Steering wheel not level after new front tires

I replaced both front Goodyear Eagles with un directional cheaper ones last week. Now the car still tracks straight, but the steering wheel is about 5deg off level...

What's going on here!

Marty (UK) 1999 Boxster 2.5 manual

Changing tires has no effect on either alignment or steering wheel.

I guess you realize that from the question.

Only possible answer: someone touched something

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

Quote
grant
Changing tires has no effect on either alignment or steering wheel.

I guess you realize that from the question.

Only possible answer: someone touched something

Maybe the ghost of Jim Morrison was hiding in the frunk.

[m.youtube.com]

That's interesting, Bill. Maybe it's just some kind of wonky tire thing.

I've had alignments done where the wheel ended up being slightly off center. The car tracked straight and true. I ended up carefully adjusting the tie rod ends myself, to get it where I wanted it. Some (most?) people wouldn't even notice the off centre wheel, or if they did, they wouldn't care. I'm not sure who is better off. Maybe them.

It's strange how the car was aligned with the regular tires/wheels on it, but when it has the snows on, the steering wheel is maybe 5º off. All else feels fine, and doesn't change even with rotating the fronts with the rears on either set. (All 185-60-14s. Funny, a friend asked me why I don't have the Boxster's tires rotated to save tread life. He, a Subie and Honda wagon owner wasn't aware of staggered wheel sets.)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2016 08:12PM by Laz. (view changes)

If you have a tire or tires on the car where a belt has shifted and they (the now non-planar tires) are causing a tracking issue, ***AND*** someone, rather than diagnose and fix it, adjusted the alignment (toe) to cancel the pull, ***AND*** you drive it and felt it was OK overall without knowing, THEN, and then only, could proper new tires cause a pull to show up.

But it would still mean ti was out of alignment.

One last thing to remember - one can have proper alignment and put the steering wheel on crooked. One can also have proper toe/camber/caster but have the rack offset when the work is done, put the wheel on straight, and it will be off. While this may sound cosmetic, it means you are not running with the rack centered and at minimum will have different turns to left and right lock.

That's a lot of IFs

Grant

Grant

gee-lenahan-at-gee-mail-dot-com

Quote
marty
I replaced both front Goodyear Eagles with un directional cheaper ones last week. Now the car still tracks straight, but the steering wheel is about 5deg off level...

What's going on here!

Like Grant offered, someone touched something.

I have to disagree with your claim the car still tracks straight. The car isn't tracking right if now you have to keep the wheel turned in one direction or another.

My advice would be to check tire pressures, all 4 tires. Be sure the two new front tires are the right size and are the same tires, same tread type, hardness, wear rating, speed rating, etc. Be sure too if the tires are uni-directional they are mounted the right way.

If you find all is ok in the inflation and tire department then I think a visit to an alignment shop is called for. It is important you pick a shop that knows these cars inside and out. You want a good alignment but you also want the tech to be able to spot/note any deviation from what is the norm when aligning these cars.

Alignment preconditions: Be sure the car is empty of junk (dead weight). Be sure the spare and tool kit are stowed correctly, Fill up the fuel tank. Let the alignment shop tech know why you are there. Ask him if he can see any signs of adjustment. Bolts/adjustment hexes will have signs of having a wrench applied. Check for any signs of curb impact under the car. If the tech finds he has ato use a lot of adjustment to get the alignment into spec that can be a sign something is bent/damaged.

If you want before you visit the alignment shop take the car out to a place where you have the room and do a slow speed u-turn first in one direction then the other. As the turn completes release the steering wheel and let it find its center. Note the center. Use masking tape to mark the top of the steering wheel. Repeat this u-turn in each direction several times.

If the steering wheel doesn't come back ot the same place each time this can be a sign of a steering rack problem or possibly something else wrong with the steering. I don't really think the rack is bad but you can eliminate this -- pretty much -- with this test.

It's not clear from the original post whether the driver has to hold the steering wheel askew, to keep the car going straight, or if the car tracks straight, with his hands off the wheel (and that the steering wheel, left alone, is askew). From his post, I inferred it is the latter.

Thanks for the replies.

It's not inconceivable that the tire fitter tweaked a track rod end, but I was in a glass fronted office while he worked so he'd have to be a crafty fox... Pressures are spot on.

Just to clarify things, the car runs dead straight with hands off the wheel. It does not pull to either side. However where the wheel was level before, it now has approx 5 to 10 degrees of turn. I set the wheel level ages back, by screwing the track rod ends alternately and re checking with the laser tool. I have a home made reliable laser tracking tool for the fronts, so when I get chance I can check it myself. The old tires had worn perfectly with no scrubbing.

I swopped the wheels from L to R and it's still exactly the same - 5 to 10 degrees off, in the same direction.

When I Googled the problem quite a few other people have had happen it too. One guy had taken his wheels to the shop in his truck, so no one could have messed about.

The Eagles had a V pattern and the new ones have radial grooves. Perhaps less or more sensitive frictional drag against the road surface?

Marty (UK) 1999 Boxster 2.5 manual

That's a weird one, for sure.

If the car were pulling to one side, I'd suspect the concept known as 'radial pull'. (you can Google it). But with the car tracking straight when your hands are off the steering wheel, and the s. wheel tilted in the same direction after having swapped the wheels side to side, I'm baffled.

Like Grant, I'm inclined to think it's something mechanical. As you pointed out, the steering wheel can be centered by moving the two tie rod ends an equal amount, without changing the alignment. But it's hard to imagine the tire guy would have done that (generally, the rod nuts are pretty gummed up/seized, and take a fair bit of effort to free them).

If I were you, I'd be inclined to centre the steering wheel in the manner you've indicated, and carry on.

Make sure, of course, there's nothing stuck on the back of the wheel or the hub that may be messing with things.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/2016 02:37PM by Roger987. (view changes)

Any idea how many splines on the steering column, to work out the angle per spline?

There are a lot of splines - very thin, and spaced closely together (on the 987). I've been able to centre the s. wheel in that manner. Disconnect the battery, wait a while, remove the airbag, then the bolt holding the steering wheel, and Bob's your uncle.

A caveat - airbags are explosive.

Thanks for all the sugestions, here is what I discovered when I got the spanners out:

Tracking was still spot on. Moving the steering wheel one spline took it too far the other way - arrgh! I adjusted each trackrod end by one turn in opp. directions and things are nice and level again.

I'd made the mistake of re connecting the battery with the air-bag out, so I had the warning light on. My local indy dealer turned it off FOC, as I'd recently had a new key transponder from him.