New Tires, 4 Wheel Alignment P5 Pulls to Right

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Nic-P5

Member
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2002 Protege 5 & 2010 3 iTouring
I just put on a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 and had a 4 wheel alignment and my 2002 P5 pulls to the right. Took it back to the tire dealer, alignment is to factory spec so they switched the front tires took it for a test drive and still pulls to the right. They told me that this is being caused by the torque (torque steering) of the engine on the drive shaft to the right tire. My question is has anyone else had this issue and if so what did you do to resolve it or is this normal?
 
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Is it pulling all the time or just when you give it gas?
 
o0n8 said:
Is it pulling all the time or just when you give it gas?
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On local roads at a steady 40 +/- MPH it drifts slowly to the right, on the interstate at 65 there is more direct pull. I did try this in the left lane on the interstate and it went straight with just a very slight drift to the right after 1/4 mile +/-. My obvious concern is to not ruin brand new tires with this pulling. I have not tried this while accelerating only at a steady speed.
 
Nic-P5 said:
On local roads at a steady 40 +/- MPH it drifts slowly to the right, on the interstate at 65 there is more direct pull. I did try this in the left lane on the interstate and it went straight with just a very slight drift to the right after 1/4 mile +/-. My obvious concern is to not ruin brand new tires with this pulling. I have not tried this while accelerating only at a steady speed.
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You're alignment is off and the shop sucks. Torque steer only happens when you are accelerating.
 
be aware - the crown of the road will pull you naturally to the right...

can you post up the alignment sheet from the shop?
 
honestly i agree with the person above i would take it to another shop for a second opinion i had this happen with me recently as well the crown of the road will naturally pull you to the right try to find a 3 lane (in one direction) road and get in the middle lane and try it there. if it still pulls then honestly it would appear you may have a worn out suspension component on the right side check your ball joints swaybar links and all other suspension components for wear and bends.
 
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kms1990...thanks for the suggestions will try the 3 lane road test in the near future. I am pretty confident with the shop that did the alignment as I also just put Michelin Premier A/S tires on my 2010 Mazda 3 and they aligned all 4 wheels and it goes down the road with no drift in either direction. The shop only has one tech who does the alignments and I have been dealing with them for a number of years w/o any issues. Will definitely look for any worn out components as it has 185k miles. thanks again.
 
Nic-P5 said:
I just put on a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 and had a 4 wheel alignment and my 2002 P5 pulls to the right. Took it back to the tire dealer, alignment is to factory spec so they switched the front tires took it for a test drive and still pulls to the right. They told me that this is being caused by the torque (torque steering) of the engine on the drive shaft to the right tire. My question is has anyone else had this issue and if so what did you do to resolve it or is this normal?
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First of all, you must test for pull on a completely flat road, coasting. The P5 will drift strongly downhill on a crowned road. Normally that is to the right, but if you drive on the wrong side of such a road it will pull just as hard to the left. You want to do it coasting to eliminate any chance of torque steering.

Secondly a messed up front tire can cause this. My P5 had a problem with the right rear alignment that eventually required a "crash bolt" to correct. Before doing that, if a tire ran for a while back there it would be damaged in some way (uneven wear?), when it was rotated to the front it would cause the car to pull like crazy. You said they "switched the front tires". Do you mean put new ones on? The odds of getting a bad one twice on the same side are not very high. Anyway, if you think you might still have a bad tire, what you want to do is swap the left and right front tires. Yes, that runs them "the wrong way" if they are directional. That is OK for a brief test. If after doing that the car pulls the other way on a flat surface then it is a tire. If it pulls the same way, then it is not a tire. (Don't forget to put them back in the right positions!)

Thirdly, it isn't just tires that can make a car pull. If you have a dragging brake on that side, even just a little bit, it will cause the car to turn in that direction.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions...will try them this weekend. For the front tire switch they just swapped the R to the L and vice versa; they are not directional tires. Are you able to look at the alignment PDF above and determine if this alignment is really within factory spec?
 
PDF checks out fine. The only thing they really changed is your thrust angle by 0.05. Total front toe also decreased a little bit which lessens straight tracking ability a little, but its such a small change I doubt that is what it is. The thing is, LESS frontal toe in itself will cause the car to be more susceptible to pulling. However this pulling does not accelerate tire wear. A car with the front toe set to zero will experience longer tread life than a car with any front toe at all. This is because the wheels are rolling perfectly straight, and not dragging themselfes across the pavement. But when you have less toe-in, the car will not resist as much of the steering input constantly caused by road features. It may be annoying, but your tires will be fine.
 
Jackie chan said:
PDF checks out fine. The only thing they really changed is your thrust angle by 0.05. Total front toe also decreased a little bit which lessens straight tracking ability a little, but its such a small change I doubt that is what it is. The thing is, LESS frontal toe in itself will cause the car to be more susceptible to pulling. However this pulling does not accelerate tire wear. A car with the front toe set to zero will experience longer tread life than a car with any front toe at all. This is because the wheels are rolling perfectly straight, and not dragging themselfes across the pavement. But when you have less toe-in, the car will not resist as much of the steering input constantly caused by road features. It may be annoying, but your tires will be fine.
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thats basically what i said but less technical, its funny my alignment specs from my most recent one were almost identical to the OP's but i do not notice a ton of road crown pull
 
I assume it didn't pull to the right before the new tires were installed.
Perhaps it did but you became accustom to it.
The new tires would have magnified it.
How did the old tires wear?
Did the tire shop express concern over how they wore?
My allignment story:
I got fed up with our local Mazda dealer so travelled 1 1/2 hours to the next closest dealer.
Had my P5 serviced and was informed it was pulling to the right and needed an allignment.
I took it to my local alignment shop and was informed the guy couldn't have made it any truer, the alignment was "perfect".
I contacted the dealer and asked for compensation for my "alignment" bill.
He laughed and I hung-up and never returned despite their customer satisfaction phone inquiry some weeks later.
If it tecs out okay at the shop, don't worry about it.
Enjoy your new, expensive tires.
-Tom
 
well new cap seems to be working, its holding coolant and the cap is heating up when the car is at operating temp like it should will post here again if it acts up again
 
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