Four months ago I purchased a 2018 GLE63S that has travelled 97,000km with full AMG warranty. From the test drive I said this thing pulls all over the road (when the surface is bad), like I have never experienced before in any other vehicle. Long story short, I purchased the car thinking it could be rectified and so far I have been wrong. A copy of the last of 4 alignments (trying different things) is attached and the camber is about 1.2 degrees which cant be reduced and this is where I believe the pull is coming from more so than castor, so I have been told. Interestingly enough running the recommended tire pressures is just terrible....on a bad road surface you need to have a death grip on the steering wheel for fear of running off, but increasing from 40lb to 47lb or more, reduces the pull and is a step in the right direction, however, the ride becomes harsh.

Has anyone experienced this and found a solution or settings that have made the difference?

 

Yes I have. My toe was out severely on both front wheels. They were fighting each other per say causing the car to pull and I was always having to fight the steering wheel. I found the recommended pressures Mercedes calls for is really high and to your point gives a harsh ride. I have my pressures set at 33 cold all the way around and the ride now is superb. My car is tuned and the lower tire pressures help the car hook up better as well. Is your car the coupe or non coupe?

 

Sounds like you had toe "out", was steering pull there all the time or only on a poor and undulating road surface?

The recommend tire pressures are much lower than what I am running unless the vehicle is fully loaded.

 

Yep toe out. I noticed it on roads as you stated the most and on highways with road crown. Is your car a coupe or non coupe GLE 63s?

 

non (SUV).

Do you know how much toe out you had and how much toe in you now have..?

 

I am not sure but I will get those numbers for you from the dealership. I am going there Monday.

 

Need to stop chasing one’s tail on this.

What caused the need for the first alignment? Damage? Hit a curb?

Replace all bent parts.

Align the vehicle at a dealer.

Enjoy the vehicle.

 

Update - I went and sort an opinion from someone who has a lot experience in wheel alignments and MB. He pointed out (that in the attached sheet) I had "toe out", what? I said, "out", this is where I had made a mistake with the last alignment, when I asked for 2mm of "-", I should have said toe "in". Negative (-) is Toe out, but I thought it was Toe in..doh!....shoulda been talking "in" or "out" not -/+.

This does explain some of my problems, but that was in January and since then I have been winding in toe "in" into the toe rods. I started with 3 hex flats on each side then another 4 and it has helped but it still has not resulted in a neutral drive.

All the time I been thinking I started with 2.1mm of toe "in" (which I hadn't) and was feeling like I had gone about as far as I could. But now that I know it was Toe out, I got stuck in and gave it another 3 flats, went to 47.5lbs of tire pressure and went for a 240km drive on a mix of roads and surfaces and bingo!, I am happy to say I have a totally neutral drive. I gave my wife a drive and I said, how was that, did it pull? and she sad no its was just fine. I'm feeling very happy, but I am concerned I have added to much Toe in, the last 3 flats amounts to 0.75mm on the toe rod, its not a lot and I didn't think it would make such a dramatic change. Next step is to go back for an alignment to see what the measurements are and also fit the camber/castor bolts to reduce camber, because there is to much unless you are on a race track.

Using a tight nylon line string line along the side of the car and allowing for track width differences, I have measured about 5mm of toe in on the left and right. This will be outside spec, but you I cant argue with how it drives now.......lets see how we go.

 

I had the camber adjusted on my '17 GLE63 and '18 GLE350. I took it to my local dealer two times and it never solved the problem. They ordered parts because my understanding is the camber adjustment is very minor without new camber bolts. My '18 GLE350 alignment worked just fine but that was done at another dealer. Neither SUV had damage as one of the posts suggested could be the issue. I have the 21" wheels on the GLE63 and maybe it's due to the larger tires. Go figure...

BTW, I am going to try your tire pressure. My tires made it a whopping 14K miles and I now have 21K miles. I replaced the brake pads at 16K miles and I don't run it hard.

