My right pull is driving me crazy.

I had my 05 Outback XT aligned at a Subaru dealer last month because the vehicle was pulling to the right. In fact, the steering wheel would turn right when I stepped hard on the brake before this alignment. The dealer aligned the wheels to the following settings:

Front Left Right

Toe 0.00 0.00

Camber 0.7 0.6

Caster 5.4 5.3

(the front sub-frame needed to be shifted to equal out the caster)

SAI 11.2 12.4

Rear

Toe -0.01 0.00

Camber 0.00 -0.1

Thrust Angle -0.01

This alignment improved the feel of the suspension (i.e. less squirrelly and just about eliminated the brake steering); however the pull never completely went away. Well a month later and the right pull seems as strong as it was before the alignment. The steering wheel still slightly turns right when I brake-especially on roads that crown to the right. The car feels like it wants to steers to the right at any speed and on the freeway the car pulls harder to the right if I take my foot off of the accelerate. Bumps in the road can also steer the car. This weekend I rotated my Falken ZE-512 tires to see if these new tires were the cause of the pull and they are not. Does anybody have any ideas as to what is causing the right pull? The car has 7200 miles on it to date, so could it be wheels bearings, dragging brakes, soft-worn out bushings, struts, bent suspension-sub-frame-unibody, which effects the king pin angle, etc.? Does the camber in the front wheels need to counter the road crown (i.e. the left wheel with positive camber and the right wheel with negative)? I have read that MFR’s like to dial in negative camber for better straight-line stability and better cornering-the Outbacks have positive camber due to their raised suspension (legacy’s have negative). Does Subaru dial in positive camber to counter the down force at highway speeds or to create under steer? Note; that the car pulls to the right on roads that are flat and that have a slight left crown.

They shifted the sub-frame for you? Under warranty? My left/right castor is off by .5, 6.9 and 6.4, same degree difference before and after I lowered it. Hmmmm.

When I first got my Liberty MY01, I found that when I was taking right hand turns around round-abouts, the back end would step out everytime and was extremly annoying. I took the Liberty to Subaru who said there was NOTHING wrong with the setup at all. Later that same day I took it to Bridgestone to get their advice. It was found that the fronts were pointing to the right and the rears to the left so effectively, the Liberty was actually dragging itself down the road, which would have caused massive tyre wear if I didnt pick this up.

 

I took my results back to Subaru. I was told that "I must have changed something" considering I know where the key goes to start it, where the fuel goes and how to pressure tyres...... HOW THE IKE could I have changed it especailly with the Liberty no more than a few weeks old.

 

The morale of this story, take it to a local tyre dealership that you trust, get them to check the camber and wheel alignment. With the results, take them to your dealership if they are in the wrong and also say that u have posted these results directly to SA in a complaint letter.

 

Let us know how you go because I would dare say U are not the first to experience this and wont be the last.

All the best.

Ada///M.

The dealer did not shift the sub-frame under warrenty, I paid the dealer $100.00 for a 4 wheel alignment. And before I had the dealer align my car I handed the Service manager the alignment specs for my 05 OBXT and an alignment readout from Big O tires that I had done a month earlier. Big O's readout said that the SAI between the left and right wheels had a 12 degee spread, which indicated something was bent. Big O's readout also said that there was a 1 degree cross caster between my front wheels, so I instructed the dealer to align the car only if they can correct the caster to eliminate the pull or the replace parts until the pull is corrected. Well shifting the sub-frame did improve the car's straight line stability but it did not eliminate the pulling problem.

I installed Whiteline steering rack bushings in my wife's 03 WRX and that car had great straight line stability compared to a friends 04 WRX I drove with the same setup. Could my pull be a result of very soft OEM steering rack bushings? According to an old post, the owner of a 05 LGT installed Whiteline's K5R205 (Steering rack bushings for a 05 WRX STI) in his car. Does anybody know if Whiteline's steering rack bushings will fix my pulling issue?

Could be a broken belt in the front and/or rear right tire.

 

However, since you rotated them and it still pulls, it's unlikely.

 

Check the tires for 'wrinkles' and cracks along the sidewalls, regardless.

 

Hopefully it's something simple and inexpensive. Good luck.

it still sounds to me like the caster on the right is way behind the left wheel.

My initial thought was a bad tire pull, but you've rotated the tires and that generally rules that out. Did you rotate straight front to back? Try cross rotating the fronts (left to right). If that changes the pull, its at least one bad tire. The alignment numbers look fairly good, you generally need a difference of .5 degrees or more difference in either camber or caster to produce a significant pull. Personally, I think the Falkens are junk, but that is only my opinion.

 

If the pull occurs ONLY under braking, you have a brake problem, a sticky caliper, a badly glazed rotor, a kinked or crimped hose, etc.

 

If you can, find a shop that has a Hunter tire machine that measures road force. It's a balancing machine that also pushes down on the tire and measures belt pressure. It's awesome for sniffing out bad belts and other internal tire issues that you can feel but not see or measure any other way.

My Falken ZE-512's have directional tread pattern so I had to rotatate them from front to back. The front tires can not be swapped. That Hunter tire balancer would be a neat thing to try but I do not think the pull is attributed to defective tire belts because the OEM Bridgestone RE92As also pulled to the right. Note; I bought the Falken's because they were the best all season tires available in a 225-55-17 size. Unfortunately, the 05 OBXT says to repace the tires with the same make and model as the OEM tires so I hope SOA will not use it against me when I start to fight them on this pulling issue.

