I've just picked up my 99MY from SGT in Taplow (good service by the way) but on the way up home to Aberdeen the car had a slight tendency to pull left.

This has continued driving in town, and although is made worse on the camber, it still happens to a lesser extent on the opposite camber also.

Seems like castor settings, but has anyone any thoughts before I put it in for its 1000m service and have to suffer the "it's your tyre pressures, mate" from the dealer ?

Russ

I had this problem with my MY98, take it back to the dealer and ask them to perform a Geometry reset / four wheel alignment for you (free of charge!). When I picked my car up they had not performed this properly and were only too willing to put it right.

Read my topic at 21-1-99.
Since now I have the same problem without cure.I am dissapointed any way from the whole matter and I am thinking to change the car.

I new have an MY98 5-door which suffers aweful 'bump-steer' especially on roads which have tyre-groves created by years of heavy lorries and crappy British road building standards. At the 1000 mile service I asked Bell and Colvill to check the geometry as it also banged and crashed over larger bumps. The ingorant response I was given was "All Impreza Turbos do that". They hadn't (couldn't be bothered) to check even the front toe settings which I had checked independantly to be 2 degrees out !

My previous '96 turbo with 16" Speedlines didn't exhibit these traits.

Will a dealer really do a full geometry check for nothing ? The service book lists this as a cost option to the 1000-mile service.

I had a Rover 220 which had terrible bump-steer. I must say that's one of the nicest things about my 97MY (on 205/55R15's) is the total lack of any steering corruption be it torque, bump or tramlining.

If your tracking has been out, perhaps the front tyres have been patterned. Try swapping them to the back, you'll be surprised at the difference.

Stick with it.
Cheers,Rob.

I'll give that a try - thanks Rob.
(shame the dealers aren't as helpful!)

Interesting to see other people have the same problem as me - a pull to the left. At my 1,000 service they did an alignment test (thingy) which cost me. I had bumped some curbs so thought I'd knocked it out. However it still does it. Especially when coming to a halt it pulls quite hard. It's not all the time just when it feels like it. My next service is now due - is there anything I can say to my garage? I get the normal 'camber of the road' thrown at me.

Posted somewhere else before, but....

Take the car along to big flat level area (eg supermarket car park), and see if it pulls left at any speed, just under braking etc.

If it doesn't then everything is probably OK.

If it does, then something somewhere needs adjustment. Some of the following might help:

1. Try the above tests in reverse. See if the same thing happens.

2. Try rotating wheels (remember to check pressures carefully as they are different front & rear).

3. Check the ride heights are the same on both sides on a flat level surface.

These shouldn't take long to do and eliminate the obvious. If no joy, then try step 4, at a place with accurate, modern equipment.

4. Get a full alignment check done, including camber, and adjusted to the correct settings if necessary. Posts on the Impreza mailing lists have indicated that quite often the cars are outside the specified limits.

Thanks for all your replies - I had my 1000 mile service and the car was test driven and sent back with nothing having been done.

The reply was "All cars do that" - surprising the common thread here !

I had to resort to driving to a nearby car park and going up and down the same lane - needless to say the car pulled left and the car has now finally been sorted (camber and castor within spec but not equal each side - seems the Impreza is very sensitive to this, especially with Potenza tyres by some accounts)

I have minor sympathy for the dealer (Andersons in Aberdeen) as I didn't get the car from them, but it does annoy me when an obvious problem is ignored and us punters fobbed off with rubbish - most turbo buyers get the car because they like driving and are fairly knowledgable about them, something the dealers seem to forget to their own discredit..

Russell,
Did Anderson Cars charge you for the wheel alignment checking, and if so, how much??

My car was pulling a bit to the left the other day.
Turns out there was a bloody big nail through the front left tyre, and the pressure was going down really slowly!
All better now though.
http://bbs.sidc.co.uk/smile.gif

Car picked up, fixed and delivered back free of charge.

They're certainly ok from that perspective. I gather it's about £50 to have it done out of warranty, but most tyre shops have the laser checking system or something similar where all 4 wheels are measured for camber and toe. This was £58 on my Lotus but not in Aberdeen.

Russ