pulling to the right problem
 

Hi, my car is at my local tech trying to fix a problem with the car pulling right

it has been doing this since i had the suspension refreshed a month ago. When that was done we did turbo tie rods, new ball joints, new shocks front and rear and all ER rubber bushings and new spring plates with new bushings.

Since then, it pulls to the right pretty hard. You gotta counter steer to the left to keep it straight. Not fun

My tech double checked the alignment which he says is perfect including corner balance. I don't have the numbers for you but he has a rack and scales and knows what he is doing so I will take his word for it

he checked the brake calipers and they are fine

he swapped the front tires, left to right, and no change

he checked the torsion bars and they are fine

tire pressures checked, fine

ride height is low but was not lowered any more than it was prior to the refresh

anyone think a bump steer kit would correct this?

the car pulls right no matter what the road is....flat parking lot, left lane of highway still pulls right up to crown of road etc....

I dont see how a bump steer kit would correct this situation where the car always pulls right

thoughts on how to diagnose this?

and additional detail, it is slight but I noticed it feels like it takes a little more effort to steer the car to the left than the right after the suspension refresh

i cant imagine how the steering rack could suddenly develop and issue after a suspension refresh. is there any other reason why it could take more effort to steer left? I dont notice any binding or anything else unusual about the steering other than it pulls hard to the right

Check you tires. Swapping left to right is not enough. Try and find 4 different rims and tires, and see if it still pulls.

I experienced a bit of this when I bought new tires,(F150) nothing harsh more of a wandering to the right, like a low tire. A $100 alignment check didn’t find any major problems how the suspension was set, maybe a degree here but not there.
The theory is that the new tires may take time to get accustomed to the old suspension. Everything seems fine now after a few hundred miles.

Ruled out the low air tire pressure, maybe the old tires are responding to the new, tightened tie rods? Any obstructions in the smugglers box at the steering wheel shaft or worn u-joints ? The steering rack could be just worn out, and not mating well with the new T/R’s?

I’ve found suspension can be finicky, so many other worn components affects the new parts operation. i.e. replace just one side, upper/lower, left/right, etc. such things can respond differently when something up or down stream is changed out, the symptoms of the bad rack are more of steering effort and wheel returning slow to center on turns, maybe some slack issue too, but my experience on that were with hydraulics.

Can’t say if re-adjusting the TR’s to non-spec align measurements just to try and eliminate or compensate is proper approach, which probably can be done but not w/o maybe creating another issue. But the TRs is where I would triple check if a worn high mile rack isn’t the problem.

Car has 120k miles

Tires had about 2k miles on them prior to refresh. Tech inspected wear pattern and said they are even and he swapped, as in took tires off rims and swapped so it probably isn’t the tire…thought maybe a broken belt but I didn’t hit anything after leaving the shop last month so not sure how a tire could get damaged

The problem wasn’t there prior to the suspension work so I am doubting it’s suddenly the steering rack but will look into it

Ball joints?

If not the tires, maybe a binding torsion bar. I would triple check the tires. I had the same problem and it turned out to be bad tires (broken belts). What tire brand do you have? We swapped tires and rims from another 3.2 carrera that was in the shop to finally nail the problem.

Ball joints are brand new

Tires are Firestone Firehawk Indy 500

He checked torsion bars and said they were fine. First question I asked

When a guy who sets up suspension on race cars for 40 years can’t diagnose the problem….I get worried. This project has cost a damn fortune and getting worse by the day

Does your steering wheel turn right as soon as you start rolling forward?

Yes it’s immediate

It’s your tires

Even though he swapped them? How could that be ? Wouldn’t it then pull left, the opposite way?

Never mind. I see your point. Unless the tires were put on backwards when swapped (they weren’t) it would still pull right

Borrow a set of tires and wheels. I’m very confident that you will find your problem.

I don’t have anyone to borrow from so I’m gonna have to throw money at it by buying tires if he doesn’t discover some other cause

I’ll ask him if he has spares laying around but I’m sure if he did that he would have tried that by now because the car is taking up space in a small but very busy shop

I spent thousands chasing the same problem. I rebuilt my steering rack, new tie rods, new torsion bars, corner balance all new rubber suspension components, new trailing arm bushings. The list goes on.. but you get my point. In the end it was bad tires. My tires Michelin Pilot Exalto with 3k mikes on them were the culprit. Tire rack along with Michelin was amazing and replaced my tires under warranty.

My Porsche drives better than new now :))))

Good luck! Hope this helps you out.

Well to be clear and what baffles me is, the car was NOT pulling right before the suspension refresh. I didn’t do the refresh in order to chase down this issue. I did all that because I’ve been needing to since I got the car 17 years ago. It was all original stuff, even the ball joints were 41 years old.

The problem with pulling right only appeared once I picked up the car when the refresh work was done…..which makes me wonder how can it suddenly be a bad tire…..I didn’t hit anything since picking it up and I noticed the problem driving home. I know he didn’t hit anything test driving it when he completed the job….he just isn’t the type to do that and not say something….but why he didn’t notice the issue before I came to get the car is also puzzling

It’s possible you had the problem before the refresh and you just didn’t notice or it wasn’t as pronounced. Adding new damper and suspension components made the problem apparent. IMO

Yea very possible especially with the new turbo tie rods.