This morning I checked my ride hieght from the center line of the wheel to the underside of the wheel fender flare: front left 17" front right 17" rear left 17" and rear right 17" or all were 29 1/2" from the level garage floor to the underside of the fender flare. The Subaru manual says that the correct measurement for a 05 Outback is 17.3" (+0.47" or -0.94") for the front wheels and 17.2" (+0.47" or -0.94") for the rear wheels. Now here is the mind twister, I also checked my wife's 05 2.5i Outback's ride hieght and her both of her rights were at 17 1/2" and both of her lefts were at 17 1/8" and her car, which has 12K miles on it has never pulled-it travels down the road in a nice straight line. Any thoughts about tweaking the ride hieghts to counter a pull.

This weekend when I drove the car in a rainstorm, the pulling seemed to go away. In fact the car felt like it was on a track--this is the way the steering should feel. Could it be 1) that the brakes were wet and not dragging? 2) The rubber bushings were saturated with water and their moisture content was higher than normal, which made the rubber stiffer-harder? Or 3) the great amount of water on the road reduced the tire grip to minimize the pull?

Based on the caster and SAI numbers, the car should pull to the left, not to the right. Strange.

 

Don't rule out the tires quite yet. Take a look at this link:

http://www.gsp9700.com/pub/features/StraightTrak.cfm

FWIW, there is also a lot of discussion at the Dodge/Chrysler forums about a persistent pull to the right in the Magnum. Chrysler has issued some TSBs about this problem, but it has not totally stopped the complaints.

The dealer did not shift the sub-frame under warrenty

 

Interesting. Very interesting. Out of curiosity, which dealer are you using? Do you have any more details on how they adjusted the subframe?

 

Ken

The sub-frame supports the front control arm bushings and is bolted to the undercarriage with at least 4 machine bolts. The rear liquid filled control arm bushings are mounted directly to the unibody carriage. Remove the plastic shroud to expose the sub-frame and loosen all of the sub-frames chassis mounting bolts as well as the rear control arm bushing mounting bolts. Push-rotate the right side of the sub-frame up towards the front of the vehicle then re-torque all of the mounting bolts. This will yield about 0.5 degrees of caster, which is a lot cheaper then adjustable strut hays.

Thanks! And yes, much cheaper indeed.

 

I take it the "push-rotate right side up towards front" depends on which way your cross caster goes.

 

Ken

All of my Subarus have pulled to the right. My 1992, 1994, 2002 LLB, 2002 WRX, 2005 LLB, 2005 GT Wagon and 2005 GT Sedan. ALL pulled to the right. I have never understood it.

 

I've found that rotating the tire from the front right to the rear right has helped solve it. If it is bad and under warranty, head to the dealer to make them align and balance.

i did the alignament on monday then my car stopped pulling for 2 days and today it started again, same things your does.

I was pleasantly suprised and how straight my car tracks. No pull left or right... can't notice eithe direction... HOPE IT STAYS THIS WAY....

 

How many miles do you have? Are you rotating regularly every 5000 or so...???

My car has a 1 degree difference in castor from left to right. The car pulls to the right, so the right wheel is ahead of the left (least positive castor), which makes sense because the alignment numbers show that the left wheel is tilted back farther than the right (more positive castor).

 

The car came like this from the factory. I am 100% sure I have never hit anything.

 

Which subframe has to be given the old scientific shove?

 

My idea, please feedback:

 

Since there is a top and bottom point that the hubs attach to, I am thinking the bottom sub frame needs to be shoved to the front of the car.

 

What do you think?

I will look under the car tonight at the front sub-frame and write back when I get all the specifics. The rear sub-frame is easy to see as well as tweak, whereas the front sub-frame is hidden by the plastic under shield, which will need to be removed. According to the dealers alignment machine, my car had a cross caster of 1.0 degree (i.e. the right wheel caster was 1.0 degree less then the left wheel's caster) before they dealer shifted the front sub-frame, which yielded a cross caster of 0.1 degree. I think the machine that installs the front sub-frame at the assembly plant is independent of the machine that performs the alignments. Also I have read that owners report that their cars track straight for a week after an alignment then start to pull again. This may be a function of very soft sub-frame bushings or semi-loose sub-frame bolts.

Interesting.. I wonder how much slop is in the subfame attachment hardware. For ex: 5mm hole in subframe and 3.5mm bolt or something like that.

 

I was looking at the rear bushings for the lower A arms and I noticed that if the bushings are not oriented the correct way there is a potential for a difference in resistence to force.

 

The bushings have a hollow area around the inner attach point. The outer attach point is connected to the inner by rubber fingers. If the orientation of the fingers is off maybe that could cause a difference. Anyway, not sure if that is clear or not. The service manual talks about this as well from what I recall.

I've heard that cars in the US are kind of meant to do that so if you fall asleep you go into the ditch. I think it has more to do with the fact that all roads crest in the center and gravity pulls you to the outside.

I've heard that cars in the US are kind of meant to do that so if you fall asleep you go into the ditch. I think it has more to do with the fact that all roads crest in the center and gravity pulls you to the outside.

False. A properly aligned car will track straight on a level surface, in any country.

yea... like i said, I think it has more to do with the fact that roads crest (whether you believe it or not) in the center.

 

HOWEVER, I got an alignment after my teins were put in and the right pull isn't nearly as bad, although it does pull a little bit. I don't think you can completely elimate this... it has more to do with the roads.