Hay Gilly and others,

Is there a way to center the stearing wheel with out changing the alighment.

MY ML's stearing wheel is off center. Is there a way to correct this without changing the alighment (aka, do it myself) like turning an stearing wheel adjustment bolt (you would think mercedes would have one).

thanks

blau

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Bule Porsche 993 Targa , 1997
Silver Merkur XR4Ti, 1987

I have a similar situtation, the truck is tracking straight but the steering wheel is off center to left. The dealer has done an alignment recently, but this did not help with the situation. The steering wheel is probably off centered a few degrees, it isn't bad, but it throws you off when you try to park the car straight.

To take the steering wheel off you have to deal with the air bag. This could be a problem if you are not careful. First thing you need to do is disconnect the battery, second thing to do is make sure the battery is disconnected and that the battery wires will not accidently make contact with the battery.

One one of my other German cars I wait 30 mins after disconnecting the battery before I mess with the air bag. Is that necessary, I really don't know but but one of my friends said you are supposed to wait that period of time so out of an abundance of caution I wait.

There are a couple of torx screws that hold the air bag to the wheel and then wires connecting the airbag to the wheel.

Do not rely soley on the information I've provide to take your steering wheel off. While it's not that hard and it doesn't take long to do if you screw something up it can be a mess and you can possible hurt yourself.

I would not think a dealer would charge more than an hour to do this so you might want to think about that.

OK guys,
Having been a GM alignment tech in the early 60's, and a NASCAR mechanic at another point in my life I think I can give you guys a simple solution to your problem. Keep an eye on me Gilly as I've never done this on a ML. On my ML 430 the steeering arms are angled behind the centerline of the front wheels. The tie-rods are attached to them on one end and the steering rack on the other. It APPEARS they are adjustable. If your steering wheel is offset to the left it means the LH tie-rod is too long and the RH tie-rod is too short even though the toe-in measurement is correct. If you shorten the LH tie-rod a 1/6th turn and lengthen the RH tie-rod 1/6th turn it should begin to center the steering wheel without changing the toe-in measurement. Take it in 1/6th turn increments until you're happy with the steering wheel postion. It shouldn't take much adjustment. It would then be prudent to take it to a good alignment shop to check your toe-in measurement hasn't been changed. Best to take it to a MD dealer. I suspect when you had your alignment done they didn't lock your steering wheel in the center postion when they adjusted your toe-in! Good luck!!

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David L

David
If everything were "perfect" yeah you could adjust it that way. Things aren't really ever perfect though. You run the risk of the toe being incorrectly set. I'd recommend doing this on an alignment rack. I don't know if anyone would just center the steering wheel for you or more or less insist on doing the whole alignment. But yeah they'd get it on the rack and center the steering wheel and then set the toe and that'll correct it. You can't do it by disconnecting the steering wheel etc because the steering wheel really just goes on the shaft one way because it indexes to the horn/airbag contact ring in the very least, and with ESP the wheel also engages into the steering angle sensor.

Gilly

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Gilly,
Thanks for the reply. When I was a GM mechanic in the middle 60's crooked steering wheels were the #1 "comeback" after you did an alignment. The customer would always ask what you did to his car because the steering wheel was crooked. This was before locking steering columns, so we had a tool to hold the steering wheel straight before we set the toe. I don't think a lot of techs today bother to pay attention to that, and that is of course very important to the customer. I set a lot of toe only for customers with crooked steeering wheels from other dealers. Of course this was in a small town in Iowa and I had a reputation to protect. You'll note I also said it was prudent to take it to a dealer to verfy the toe adjustment. On the 200 mph cars in NASCAR the toe is set with a string off the rear wheels, nothing more. Yes, leave the steering wheel alone and take it to the dealer and ask him to starighten it out, especially if they just did an alignment!

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David L