 

Yes it's definitely possible that you dialed in too much toe. Excess toe-in eliminates wander to the point that you can't feel when there's too much toe in. Excess tends to feel better, and more excess tends to feel more better.
And, of course, the more worn your front end parts are, the more toe in you'll need to overcome the slop in the steering (drag puts a tow out Force on the assembly).

I'm not sure I'd agree about your camber corrections.
I do agree that the camber will wear the inner shoulders of the tires more quickly, but I think that only costs about 10% of the overall tire life.
I'll trade that reduction for the improved handling responsiveness, which I believe is important in evasive maneuvering even if you're not at the racetrack.
And when at the racetrack I want more camber.

Why not skip the camber bolts, go to the Mercedes dealer where they have the correct fixtures for your wheels, and get it set to factory specs?

As in "start over," because I think you've introduced too many variables and maybe too far afield.

Definitely throw away your string line! Too many variables for that to be effective anymore. Front and rear axles have toe in, which introduces yet another variable.

Good luck.

 

Agree with starting over. Once alignment fiddling starts, there is no telling where you are. Set it back to factory and forget about it.

At factory alignment, the vehicle should not pull, drift or wander. If the alignment is at factory settings, and it pulls or wanders, parts are worn or broken and need to be replaced.

AMG SUVs have a tire eating problem. It's the nature of the beast.

 

Chassis, I disagree with you. Both of mine were brand new cars. The GLE63 is still a big problem and the head of service, the suspension tech, and I came to the agreement nothing helped. We also installed new Conti's with no results so your suggestions seem to be off the mark for this issue. I think we agreed it doesn't take much for the 22" tires to start wandering. Since tires don't last long, the next set of tires will be Michelin Pilot Sport 4's which were incredible on my GLE350. The best tires ever IMHO.

 

Bill, I think we were both referring to @kiwiape 's (post #8 in this thread) use of camber bolts, strange guidance to alignment techs, and other things that worked with old live axle cars, not your new GLE's. Your problem is different.

 

The local dealer changed my camber bolts, eventually changing them back on my GLE63. My GLE350 tracks down the road straight after alignment at Naperville Mercedes. I think it's the tires.

We aligned my wife's C43 and my CL600. Both track straight and true. That' over $1K in alignment on 3 new vehicles and one used CL. Hard to believe but the CL was closest to nominal.

 

Bill what was the root cause of your alignment issues?

 

Bill Baird, what makes the Miche's so good, I am very keen to hear...?

The reason for the excessive wear is no secret nor rocket science, there is a lot of camber resulting in the tire not being flat on the road, the wear pattern shows us this and I cant see any point in wearing the inside shoulder off and having max tread depth on the outside, when I drive on highways with some windy roads and I do some very windy roads.

Grip is all about the contact patch (if you ride road bikes you will know all about contact patches). Evasive maneuvers require a contact patch in the first instance otherwise its not going to happen, but because we don't know how much "camber gain" these vehicles have, or do do we??, it maybe a completely mute point anyway.

Go for a drive, stop and put you hands on the tire and check the inner and outer shoulders for temp difference, this tells you which part of the tire is contacting the road (the V8 race teams use this method to check alignment/contact patch). In my case the outer shoulders are cold, even on the road in the map below.

Here's the link https://www.google.co.nz/maps/dir/-3...!4m1!3e0?hl=en go and street view this puppy, its one windy piece of road and I was by myself pushing it. On my return trip I managed a semi even temp across the fronts, but at the same time the rears outside should was cold. This tells me that if I have less camber, I will get an even temp across my tires, increased tire wear/life and less steering pull, I call that a win, win, win. Nissan ask you if you want a street or a track setup, as one does not do all, well.




.

 

I think this is good

 

I installed Michelin Pilot Sport 4's on my GLE350. It was recomended by my dealer. It had fairly new 21" Conti's and my first impression was how the tire noise was gone. Also, the steering was neutral so I have to say it was $1500 well spent.