chenxingha

I rotated the tires on my daughter's 2000 RX300 this weekend (rear wheels moved to the front and the front ones moved to the back). On a short drive to the local gas station to fill the tank, I noticed that the steering wheel is slightly tilted to the passenger side (with my hand off the steering wheel the vehicle would drive towards right side).

Is this because of uneven ware of the tires now on the front, or something else just happened?

I drove the vehicle before the tire rotation on the same stretch of road and did not observe the problem.

farquad

your alignment is most likely off

salimshah

try un-rotating them and you will know for sure.

Salim

AlexusAnja

Is the front passenger tire now very worn out, in relation to the other tires? Perhaps the tire pressure is off too. This might cause the lean to the right. I would say if the pressure is correct, and tread are about even on both fronts, then you're alignment was off and you just did not notice until now.

code58

Chen- I did alignment in the course of my work. The 1st. thing I would recommend is to make sure that the pressure is what the factory recommends. The 2nd. thing I would recommend is to change the front tires L to R and R to L. If it is a radial pull it will likely pull to the opposite side. In doing alignments when I finished the alignment I always took the car for a ride to make sure the steering wheel was straight and no pull. If there was a pull, I knew it had to be a radial pull and I simply moved the tires around until I got rid of the pull (which I always did). Though radial pull is not near the problem that it once was, it still exists and since the advent of radial tires (a good thing) there are all kinds of strange problems that never existed with bias ply tires (a bad thing).

Lexmex

I wonder if one of the steering rack bolts is loose. I had such an issue that cause my RX to every so often make some obnoxious pulling on the wheel and my uncle and I tackled it when we did the transmission issue last year.

chenxingha

The front tires (all 4 are stock Goodyear) seem to be in even ware at about 45%. All 4 tires are inflated to 37 PSI (checked every three weeks). As I have been the one filling the tank at the same station every three weeks, I did not notice the steering pull until after the tire rotation.

I will first swap the two front wheels this week and see what happens. As suggested, an alighnment check is in order if the swap doesn't change the pull.

Many thanks to all of you who provide insights.

lexus114

37psi? that`s a little high isn`t it?