TIL about radial pull

"RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire" (ricerocketeer2) 01/16/2016 at 00:32 • Filed to: None

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Car’s been pulling hard left even with a good alignment. Shop diagnosed the at least one of the (front?) tires as having radial pull, swapped the front tires, and now the car drives straight again.

Kind of annoyed since these were new tires, too. Also, questions! How common is this? Is this a symptom of cheaper tires? What if the tires are directional and can’t be swapped left to right? (I assume you’d be boned.) What happens to tires on new cars — who figures out why the car won’t drive in a straight line? (Again, bonage of someone, I assume.)

In any case, I’m mostly glad I don’t have to deal with arm cramps from holding the steering wheel at a 10 degree angle for my entire commute.

Image source and a pretty good overview of radial pull: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire 01/16/2016 at 01:07

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Not that common. But definitely more common amongst cheaper tires. Should be covered by tire manufacturer warranty.

If the tires are directional you can either dismount them and flip them around to put on the other side or get new tires. That’s it.

All new cars go through a pre-delivery inspection, or PDI, which should theoretically catch these types of issues. I’ve personally found 10-20? defective tires on new cars over the course of my career (and I very rarely do PDI’s). When this happens the vehicle manufacturer typically pays the warranty costs (diagnosis included, some manufacturers are much better than others about this) and then later on will make a claim with the tire manufacturer.

AddictedToM3s - Drives a GC > RiceRocketeer Extraordinaire 01/16/2016 at 02:08

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Woah, I had this same exact issue with my car before the holidays. Didn’t know that it had a name though. Car pulled left and also caused steering wheel vibration when going 30-50mph or below 10mph. Got new front tires and now it rides properly.