Morrissey

I'm sure a lot of you have already either heard about this problem or experienced it yourself. I'm not sure if a thread is already dedicated to this. If there is, my bad...

I went to Kuni Lexus in Littleton last week to get this checked out. They told me that the front toe setting and the left rear toe setting was off and that they fixed it. Surprisingly, it took 3 hours to service. Not sure if they were busy or not, but I always assumed a 4-wheel alignment would take less than that.

The service they did didn't fix the issue. If I'm driving down a straight path, my car ever so slightly veers to the right. The faster I go, the the sooner my car veers to the right. I don't notice it that much when my hands are on the wheel, but if I let go briefly to see where the car goes, 90% of the time it goes to the right. When the road isn't even or there are cracks in the road, I sometimes lean to the left.

I don't know if it's the stock 18" OEM tires that come with the IS350 or if it's the alignment that's causing this to occur. If anyone has any insight on this I'd appreciate it.

IS_250

iTrader: (2)

I have always thought that since our roads have a slight angle that any car would pull right slightly. Maybe thats just me. My father works for as a drafter for a highway construction engineer and told me that all public roads have a slight grade for dranage purposes. Try driving on the other side of the road and see if it happens?

jlin101

yes, it's hard to find a road that is perfectly leveled as most roads slant to one side to facilitate water drainage. Cars with wide, low-profile tires are more prone to follow the groove in the road. I've also noticed the car pulls to one side slightly, but not consistently.

Rockville

to see if the typical road crown effect is not making it drift to the right. Does it pull when braking? Is the steering wheel straight? At least you don't have any drive train influence in the steering. Tires would probably be the next thing to check by doing a left / right swap. Did the condition change or improve after the alignment?

Rock

Bichon

The tendency to follow grooves in the road is called "tramlining". Wider tires are more likely to tramline, but there are other factors, e.g, alignment, looseness in the tie rods, certain tire tread designs that tend to excaserbate it.

Fortunately my IS350 is neither pulling to one side nor tramlining, either with the OEM Dunlop SportMaxx tires (which I had on for a week), or with the Pirelli SnowSport 240s that I've had on ever since.

Morrissey

One thing I noticed is the steering wheel isn't completely straight. It's ever so slightly tilted to the right.

I think I'm being paranoid about it. I used to drive a 350Z and it had a major alignment issue that caused bad tire feathering after 10K miles. It was the main reason I traded the car in for my IS350 (that and the fact that the Lexus is a far superior car). I just don't want the same thing happening to my new IS

mofogasm

i had the same problem took it to the dealer they did an alignment but the car was still pulling to the right. finally the dealer slapped on some new tires for me and it fixed the problem.

shaolin

iTrader: (2)

if you hold your wheels dead center and the car still pulls to the right it means you need alignment for sure.

check out the tires.. go to the dealer and tell them to flip the front tires.. if your car pulls to the left means you need to get some new tires.

Morrissey

Were you able to tell them what kind of tires to put on or did they just slap on the same kind of tires?

shaolin

iTrader: (2)

they should put the same tires on. they want to try to solve the problem for the first time..

mofogasm

they slapped on a pair of the same type of tire but if you make a big enough fuss about it i am sure you can get some extra goodies. I got some oil changes and all weather floor mats for my troubles.

jlin101

also make sure the tire pressures are correct--when I picked up my new MDX it pulled badly to one side; turned out one tire was severely underinflated.

Zephyr

iTrader: (1)

Wow I thought I was the only one with this problem. Off to dealer I go! Maybe it's one of those 'new' car bugs?

Morrissey

Let me know what they do. I got a letter from the service dept yesterday checking up on me to make sure everything was OK. I'm going to call them back and inform them I'm still experiencing the problem.

shaolin

iTrader: (2)

good luck to you.

i hope i don't get any of this crap