My ex racecar pulled really bad. I'm no alignment specialist, but have strings, poles, levels, and an angle finder. I dialed in the car and it still pulled. I thought it was due to the previous wreck. I had pretty much given up until I purchased some race scales. I was grossly off, but the cars ride height were matching side to side. I touched nothing with the alignment. I only adjusted the 4 corners to get the criss cross to match. Took it for a drive and it was straight as an arrow. You already said it was perfectly corner balanced. Just wanted to let you know what it was on my car.

Also, I even modified the alignment trying to get it to go the other way. It improved it, but not all the way. Also my fender heights do not match side to side and thats ok because it goes straight which was more bothersome before.

Why indeed. But something happened that he either should have recognized immediately when test driving and settling in the car for nominal static load, or disclosed and repaired if he did in fact cause the issue.

Cars don't magically begin pulling one way or another just sitting, otherwise the issue would be observable.

We all want to think the best of people we believe we know, but that is a risky assumption.

Did you (or the shop) fit new rubber to existing suspension parts?
Where they installed with the correct angles and same on both sides. The rubber doesn't "move" it flexes and brings additional spring rate to the suspension.

ER = Elephant Racing? I would call Elephant and get some guidance from them for possible issues.

Everything installed by the shop. I stopped by there this morning and he said all the bushings installed without any issue.

He is totally positive that the tires are fine. He also switched them (without removing tires) and it still pulls right, not left. He said is positive that there is no broken belt in the tire. No uneven wear pattern.

He also measures ride height properly - not at fender lips but at the torsion bars.

He is going to keep tweaking the alignment and corner balance until its right

It doesn't mean they did it correctly. Rubber bushings isn't race car stuff, they might not be experienced with street car stuff.

You have already have the right answer in front of you.
-It wasn't there before.
-Not the tires
-not the ride height
-not the alignment

In my opinion you have 3 possible culprits.
*Faulty parts
*Faulty measurements (alignment) by the shop
*Faulty installation

I would lean towards the last one.

Agreed. I asked him about faulty parts...he said everything looked ok but he agreed it needs to be ruled out.

I trust his measurements. However, he is going to double check and do some experimenting....glad I dont have his job because this is a PITA.

As for faulty installation....no idea. Could be and he understands that he needs to go back through everything to check.

Frustrating to try to improve safety and handling of the car only to open this can of worms.

My own feeling is that its the tires but when I told him, he shook his head and said nope...something else aint right but its not the tires.....

so since I am not a mechanic...I gotta go with what he says. Hopefully I get the car back before salt is on the road here.

Any difference in pull when accelerating vs. braking? All engine and trans mounts good?

no difference at all....car pulls right at all times. breaking doesnt make the pull more pronounced

engine and trans mounts look ok but are original

I’m putting my money on the tires being the issue.

Thats my thought too.

If he cant resolve it with the alignment tweaks or doesnt find a bad part or bad install, i will start throwing money at new stuff like tires and bump steer kit i guess

It doesnt seem like he is charging me for this diagnosis because he thinks it has something to do with the install which puts my mind at ease

Im $6,500 into this project so if we can avoid buying more stuff...i will be happy

I'm struggling to think of a bushing issue that would make it always pull to one side regardless of acceleration v. braking, that wouldn't also be apparent in static alignment.

Edit: A bump steer kit wouldn't be the fix, when that's the issue you'll feel the car pull every which way depending on road surface, it's predictably chaotic. I'd imagine the guy has other Porsches in the shop, should have a spare set of wheels and tires he could throw on there.

If the alignment is based on OEM specifications , does it make any difference that those are 930 TR, and maybe require a different spec from a standard 911 ? I don’t know spec.

I would try and find a source, member or local PCA with a hour or two to spare that has a set of 4 wheels/tires that you can swap out for a quick trial run and eliminate totally the tire issue.

Here’s a costly and labor intensive experiment: Swapping the corners or rotating the tires is not the same as reversing the mounting; same wheel, same tire, just reverse the sidewalls form inner to outer.

Try raising the right front corner a bit.

Can he provide the balance measurements? Also, as far as ride height I pretty much throw those out the window now. Well at least on cars with accident damage. Corner balance is where it's at.

I’ll try to get the numbers next week

I had Same issue as Nditiz1. Except mine pulled to the left. Corner balance fixed it. You can try changing the right front t bar adjuster to see if it makes a difference.

It’s not bushings or ball joints or steering rack or tie rods. Might be tires, but can you swap front to rear to double check?

After another month, picked up car today. Fixed. It was the rack not quite centered. Adjusted tie rods and rechecked front torsion bars and now it tracks straight.

Symptoms that narrowed it down were, saw a tire rub mark in right wheel well; seemed harder (heavier, more resistance) to turn wheel to the left; could not get steering wheel mounted straight after refresh…was off by about 2 splines. Wasn’t tires..wasn’t brakes and even installed bump steer kit which did nothing. Took 3 months at shop to do this refresh and to go back to fix issue but all is well that ends well.

Glad your car is running straight again. Thanks for letting us all know the solution.

Hey man, just saw your post. What we need to know is the exact camber and caster numbers print-out on all 4 from the alignment. He should have that or at least be able to recall that from the alignment machine's last vehicle info

I'm not buying that explanation, a slight offset of the rack don't affect the alignment.
They found something obvious they missed before and throws this out there.