kris130

I have recently had the rear suspension replaced on my 03 sti under the warranty . (Factory fault on the parts.)
The garage has swapped the front tyres with the back and i had noticed that the outer edge of the front nearside was worn unevenly before they changed them to the rear.
The service manager stated that the original tracking was some way off before they reset it but now should be alright.
However when i steer in a straight line the car goes to the right and when i leave loose of the steering wheel the car drifts to the left.
Could the fact that ive got uneven tyres on the car be causing me to drift across the road so much or does it sound like the garage have cocked up with the tracking???
Im starting to get sick of my subaru!

kris130

Can anyone help?

prana

it is possible but now that your deformed tyre is on the back, with a reasslignment, it shouldnt cause as much drift as you said you are currently experiencing. Maybe take it to another shop for a second opinion ?

kris130

Thanks i was starting to get paranoid there!
Do you think it could be a problem with the car or just the tracking is off?

fastfrank

Hi,

My 03 drifts slowly to the nearside when I let go of the steering wheel. I also had the same wear on the nearside front tyre prior to changing over. I'm going to get my tracking checked because I thinks it might be off slightly.

I'm going to take it to my local motorsport garage for a 4x alignment check. Does anyone know why the Subaru mail dealer's check/adjust is so much more expensive?

F

prana

kris, there is always possibility but lets not hope for it unless you've kerbed it relatively hard or something. A suspension arm or broken steering rack, but the most obvious answer is usually the cause of stuff like this, and for your sake, I hope its just an allignment issue, especially since Subie has recently had a look at it.....

I would sleep easy, and allignments are cheap. Just gotta find a good garage for it.

richyd

I have an 04 STi and have always - since I first picked the car up from the dealer with 6 miles on the clock - noticed it drifting to the nearside, especially on the motorway at high speed. According to the dealer, who re-checked the 4x4 alignment, it is a common issue, mainly to do with 18 inch wheels (I have Prodrive PFF's with PZero Nero's) and the stiffer suspension on the STi - It seems that, even on the "flat" motorway, the car seeks out the camber and drifts - I don't like it at all, have never had it on any high-performance car, and frankly I don't buy the excuse given by my dealer - however, there is bugger-all I can do about it, so I have just learnt to live with it. Car is only 3000 miles old, so don't know about tyre wear yet....

Rich

kris130

The plot thickens!
The Subaru dealer told me that the reason the car was drifting was due to uneven tyre wear and advised me to get new tyres, so today i splashed out £240 on two new bridgeston potenzas. The car however is still wandering to the nearside . I returned the car to the dealers and they put it back on the tracking machine for free stating that the car was tracked up perfectly and was well within the tolerances.
I told the mechanic that all i wanted was for the car to go in a natural straight line.
He said that all Sti's drift naturally to the nearside and allowed me to take out a different Sti from the garage which i did to find that also drifted to the nearside.
I was then told that the problem could be sorted by towing the front tyres in slightly but this would cause excessive tyre wear on the outer edges of the two tyres.
Is it to much to expect that when you spent over 20K on a car it should go in a straight line???
Chris.

ozzy

I can't see how toeing (spelling?) can stop the car tracking to the left if they still put the same amounts of tow on both axles. If you have 1mm toe-in left/right then the car will still go in a straight line just as much as 0mm toe-in left/right.

What you need to check is the thrust angle. This takes into account toe on all 4 wheels and specifically differences in the rear left/right. I would ignore tolerances and get them to make sure it's spot-on.

You may have 1mm toe-in on one side and 0mm on the other. Something like that would cause the car to drift in one direction.

Stefan

kris130

Stefan

I watched the mechanic check that out when he had the laser fitted to the wheels it was spot on but the car still drifts.

fastfrank

kris,

I don't know if this helps u here but i went to my local motorsport center to have my tracking/alignment checked for the same reasons as yourself.

To my recollection I seem to remember my WRX03 (not STi) having a very slightly drifted to the left since day one. Its only since the new tyres have gone on that I've decided to get it checked (piece of mind).

Once on the rig they informed me the rear nearisde wheel was too much toe'd in and would require necessary adjustment to put right. This also included further adjustments to the front wheels as the rears affects the fronts when adjusted on a 4x alignment. He also added 'this should' sort my drifting issue. In all honesty I was expecting them to say the front nearside was off because hit a severe pot hole some time ago.... but it was not the case.
I did notice they had tracked my car according to the 2001-2003 spec car.... I hope this is ok?

They billed me £52 and gave me the keys to the car which I egaly took to go and see the results.

GUESS WHAT!!! Its was exactly the same!

SO.... I drove it back to the fitting centre and threw the keys back at them and told them to explain why it was no better. The workshop manager came over and asked me to take him for an accompanied drive in the car to show him the problem.
He told me to position the car at various points on the road's camber and demonstrated how when the car is dead centre across two lanes it tracks straight and on the oncoming traffic lane, it drifts to the right (only slightly). To that end he could only explain the reason for the drift as a property of 'wide large wheels' and how they react to our road surfaces. He reckons its a common complaint of the stereotypical boy racers who change their Nova steel wheels to large alloys!
He didn't seem to think the slight drift would cause any detramental effect to the cars handling in anyway. It seemed fine before anyway.

After all this, like yourself I'm no further down the road to a fix here. It seems this might be down to his reasoning or maybe he was feeding me some bull**** to blow me away.

We certainly need some more Scooby owners to come forward here and make some comments.

Hope this helps

Frank over and out.

ozzy

Roads are cambered, so they should drift slightly in the left-lane. Probably to drain water off them.

I'd take the car to a very deserted road (Industrial Estate or something) and drive on both sides of the road. The car should drift to the left in the left lane and to the right on the wrong side of the road.

If it keeps drifting to the left, then I don't think it's the camber of the road surface.

Stefan

fastfrank

Thats exactly the point I was making in my reply.