I have put in about 14,996 miles on the car, and it seem that I am leaning right. I have got my car aligned and it is within the specified range, so I don't think its an issue of alignment problem. Firestone suggested that I may have radial slide, caused by uneven wear on my tires. I don't even drag or anything, so is it possible for uneven threading be the cause of my car leaning to the right when my steering is dead center? how long does mazda 3 warranty last for? and I need possible diagnosis on this problem.
Problem with my car
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are you saying that when they did the last alignment, they found everything was already straight and they made no adjustments?
I think technically that is having your car alignment "checked" not "aligned"
jp
If it was out of alignment, the tires may have already worn unevenly...so good alignment isn't going to solve the issue.
Try rotating the rear tires to the front and see if anything changes. Your car should be within warranty, but things like uneven tire wear are not going to be covered unless the oem tires were defective.
I think technically that is having your car alignment "checked" not "aligned"
jpIf it was out of alignment, the tires may have already worn unevenly...so good alignment isn't going to solve the issue.
Try rotating the rear tires to the front and see if anything changes. Your car should be within warranty, but things like uneven tire wear are not going to be covered unless the oem tires were defective.
yea it was checked and the back tires was a little bit facing outward something about if you continue driving it tends to do that and have to be adjusted every 6000 miles to prevent that from happening. the thing is, I had this problem ever since I purchase the car, and I always thought it was the alignment problem so I got the lifetime alignment early on when I purchase the car and have since use their service 3 times over the 15000ish I've driven the car, so I had some doubt about it being uneven wear problem. I am just wondering what else can cause it...can it be suspension issue?
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still not sure what you mean by "leaning".
is the car physically leaning or just not going straight when you let go of the wheel?
if something is broken or bent, i would think an alignment shop would detect that but maybe not.
is the car physically leaning or just not going straight when you let go of the wheel?
if something is broken or bent, i would think an alignment shop would detect that but maybe not.
sounds like your car is suffering a very hard to detect drift problem. a drift problem is when you hold the steering wheel straight but your car drifts to the left or right. the cause of a drift problem is a tire conicity. heres a little more detail into the problem.
A tire with an off-center belt will lead to one side because the location of the belt shifts more weight to one side of the tread than the other. This condition is known as a "conicity" problem, and occurs because the tire behaves as it if were cone-shaped. A cone always rolls in a circular path towards the pointed end. A conicity pull will therefore always be directional (either to the left or right), and can be reversed by switching the front tires from side to side, or by mounting the offending tire backwards on the rim.
Conicity problems can also arise when the beads are not in the same plane. The resulting difference in sidewall height and loading will create the same unbalanced steering forces that make the tire want to roll towards the shorter side.
Conicity problems are usually most noticeable on the front wheels, but may affect tracking and induce some rear axle steer on vehicles with independent rear suspensions. Vehicles with less caster also seem to be more sensitive to conicity probably because high caster angles have a stabilizing effect on the steering.
There are other things to look at also. Make sure your brakes are not dragging, check the height of each tire. if one is smaller then the other you will have a pull or drift problem. Check the tread depth of your front tires. make sure they are close to equal. Check air pressure.
Hope that helps.
A tire with an off-center belt will lead to one side because the location of the belt shifts more weight to one side of the tread than the other. This condition is known as a "conicity" problem, and occurs because the tire behaves as it if were cone-shaped. A cone always rolls in a circular path towards the pointed end. A conicity pull will therefore always be directional (either to the left or right), and can be reversed by switching the front tires from side to side, or by mounting the offending tire backwards on the rim.
Conicity problems can also arise when the beads are not in the same plane. The resulting difference in sidewall height and loading will create the same unbalanced steering forces that make the tire want to roll towards the shorter side.
Conicity problems are usually most noticeable on the front wheels, but may affect tracking and induce some rear axle steer on vehicles with independent rear suspensions. Vehicles with less caster also seem to be more sensitive to conicity probably because high caster angles have a stabilizing effect on the steering.
There are other things to look at also. Make sure your brakes are not dragging, check the height of each tire. if one is smaller then the other you will have a pull or drift problem. Check the tread depth of your front tires. make sure they are close to equal. Check air pressure.
Hope that helps.
from experience, I had this on my old Altima (and to a slight extent our quest).
here is several points from dealers and shops.
1) its the tires. rotate tires and it should help (some times it actually did)
2) on Nissans, the power is delivered via the passenger front tire so that is why it pulls to that side (I thought this was the biggest BS answer I've ever heard)
3) a nissan tech told me that its common, and what he did was install a shim on the control arm or somewhere. He said he used to work at a performance shop and all sorts of cars had this issue. So he installed it with me there and it actually worked very very well.
here is several points from dealers and shops.
1) its the tires. rotate tires and it should help (some times it actually did)
2) on Nissans, the power is delivered via the passenger front tire so that is why it pulls to that side (I thought this was the biggest BS answer I've ever heard)
3) a nissan tech told me that its common, and what he did was install a shim on the control arm or somewhere. He said he used to work at a performance shop and all sorts of cars had this issue. So he installed it with me there and it actually worked very very well.
well, EVER since i bout my 3, it always went to the right(drifted moderately). after my accident, it WENT to the right all of the time. the only thing wrong, was that the toe(on the passenger front) was out of spec. when they fixed that, the steering was SPOT ON.
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