Car drifts to the right

[Weslsew]

I just got an alignment done, and the car has a slight drift to the right. Not bad, but enough where I can't let go of the steering wheel for more than a second. Here are the specs it's set to:

I took it back to the shop and the guy said the specs are right on, and it may either be bad tires or he also measured the vehicle height and said the driver rear was about an inch lower than the passenger rear. The tires are brand new nt555g2.


Some background info that may help: when I bought the car, it drove perfectly straight and the front tires had no uneven wear. Only in like the last 600 miles or so, I noticed the outside of the drivers front tire started to wear, and it wore really fast down to the cords. I got new nitto nt555g2 tires put on, and inspected the cc plates until I could get in for an alignment. The cc plate for the drivers side was all the way out (positive) on camber, and all the way forward on caster. They are steeda plates. I was thinking maybe it slipped, but the bolts were so tight I had to use a breaker bar so that's not likely. I moved the drivers cc plate to be about equal with the passenger, and the car started drifting to the right. After getting the alignment, it turned out I had them almost correct, but the car still has the drift. Any ideas on what to check?

 

[Weslsew]

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[Fr500handbuilt]

Sounds like the driver side k member is tweaked forward which would push the car right. The rear they had it adjusted on the CC plate was to keep it straight. What I would do is go back to your alignment guy and see if he can measure the four corners and you might have to loosen the K member and pull one side back/push the other forward.

 

[John M]

swap the front tires side to side and drive it then you ll know if it is the tires, also why is your rear toe out of spec?

 

[Weslsew]

swap the front tires side to side and drive it then you ll know if it is the tires, also why is your rear toe out of spec?

It is a SRA, sorry forgot to mention that

 

[Weslsew]

Ok so I switched the tires and it drifts to the left, so it's definitely the tires.

Called discount tire and their suggestion was to take it to a shop and have them mount a new tire on one of the wheels to see which one eliminates the pull. They don't keep this size in stock, so I'll have to go have them order one, plus I usually take my rims off and take them to the shop, I don't want someone driving my cobra around. This sounds like a really inconvenient solution. Does anyone have any ideas on how to tell which tire is bad?

 

[Bigggy]

Everytime I did an alignment and the car pulled on one side, it was the tire. Keep in mind the bad aligment will wear the tire unevenly, so when you get the car straight it will pull.

 

[Weslsew]

Took the front rims and tires to discount tire shop on Saturday and the guy said he'd have to call to the main office and see what to do. Called back later and he said they're going to order a new tire for the passenger side. He said it's probably the one on the side that drifts that is bad. This seems in line with what I see online in that it's usually the tire on the side that pulls that is bad.

 

[John M]

ask for a road force balance, this puts weight on the wheel/tire like driving down the road and is a better indicator of finding the bad tire, you can also have them check the wheels balance with the tires off the wheels (just to see where your at with no tire) hope this helps glad it is just a tire

 

[Weslsew]

Well I got the new tire on the passenger side, and it still seems to have the drift to the right. It does seem to be slightly better though. I tried switching the tires again and the car seemed to drive better. It still will drift to either way very easily. I tried to tell myself it's just road crown, but the car never did this before. It doesn't feel right. Does anyone have any ideas? It's really frustrating. Could it be possible both tires were defective? Are the nt555g2 just extremely sensitive to road crown?