sghokie

I am having a bad time with my c320. There is a slight pull to the right.
A while back I hit a pothole that was pretty big. It bent the rim slightly and damaged the tire too. I was not happy because I just put all 4 new tires on the car the day before litterally. I replaced the bad tire and the bent wheel. My car later on about 6 months later failed inspection for a loose tie rod end on the same side. I replaced both tie rod ends and took it in for an alignment.

I have taken it to three shops with no luck on the alignment. The first two were tire type places and the third was the dealer.
The dealer tells me it is tire pull which I call bull. I swapped the tires around left side to the right and front to the back, no difference at all.

The brakes are not dragging, I have had cars in the past with dragging brakes, but not this one.

My alignment numbers are as follows.

Front
-0.5 Camber -.4
9.9 Caster 9.8
.04 Toe .04
13.4 SAI 12.8
12.9 Inc Ang 12.5

Rear
-.7 Camber -1.0
.20 Toe .29


The car has 90k miles on it.

Any ideas

eesjunin

whats your location?

sghokie

Virginia, kind of near Washington DC.
I just updated my profile

phister

might want to put the wheel off and see if any parts were bent or miss aligned when you hit the pothole. Do you get any vibration or just pull?

sghokie

I have looked for bent parts. I can't see anything wrong.

I have a theory that the bushings are worn on the right side though.

Just pull, no vibrations.

VelociRaptor

Its your SAI.
SAI is the steering axis inclination, this angle is part of the included angle and really cant be adjusted. Its caused by bent parts if its off. If one side is greater than the other it will overpower and cause a pull in the weaker direction. King Pin Inclination is what this used to be called.

sghokie

Ah okay, I would not really be surprised to have bent something. It was a pretty hard hit to the pothole.

Should I replace both control arms on each side?

VelociRaptor

Which side had the bent wheel and did you hit the pot hole with both sides or just the side with the bent wheel?

sghokie

The right side hit the pothole. I already replaced out the bent wheel from the right front.

VelociRaptor

Theres something on the right side bent, could be anything from one control arm to the spindle itself. When I done alignments I would take a measuring tape and as accurately as possible measure all the suspension parts and distances to places on the frame that was the same from side to side(which some cars is hard to find lol) and visually look for stress marks in the corners of each part. If nothing was found I just bumped up the caster on the weaker side to compensate and explain to the customer. In your application if nothing is found just bump the caster on the right side up to 9.4-9.5 and test drive it. CAI isnt a tire wearing angle so dont worry about that.

VelociRaptor

Also check the setback of the front end, most alignment machines measure this. Bet the right tire is further back than the left.

sghokie

I should also add that I also found the wheel bearing a bit loose on that wheel. I adjusted it back, but I was a bit surprised that it was that loose.

Maybe in the next couple of days I can get under there and look closely at the parts.

Midnight Koop

if you need wheels... get these:

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/n...452693831.html

pretty good deal... and if your tires are better than his.. you can re-use them

(i think i'm too late though)

GdCdnKid

Also have a look at the sway bar end links. After I had my suspension replaced the fools put one of the end links on wrong. I had an alignment done after and it was not found then either. Another check by Mercedes Benz mechanic and he didn't find it. I pulled the front wheels myself and found the problem when the wheels were off. Removed the link, reinstalled it and all was smooth sailing again.
Good luck with it.

Midnight Koop

i also heard this place is really good... expensive, but you get what you pay for...

http://www.ptuning.com/html/services.com

they specialize in custom alignments... but have all the diagnostic tools to manually evaluate what's going on with your car if you have no luck elsewhere.

btw... when did you graduate from tech?

sghokie

Thanks for the recommendation on the wheels. I might have gone with 17's before I bought new tires a while back. I had put 17's on my bmw and it really stiffened up the ride. I am almost 40 now....LOL
Also thanks for the tip on PT Tuning, I know where they are, I have passed by their shop before.

I think what I am going to do is pull off the hub and inspect the spindle along with the control arms.

I do know the pothole was bad enough to bend the wheel and weaken the tie rod. I assume had an impact on the bearing on that side too. So probably something is bent as suggested earlier.

Midnight Koop

nothing wrong with that... i'm closing in on 30

i've had to replace my control arms before and did it here:

their manager ("Hal") is a fellow hokie: http://mitchcarr.com/

goodluck with the fix

sghokie

I pulled off the hub and found that the spindle was impossible to determine if it was off axis.
I was also able to get a better look at the control arms since I had the dust shield off. Unfortunately I couldn't find anything wrong. I suppose with the side off by only a degree or less it might be impossible to spot visually.

I am considering replacing off some parts as I am out of ideas and I really hate driving the car like this. I have one of those lever type joint separators, but I haven't tried it out, will I be able to separate the ball joints without ruining them? In my past suspension exercises I have always used a pickle fork and a mini sledge and just replaced the joints. I am hoping to avoid that right now.

VelociRaptor

If there is no visible damage or stress cracks in the paint and/or metal just bump the caster on the right side 1/2 degree and forget about it. Ive done that many times for people.

sghokie

How is the caster adjusted on the 203?
I took it in for alignments 3 times in just the last 2 weeks Even the dealer didn't do it right.

Silver C

Actually, I think tire pull may be possible. I have experienced it myself. There are certain brands in my country that does that. I didnt believe it at first, but after some thought and couldnt find anything wrong, I changed tires as recommended and problem solved.

sghokie

I switched the tires around every which way and still the same problem exists. Also the tire pull was not there before the pothole incident.

VelociRaptor

When ever I had examples of this on a test drive I swapped the tires from left to right(even if they were directional tires) and see if it still went in the same direction. If it didnt then it was obvious what the problem was and if it still pulled in the same direction it was in the suspension. You done the right thing trying to isolate the problem.

C230 Mulac

ya damn hokies! UVA FTW!!(our football team sux though)

good luck with the problem!

sghokie

LOL, pothole was on 95N near richmond right where 295 comes in.
Must be UVA people running VDot down there, LOL.

I called the dealer back about the issue.
Their position is that the numbers are within MB specs so it shouldn't be pulling unless it was a tire issue. I stated that changing the tires around didn't make any difference.
They said my only real options were to either take it to a body shop and have them put it on a frame machine or to start replacing off parts.
I can buy the entire knee assembly from online bone yards for about 200-300, I am tempted to go that route.