Hello Everyone. I just got an oil change and wheel alignment from Goodyear Auto at a grand total of $122.00. I just had my tie-rod ends replaced so an alignment was needed. The only question I have is after paying for a wheel alignment, shouldn't your car travel in a straight line when you let go of the steering wheel and not pull to the right like it had been before you had the alignment done? Well that's what I asked Goodyear so they had me bring it in so they could redo it. After about an hour in the waiting room, they come out and tell me that I'm going to have to live with the pull because that's the way my tires are designed. I find that to be a little hard to believe, but correct me if I'm wrong. The only thing I paid $122 bucks for (as far as I can tell) was having my BMW logo straight when I'm driving straight (while holding the steering wheel). There is also an annoying squeaky sort of noise when I hit bumps now...This just started occurring shortly after taking it to Goodyear. Any ideas? I really wish there was an independent BMW mechanic in my area!
politely ask for your money back. If they will not do so, politely ask for the regional office phone number, the name of the store manager, and hold on to your receipts. If that does not help, actually call that office and let them know that tires are not designed to pull to one side. Good luck.
Well, that depends on what kind of road you're on and how sensitive the front end is. On a crowned road (sloping toward the right), the car has a natural tendency to steer right if the alignment is 'neutral', so sometimes, the alignment compensates for this by giving it a little bias toward the left. Of course, this makes you go left on flat (non-crowned) roads. If your car goes right on right-sloping lanes, straight on flat roads, and slightly left on left-sloping lanes, then it is aligned neutral and is correct. It is just overly sensitive to the slope. If it pulls right all the time, there is something wrong. Well, that is pure bovine excrement. However, if your car is neutral (as I described), your tires could be partly to blame if they're overinflated, which makes them overly sensitive to alignment specs. Drop your front pressures 3-4 psi and see if it makes a difference. Check first to see what your inflation pressures are. One very high, one very low, or a great side-to-side variance could produce this effect, too. One other remote possibility is a bad tire. Ask them to swap one side front-to-rear and drive it. If nothing changes, do the other side and try it again. A shifted belt can make the car steer - but it is not a design of the tire; it's a defect. Bushings? Blown strut insert? Might be related; might not. Might be coincidental. Why? Very few of them do their own full alignment work. Most send it out to places like Goodyear ...
If your car was way out of alignment for a long time, and the tires wore unevenly, there's some possibility that could cause a pull. However, I'd think that kind of uneven tire wear would be easily observable on the tire (for example, tread depth on one edge/area substantially less than the other edge, or some such thing). Never heard of any street tires designed to pull any direction, though.
I think they were trying to say that the tires wore unevely, but I still think they shouldn't cause a pull like this. It isn't horrible and I guess I can live with it but I just expected it to be prefect.
If that's what they said, then they are probably right and what you think it should do is really not relevant. Tires alone can and do cause this effect. If you want it perfect, change them.
Yes, but if I don't change them is it going to cause any damage to my car? The tires are only a little more than a year old. I bought them last July and also had a wheel alignment at that time.
No; it won't hurt your car. It's just an annoyance to you. You could try swapping them front-to-rear to see if it makes any difference since front and rear tires rarely wear the same way.
I was about to get an alignment soon and was wondering is it necessary to have the car weighed down, like it says in the bently manual?
The car should be weighted as it is normally driven. If it is almost always jut you, put your weight in the driver's seat before aligning it, otherwise the tires will wear unevenly.
WTF are you talking about? I said you ARE supposed to weight it down, and I said it should be wieghed down the way you normally drive it. If it is normally just a driver, then put hte wieght of the driver in the seat. If it is driver and passenger, then weight in both seats. The weight in the seats changes the ride height which changes the alignment.
I know you said to weigh it down, but what I was wondering is why at the dealer when they do an alignment that they put weight in the trunk, front seats, and rear seats? what is the purpose for that?
It is to pack down the suspension as though you always drive it with it evenly loaded. If they aligned it with no weight in it or with only weight in the driver's seat, it would affect all of the alignment settings so that when you actually did put weight in the passenger seat, trunk, and back seat, the alignment would be off ever so slightly. However, if you never drive around with anything in your car other than you and they weigh it down like that, it is ever so slightly off in the other direction until put stuff in the car. It will never be perfect for every situation, so it is best to align it for the way you drive your car.
