Weird Steering/tracking Issue? Help!

[Rishi Handa]

Hi

I had the cars 4-wheel alignment and camber done around 6 months ago after i had 4 x new tyres fitted, you could tell from the old tyres the camber was out.

OK so everything was fine until yesterday when one of the tyres needed changing due to a puncture. the puncture was on the passenger side rear of the car, so i needed a new tyre. rather than buying a new tyre i managed to get a part-worn tyre and had this fitted. now bearing in mind the car is rear-wheel drive i moved the front two tyres to the rear and then the new tyre to the front passenger side and the other old driver side rear to the front - i did this so the back two tyres had the same mm tread to avoid causing any problems with the differential.

Right, now i have a problem that when im driving the steering is off, so i have to turn the wheel off to the left to get the car to drive straight!

All tyres are directional and they are installed correctly with arrow pointing in correct direction, I'm thinking it can't be the tracking as it was fine when the tyres were on the front before?

Has anyone got any ideas of what it could be or what i should check?

Thanks

[Mossyn]

Hi

I had the cars 4-wheel alignment and camber done around 6 months ago after i had 4 x new tyres fitted, you could tell from the old tyres the camber was out.

OK so everything was fine until yesterday when one of the tyres needed changing due to a puncture. the puncture was on the passenger side rear of the car, so i needed a new tyre. rather than buying a new tyre i managed to get a part-worn tyre and had this fitted. now bearing in mind the car is rear-wheel drive i moved the front two tyres to the rear and then the new tyre to the front passenger side and the other old driver side rear to the front - i did this so the back two tyres had the same mm tread to avoid causing any problems with the differential.

Right, now i have a problem that when im driving the steering is off, so i have to turn the wheel off to the left to get the car to drive straight!

All tyres are directional and they are installed correctly with arrow pointing in correct direction, I'm thinking it can't be the tracking as it was fine when the tyres were on the front before?

Has anyone got any ideas of what it could be or what i should check?

Thanks

Where did you get your tracking done?

[Rishi Handa]

It was done by a local garage, I watched them do it - they did a proper job, used 4 wheel alignment equipment connected to a PC. I watched how they adjusted it until it was within tolerances and even got a print out... hence why I'm not thinking its the alignment...?

Hi

I had the cars 4-wheel alignment and camber done around 6 months ago after i had 4 x new tyres fitted, you could tell from the old tyres the camber was out.

OK so everything was fine until yesterday when one of the tyres needed changing due to a puncture. the puncture was on the passenger side rear of the car, so i needed a new tyre. rather than buying a new tyre i managed to get a part-worn tyre and had this fitted. now bearing in mind the car is rear-wheel drive i moved the front two tyres to the rear and then the new tyre to the front passenger side and the other old driver side rear to the front - i did this so the back two tyres had the same mm tread to avoid causing any problems with the differential.

Right, now i have a problem that when im driving the steering is off, so i have to turn the wheel off to the left to get the car to drive straight!

All tyres are directional and they are installed correctly with arrow pointing in correct direction, I'm thinking it can't be the tracking as it was fine when the tyres were on the front before?

Has anyone got any ideas of what it could be or what i should check?

Thanks

Where did you get your tracking done?

[sprinter2012]

You need to speak to Tony Bones at a company called Wheels in Motion, its been well documented that the stock Lexus geometry setting are crap. And he developed a new set of figures to adjust the geometry to.

The steering not centring itself when you let go is a common sign that it does not have the new geometry, mine did the same until I had it done.

EDIT: The WIM geometry settings will also fix the problem of the inside edge wearing too quickly.