Hi all,

I have a 2017 IS300 F Sport. So a while ago i hit a massive pothole and had to get my front right tire replaced. Ever since then, my car has been pulling to the right ALOT. I got it balanced and aligned by a tire shop but that didn't work. Now, I've brought it to Lexus 3 different times and they keep doing alignments but it is not working and the car is still pulling. I've told them multiple times that i don't think alignment is the issue yet they continue to do them. I asked them to check if anything was bent down below and they said nothing was bent. Any ideas what could be happening? I'm tired of going to Lexus at this point just for them to do another alignment.

Hopefully i can get some similar experiences here and bring those in to Lexus and have them check that out.

 

Do you have a printout of your most recent alignment? This could show if there is something wrong that needs a part replacement to correct the alignment finally.
Without knowing what the current alignment specs are it would just be a guessing game as to what's wrong.

 

Take your car to a good mechanic. Lexus will charge you 1 hr of labor for just looking at your car. I found a former lexus master tech near where I live and I take my car to him. It's cheaper and the work is amazing as it's his reputation on the line.

When my infotament system died the dealerships wanted an hour of labor just for the techs to unhook the battery, wait a few minutes and see what happens. I told them I already did that but they said sorry this is the first thing we have to do. I just took my car back and haven't been to a dealership since.

 

I had the same issue with alignment a few years ago my car was pulling right. Lexus did alignment twice same thing and went to independent shop they fixed it right away. Wasted my money and time.

 

Could it be an electric power steering issue? Just throwing that out there, I have heard of some GS/IS models having issues with EPAS.

 

His car is still under warranty. Regardless, at this point, it might be worth it to take it elsewhere to see
if a good independent mechanic can figure it out. Posting the alignment specs first may clue in the folks
with knowledge as to what the issue is.

 

I can literally write a book on alignment, in fact I have if you cruise over to the BMW forums.

Lots of issues can be at play here. First off, ensure you address the obvious ones.

Alignment--just cause it's green, doesn't mean it's good. Alignments are almost an artisan's art. But usually, most techs get it right. That's stage 1.

Second, you have to make sure your rollie pollies are good. your wheels and tires. straight and inflated properly? no uneven wear? Cool.

Third.. the road. when your car pulls to the right, are you on a crown? Most roads are crowned. So all perfect cars, brand new, with perfect alignments, will pull left if you drive in the fast lane, requiring right correction. Due to crown, weight of the car pulling down, etc.

Fourth. Dynamic stuff. Cars behave differently under load than when static on a rack. Your weight must be taken into account when the "mechanic" jams his spanners up into your car's under belly cinching the fasteners down. So if he doesn't do this with YOU in the car, then you GET IN the car and drive, the car is loaded differently than it was when it was set.

So first post your alignment sheet and lets have a look. you could be all in the green but you can have (by coincidence) the rear biased towards the left and the front biased towards the right. This would make your car pull and you could still technically be in the green. The tech needs to be really savvy about this.

I also used to align cars for a little while back in the day using $200,000 racks. have also done them in the garage using just my eyes and other caveman methods. Both are good if you know how things tick.

And at end of the day you can't eliminate all pulling. The real world is imperfect, dynamic. There always be driver input needed. You can get as close as possible though.

 

I have the same issue with mine and yes, right after hitting a pothole. Went for an alignment and this road force balancing that this particular shop is offering. They found out that one of my tire has this runout issue.

So went to replace the tire and also the mechanic mentioned he did reset the electric steering (mentioned to him that the car pulls to the right in the first place)

Mine does not exactly pulls to the right or left .... it's when I put the steering wheel straight, that's when the car pulls to the right.

Result - car drives straight and i never have to keep adjusting the wheel..... but whenever I set the steering wheel straight(my definition of straight), car starts going the curb.

Seems the shop that I went to is so confident when they told me it wasn't my alignment but it was the tire runout. I'll probably have to go back to them and have them re-check the alignment. I know that a very slight adjustment can make a difference in driving.

... I'm also very curious how to resolve this.

 

I have nothing of value to add, but wanted to mention that my car also veers to the right at highway speeds while my steering wheel is "straight". The car will follow the lane for a second and then start drifting to the right.