steering still pulling left

[superba]

Hi,

Based on your narration I'd call that leading to the left as opposed to
pulling;  however, that does not speak to the problem.  "Greg Galinsky"
<nokian at msn.com>, in a previous post mentioned that Pirrelli's are, maybe
can be, directional.  On a nice smooth asphalt parking lot let the car roll
straight ahead, with you in it, of course, and see what happens.  Maybe your
left front Pirelli has a mind of its own or maybe it's supposed to be
reversed to comply with its directional designation.  If you were to remove
the tires and wheels one at a time and slowly try to roll them straight
ahead with your hands, you may find some amazing results.  At least one of
the tires will track "squirrelly";  that is to say, it will make a track of
sine waves when viewed from above.

Incidentally, I hope that the "small puncture fixed" was done with a radial
patch inside instead of a plug applied from the outside, which is what the
average tire repairman does because it's easy.  Punching the hole in often
separates the plies and makes for noisy operation as in "wop, wop, wop" and
can cause erratic rolling.

I've danced around the problem because they are usually unique and hard to
identify and fix.  However, I strongly recommend against further shots in
the dark until the problem has really been identified.

HTH.

Jim Jordan

>  Message: 6
>  From: "Stacy Anable" <masterwizard7 at hotmail.com>
>  To: quattro at audifans.com
>  Subject: steering still pulling left
>  Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2001 06:17:39 +0000
>
>  ok, heres the story, i took my car in to have a small puncture fixed and
>  have my tires rotated, ever since the car has pulled to the left, when i
>  took it back to sears, and complained they made this big speil about it
>  probably being a "radial pull" caused by having the tires rotated. so i
>  thought, maybe it was a radial pull, so i have them re-rotate
>  the tires,(i
>  had them rotate front to back, and the tires are Pirrelli HPs).
>  i get back
>  in and go for a short drive, pulls still there. so i go straight back and
>  tell them, then they tell me that yesterday my left front "tie rod" was
>  loose, and that one of the techs tightned it...well thanks for telling me
>  now, so they say, oh you probably need an alignment, so i say,
>  what the hell
>  (been 4 years since the last one anyway) so i get it aligned, it was
>  slightly out of spec on every wheel, so now i go away thinking
>  (deep sigh of
>  relief), this problem is history, WRONG. get back out of the
>  highway...and
>  let go of the wheel, car tries to take out the nearest on coming
>  semi (just
>  kidding) but it still pulls slightly to the left. i have checked all the
>  cold tire pressures, they are all dead even at 32psi cold (as in not
>  operated for 4+ hours at 40 degrees.) i am at wits end as to
>  what could be
>  causeing this, its not a BIG pull, but a slight pull, and
>  sometimes seems to
>  go away, but i suspect this is just because of the tilt of some of the
>  streets.
>
>  TIA
>
>  stacy
>
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