Four Wheel Alignment, Creeps to Left....

[Tommy2]

Hi Everyone, this is for a friends car. Just had a 4-wheel alignment and since then the car pulls to the left. Frankly, it was not this bad before the alignment. Anyway, we took the car back to have it checked today, everything was OK until the test drive. Still pulls to the left. When they got back, the tech said it had bad bushings but gave no other details.

Now, it may be a worn out control arm, bushings, etc but before jumping in and replacing parts what has been your experience and what is a good way to confirm if in fact bushings are bad? It started to rain so we packed it up and will try to look next week.

[JayG]

Jack up the car to take the weight off the suspension and see if you can move the joints.

[Tommy2]

Hi Everyone. A little update. So we did an inspection and all the bushings and ball joints etc. were nice and tight. To rule out tires, swapped my new set to the car with no change. We noticed that the car sits 5mm lower on the left, my Boxster is dead on both sides. I video chatted with a buddy here who is an alignment specialist during the inspection and while reviewing the print out from the alignment shop, he noticed the camber was at the far end of the adjustment limit so he had us do some real time adjustments to the left strut only (since the car will still have to go back to the shop) and we got the car to track pretty straight. At least it's drivable. Funny thing is that no matter what we did, the right side would compensate and remain 5mm higher.

So tires are good, bushings and ball joints good, no sign of any accidents (but who knows if a random curb was hit) so that points us to weak struts (not leaking), sagging springs, strut bearings, and the like. Before we just go out and spend a bunch of money and waste a lot of time, anyone have any tips on what to check? Just want to get it back to stock.

[Gilles]

Tommy, if the springs are old and kind of sagging, you may suggest to your friend a new set of H&R springs: Products | H&R Special Springs, LP.

Their OEM springs lower the car just a bit (+/-) 1/2" and they are pretty affordable too.

When my son had to replace the struts on his Jetta, we added a set of H&R's to the Koni's and the handling was amazing afterwards, without any noticeable stiffness.