Pulled right, rotated tires, pulls left

[bushbean]

After installing a new rack and the car pulled to the right, I took the car to get an alignment at a shop. After the alignment, the car still pulled to the right. Then, still puzzled, I rotated the tires. Now, the car now pulls to the left, the other side. I moved the front tires straight to the back, and moved the rear tires to the front diagonally. One of the tire is a BFGoodwich (now in front). It is old but still has plenty of tread. The other three are Arizona (Discount Tire house brand), and slightly newer than the BFGoodwich. All four tires looks good to me. The tire pressure checks out fine too; all four at exactly 28 psi.

What is going on? The tires?

[lamontlamont]

this happened with me. i got my car aligned and it pulled to the left, swap front wheels and it pulled to the right. Turned out to be a bent wheel. When they align your car, they align it with the wheels so if a wheel is bent, the alignment will be wrong. Best thing to do is borrow two wheels that you know are good then have them do a new alignment.

[MessyHonda]

i have a bent rim....but i had my uncle balance them and it worked for me...just get your tires balanced or get new rims....good excuse to get better rims.

[bushbean]

The car has steel rims, and I'm pretty sure it's not bent. I'll double check that later. Another interesting observation is that the car will pull to the side only when my foot is on the gas pedal. If I let the car coast, it tracks pretty straight.

Messy, are you saying out-of-balance wheels can cause the car to pull to the side?

[88Accord-DX]

Another interesting observation is that the car will pull to the side only when my foot is on the gas pedal. If I let the car coast, it tracks pretty straight.

That is torque steer.

Sounds like it could be the tires, are they feathered any or low tread on one side.
Also, you can take a tape measure & measure the circumference of the tires. If one is worn down farther, it can make a slight pull to one side. (vary rare, but seen it)

[frantik]

my car pulled bad to the left.. i got an alignment and same thing.. i had mismatched tired on the front and had them rotated to the back and the problem went away for the most part

but you just roated your odd tire to the front so i dunno

[mike10562004]

yeah its ur tires possibly your rims try not to get discount tires they are harder then fuck to balance took me about 5mins per tire trying to balance one costermers tires ended up being shitty still what we do is take all the tires that dont balance out to 0.00-0-(0.00-0.25) we take them to the place that sales discount tires and thats just what they are if i were you i would save up or ebay some new-modertly used michelin thats the best brand i think they last the longest or some BFG and take them to the nearest tire dealer and pay about 5usd to have them mounted per tire includes vaulve stem and balancing. that should solve ur problem U HOPE SO if not its prob in ur suspension

also may sound like a dumb question but are the tires the same size? im not sayin ur a tard jw hope that helps l8r bro
-mike

[cygnus x-1]

The pull is very likely caused by the mismatched tires in the front. Try switching the front tires left to right and see if it pulls the other direction. Different (brand) tires will have different coefficients of friction, even in the same size. That's why you aren't supposed to mix and match tires. You might be able to compensate by inflating the side it pulls to a little more or less.

C|

[2ndGenGuy]

The pull is very likely caused by the mismatched tires in the front. Try switching the front tires left to right and see if it pulls the other direction. Different (brand) tires will have different coefficients of friction, even in the same size. That's why you aren't supposed to mix and match tires. You might be able to compensate by inflating the side it pulls to a little more or less.

C|

+1

Also if one tire has more wear than the other, it will cause a pull as well. Or if there is an inconsistency between the actual size of the tire across brands.

[2oodoor]

It would not hurt too, if you check the control arm bushings. (coasting it drives pretty streight, accelerateing it pulls)
Did they do a 4 wheel alignment? mix matching the tires could throw off a 4 wheel setup.

[2drSE-i]

sounds to me like wheels are off balance. and mike....please use puncuation it is incredibly hard to read your post.

[mike10562004]

ok well ive been having the same problem, i thought it was due to the fact that i had installed a new engine and tranny. But i rotated my tires today and well it keeps dead center in the road, so try rotating them back. Thanks,
-Mike



whoever created puniaction should die!it fucking sucks!!!

[2drSE-i]

thanks for trying it though, much better!!

[bushbean]

Just to complete this thread, I swapped out the "bad" tire-wheel, and the car drives pretty straight now. The "bad" tire-wheel is one of the three Arizona tires. I swapped it with the spare Michelin tire, and after that the car tracks pretty straight. So now, I have 2 Arizonas in the back, 1 BFG in the front-left, and 1 Michelin in the front-right. I know it's gumbo, but I can't afford new tires right now.

The "bad" tire-wheel has plenty of thread left, and the rim looks, to my untrained eyes, straight. This tire is only 2 years old, and has less than 10k miles on it.

edit: The tire has 30k miles, not 10k.

[bushbean]

Below is what I've found on Tirerack dot com for size 185/70/13:

Yokohama AVID T4 -- $46
Kumho Solus KR21 -- $40
Kumho Touring A/S 795 -- $40
Yokohama AVID Touring -- $47
Dunlop SP 60 -- $50
Uniroyal Tiger Paw AWP -- $52
Yokohama Aegis LS4 -- $48

They don't seem to have Michelin. I don't know anything about tires, so which one of these should I get? I don't care about performance. I just want something that last a long time and is quiet.