If a car "pulls" does that necessarily mean its not aligned? (Radial drift)
 

If a car "pulls" does that necessarily mean its not aligned? (Radial drift) My 85 300D was initially aligned and tracked great, true as a ruler.

It veered to the left after I rotated tires. I used the standard pattern; I rotated RP to FD and RD to FP and FD to RD and FP to RP. I had learned about Radial Drift several years ago from a great Front End man, so I swapped the front two tires, driver to pass, and vice versa.

The car still veers. Things arent that bad after I put in new coil springs in the rear. Should i take my car in for alignment?The last thing I need is to have to buy new tires!!

I would.....The tires I run are not free so I like to make sure its aligned...

However have you checked for other causes such as draging brakes , worn suspension parts ? Tire pressure can do it too.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'radial drift' but I've defintely had radial tires go bad and cause the car to pull.
I also once mixed radial and bias tires on a 68 Camaro. I'm lucky to be alive.

Interesting .

I usually find uneven tire pressues in customers car that veer .

We were always taought to NEVER swap sides with radial tires , only rotate front to back on the same sides .

I no longer rotate radial tires as the wear patterns caused on the driver tires can easily cause steering wierdness when rotated up front .

Don't forget that bad track rod busings cause caster changes and this can lead to drifting gently off to one side , the side with the bad bushing .

-Nate

I am also of the feeling that the tires should be kept on the same side of the car....
And clearly a tire doing something like coming apart internally can cause the feeling you describe...
Have you never had the car aligned ?
At least have them set the Toe In...
There are some great posts in the past about this stuff.. but the short answer is that unless you have pretty much everything new on your suspension that a toe in is about the only thing they can do for you.. ( if they are honest )....

most modern radials
 

and all michelins can be rotated any which way.

tom w

I thought that "radial drift" was what the alignment guys blamed the veering on when they couldn't fix it. So, there is such a thing?

i have not
 

heard of radial drift.

i suggest putting the tires back as they were before you rotated them.

i dont rotate my tires on my benz either. they wear pretty even so why bother?

i will rotate my wifes pt cruiser tires since it is (crap) front drive and you will experience a lot of wear differential in a front driver. they will go back to front same side. they are directional kumhos that my son in law gave me off his porsche 911. i chuckle every time i think about it.

tom w

Some basics of troubleshooting pulling, in ascending order of Cost...

1. Put the correct air pressure in each tire. See sticker under fuel door.
2. Drive on the 'other' side of the road - is the 'pull' induced by road camber?
3. Look and feel for uneven tread wear on each tire. Uneven wear may cause it to pull and may be a symptom of other problems
4. Swap Left/Right front tires. See if the pull stops, or changes direction.
5. Check for loose, bent or damaged suspension and steering components.
6. Check for proper alignment if nothing is loose or damaged

I also have some drift with my car even after an alignment (they did find it to be way out of spec on the alignment, and corrected it, they also said new rear/springs/shocks would help) anyways, it used to drift right, rotated the tires, now it does slightly to the left, even after the alignment. I am going to make sure all my air pressures in the tires are correct, but I suspect my tires in general, I drive them hard, especially in the winter.....I am pretty sure by next fall I will have to replace them anyways (they'll be too worn down to be good for winter) So I'll probably get about 35k out of them, tops. :eek: I am tempted to switch to the michelin destiny tires the 83 has, they seem to wear a lot better.....(goodyear triple treads I have wear quite quickly when driven hard)

I'll just beat the life out of mine till next fall, then I'll toss them and probably try out some michelin's. Unless they pro-rate me on new triple treads (if they don't last to the rated 80k they'll discount new ones.......) And I hiiighly doubt they'll last to 80k, I have about 40-50% tread right now.....I probably lost 5% on my trip here tonight in the horrid weather :eek:

I've had a number of radial tires start to pull to the side.

The front is affected by it a lot more than the rear, so rotating the tires back to where they were is probably a very good idea. So is changing the tire right away, if it is drifting. Belts may have shifted within the casing, and if so, they can fail at any time.