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Technical The dreaded steering pulling to the left!

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Technical The dreaded steering pulling to the left!

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Tara80

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Hi all, im a new panda owner :) I've just bought a secondhand panda 2014 with 58,000 miles. When test driving it I noticed a slight pull to the left but nothing I haven't had with cars before. On my second drive I noticed it pulling more when on the motorway, and its got worse. The dealer suggested I had the steering aligned which I did today (results attached). after alignment I found it to still pull left :( I phoned and im going back for another check tomorrow. I'm a bit worried there is an underlying problem causing the pull and would like to identify it as I've a 3 month warranty. Has anyone any experience with what might cause this, there was a slight bump to the front left but very minor.
Thanks
Tara
 

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Hi Tara - welcome to the forum.

Oh dear. This isn't normal. When you say it "pulls to the left", under what circumstances? When accelerating? When braking? When cruising? Or some/all of the above?

If, at a steady speed, the little beast won't drive in a straight line, and you've checked the obvious things (tyre pressures, tracking, etc) that points to some other problem with the steering geometry. You say it's had a "slight bump" to the front left. Do you know how slight the bump was? A knock to the suspension/steering could easily have put the geometry out of kilter (although you'd expect that to be picked up by a thorough check of the tracking).

Edit: just seen HH's comment. I agree that non-matching tyres (different type, uneven wear) can cause a car to pull to one side, but if it's very pronounced on yours, you may need to look elsewhere for the cause.
 
Last edited:
gar074 said:
Hi Tara - welcome to the forum.

Oh dear. This isn't normal. When you say it "pulls to the left", under what circumstances? When accelerating? When braking? When cruising? Or some/all of the above?

If, at a steady speed, the little beast won't drive in a straight line, and you've checked the obvious things (tyre pressures, tracking, etc) that points to some other problem with the steering geometry. You say it's had a "slight bump" to the front left. Do you know how slight the bump was? A knock to the suspension/steering could easily have put the geometry out of kilter (although you'd expect that to be picked up by a thorough check of the tracking).

Edit: just seen HH's comment. I agree that non-matching tyres (different type, uneven wear) can cause a car to pull to one side, but if it's very pronounced on yours, you may need to look elsewhere for the cause.
Click to expand...
The data print out shows that everything they measured was pretty well 'on spec', so from that it doesn't look like its been bent. Tara's comment that its got worse suggests tyre pressures to me... just a couple of PSI difference from one side to the other can have a pronounced effect (and a soft back tyre can lead to steering pulling too)
 
Thanks for the replies guys :)
The two front tyres are different makes, and were fitted at different times from what I can tell from service history. I thought if that had been a problem it would have been mentioned at the place I had alignment done but its hard to know how thorough they are, I'm back for a check again tomorrow so I'll mention this.
It pretty much pulls left all the time , I have to hold the steering wheel in place to stop it going left, not too firmly though. It drives straight when driven on the opposite side of the road ( right side) where the road cambers down right a bit.
Someone had also mentioned the steering column sensor and lower arm bushes to check out.
I'll be phoning the dealer Monday with my findings!!
 
Tara80 said:
Thanks for the replies guys :)
The two front tyres are different makes, and were fitted at different times from what I can tell from service history. I thought if that had been a problem it would have been mentioned at the place I had alignment done...
Click to expand...
A fairly quick test is to swap the left and front wheels over. Then, if it pulls to the right, shows the tyres are the cause :)
 
Thanks for that HH, I'm going to modern tyres this morning so I'll ask to have that done ?
 
Any alignment shop should have pointed out the different front tyres - and before doing any work on the car...
 
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