Yidney

I'm trying to educate myself before going back to the dealer. I told the dealer my car drifts right, so they aligned it - they said only the toe in was out, both front and rear. Seems to have made no difference. I'm used to cars that track straight for a long way driving "no hands."

So I did some searches and am getting all sorts of conflicting information. (1) That it's common and requires a camber bolt kit to fix. (2) That it requires nothing and an alignment wil fix it. (3) It's a factory setting that cannot be fixed, and my favorite - (4) MB designs cars to pull right so that if you fall asleep you don't go into oncoming traffic.

What's the truth here? Is this an issue on 209s, including newer ones? I recall reading quite a few posts on dealer-installed camber bolts (which I cannot find now, of course), but it was unclear what problem the bolts are intended to address. Is it this issue? Thanks for any light you can shed on this.

lazlion99

The most obvious reason would be car had been driven for a while with incorrect alignment settings which caused premature wear on the tires - cause of said drifting issue.
BYW, I believe most front end repairs are covered by warranty.

Yidney

I wondered that too, but the tires only have about 2,000 miles on them so I'm betting they are ok. I've done a lot more reading since my original post. It is amazing how many people have been told that MBs are designed to drift right for safety reasons. Not just one or two, but a lot of people have been told that. It's like an urban legend that got legs from MB techs. A few have been told they bought "unapproved" tires. The actual fix seems to lie in one of two places or both:

1) Techs like to set castor angles the same on both sides, and in the middle of the "correct" range, but if a car pulls right, the right wheel castor angle should be +1 degree or so to cause the right wheel to "lead".

2) Too much negative camber, which requires the camber bolt kit to correct.

It's obviousy a common problem on certain cars, including 209s. I'll be interested to see which line the dealer tries on me - "It's caused by too much wax on the right side of the car." "You have the stereo unbalanced."

Mka77

I had an alignment done at the dealer last year and never had any issues with it pulling one way or the other. You can take your hand off the wheel on a nice flat stretch and it tracks really well.

Rashman

Does my car drift?


..... absolutely!!






LOL!!!

mikata

^lol

Rashman

Heehee.... couldn't resist, I'm afraid.

elijah

LMAO

Back to the OP, something has to be wrong with your car because mine drives straight. On the highway I drive with no hands, I use my knees if I ever need to overtake

dan1495

My 2008 CLK550 drifted to the right as well. I took it to a good front end shop I have used for years and they did an alignment that required the installation of two camber bolts. My understanding is that certain adjustments are not possible without them. I believe they replace bolts that are installed at the factory that are not adjustable. There are 4 total. This is a pretty expensive job at the dealer because they want to install all 4 of them which may or may not be necessary.
As a point of reference, I paid $143.00 for this work, less than half of what the dealer wanted. It worked great, by the way.

ahmadk

when I read the title of this thread, the first thing that came to my mind was power slides and donuts

Kevwood

+1. I was going to reply; "Only when I put it into dyno mode..."

Yidney

Right after I posted I knew "pull" might have been a better choice.

Yidney

Why would this not have been warranty work on an '08? I know that MB warrants the orignal alignment for a year, which is fair since they can't control where you drive, but if a car under warranty cannot be aligned without adding parts that did not come from the facotry, that seems like a warranty issue.

ahmadk

exactly what i wanted to say

EuroTra$H

slight pulling is often a symptom of a bad tire... slightly out of round or not properly indexed on the wheel.

that said the camber bolt will fix the issue as well. why they didnt spec the car with one is beyond me. I had them installed to deal with the exact same issue.

SilverMelo

I have a 2006 CLK 220 CDI.
I take it to the dealer 4 or 5 times. Always the same: it goes to right alone.
For me it's a epic fail from the german guys...I'm so disapointed.
They even try to put the stupid ajustable pins on it, but it didn't work.

That urban legend about the "right drift" saying that it's for safety reasons it's a lie.