.

 

the puling to left or right is usually roads. its hard to do a test on older roads. its hard to see which way the road pulls too. but the harder to turn one direction than the other seems odd. maybe it is normal but i have never experienced this with any vehicle so its not normal to me. hopefully if something is wrong the dealer will take care of it. the post you made about someone getting lowering springs and fixing it seems odd too.

 

Maybe a blown shock man

 

what you need to do is measure the front tie rods, measure the threads that are showing from the locknut to where the threads end. Both should measure the same amount of thread showing. What happens is the alignment can be "perfect" (with the wheels straight) but the tie-rods are different lengths. If the factory didn't put the steering wheel on straight at the factory, then to make the steering wheel straight, the tie rods have to be different lengths to compensate. With that uneven length, then the steering will be faster in one direction (the longer tie-rod length side).

The tie rods should measure the same amount, and then once they're even and aligned, then watch the steering wheel be off-center. That's simple to fix, remove steering wheel move it over one or two teeth on the shaft, re-tighten nut on steering wheel, problem solved! (yes air bag has to be removed to do this, if tech knows what they're doing it's easy)

so check the tie-rods, and before people think that the factory doesn't mess up, think again. A lot of the new camry's when they came out, steering wheels were not put on straight from the factory. yes it does happen.

 

i'm not technical in nature. i just got the car because i needed to save $ and not worry about this stuff. can i just tell the dealer straighten the wheel and then align the car?

 

no because they won't understand, you need to tell them to make sure the tie-rod ends the same length, and let them show you that the threads showing are the same lengths.. when they put it on the alignment rack ask them to show you that the toe is reading 0.0 on both left front and right front.

if you tell them to straighten the steering wheel, they will and you'll still have your driving problem. the problem is on the tie-rod lengths not being even. that's what steers the car. that should be checked before going any further, if they are uneven, then the steering wheel is off center when it was mounted (put on the car).

 

thank you sciontc mich! very appreciative

 

dropped it off just now. the shop foreman test drove it and saw the wheel was off center and how it would sometimes pull right and sometimes pull left.

I tried to talk to him about the tie rods and the toe alignment several times, but he just said that adjusting tie rods is part of adjusting the steering wheel and the toe is part of alignment. the service adviser said the same thing, but in less technical way.

is that right? or am I missing something?

 

exactly you are missing more info, i mean they are.

it's exactly what i said they'd say. See if you have a steering wheel that isn't put on straight in the first place, the way you compensate for that is you make one tie rod longer and one shorter. For this place to say that it's normal to adjust the tie-rods to get the steering wheel straight, is the dumbest thing ever. That's a poor fix.

Let's say you do an alignment with a correctly installed steering wheel. When you do the alignment you first center the steering wheel and then do the alignment (tie rods even) and get the correct adjustments like 0.0" of toe for example for both front tires. When done the steering wheel will always be centered.

it's obvious that these people dont understand a car and are taking the cheap way out. If you're going to stay at this dealer, tell them to align the car but make the tie rods the same lengths (the thread showing from the inner to outer tie rod junction) and the wheels aligned to 0.0 toe up front. Then watch, your steering wheel would be off-center, that proves that the steering wheel isn't put on the hub evenly. All it would take is to remove the airbag from the wheel, and move the steering wheel over to be even/straight on the hub. tighten the nut back down, put the air bag back on... Then you would have a straight steering wheel, and the pressure to steer left or right would be the same amount. (or the feeling of the same responsiveness from steering left or right)

 

i was in the car for about 10 minutes, and i mentioned to him several times "make sure the tie rod ends are even, and toe is 0." I don't know how else to make them do something. He started explaining some stuff to me about how the steering works after i repeated myself the third time. the service advisor was worse, he just relies on the workers to do it.

btw, at least they noticed ther's an issue. i've owned $40K cars where they wouldn't do anything saying stuff is "normal" or they don't notice it.

but i'm open to suggestions about what to do in a practical sense. They also asked me "why" i think that the tierods are not equal length and i said I've heard that's common on cameries.