Hi,
My car pulls slightly to the left at high speed even after a wheel alignment. I hit a curb while ago and the alignment was a bit off, but the rim was not damaged. So I have the alignment done but it still pulls to the left at higher speed. I recently had the alignment inspected again at another shop and was told all was good.
I was wondering what else could cause the problem that is not so obvious, and a wheel alignment couldn't detect it.
Thanks in advance for any inputs!

 

Swap your tires around, see if the pulling moves.

You might have worn a tire funny, by driving around awhile with it out-of-alignment. In that case, the only real solution is new tires.

I inherited an Accord with that problem, it was a bit of a pain. One alignment shop could adjust it so it didn't pull, but I didn't like like that solution. It changed as soon as I rotated tires or installed the snow tires.

 

Thanks for your suggestion.
However, the tires are only few months old, so I think they are not the cause of the problem.

 

With just your symptoms it is either a tire and new means nothing or the alignment is in specs but set up in such a way it would cause a pull. When they do an alignment the machine shows the caster, camber and toe as either lit up in red for out of specs and green for in specs. The tech than makes the adjustments to bring everything into the green and prints out the results which show it is in the range or not but the specs have to make sense. A pull 99% of the time is the tire. I have had brand new cars with a pull until I swapped them.

 

Thanks again for the input.
I will try to put the left front tire to the back and see if it makes any difference.
I had the alignment fixed the first time and inspected again at another shop later. Both reports showed everything was in spec and was in green.
I was wondering if the left front tire was somehow damaged due to the impact when I hit the curb, because before the accident happened, the tires were brand new and all was good without any pulling problem.

 

Tire pulls make little sense. Just after getting new tires for my 2003 Accord I had a left pull. I rotated the front to the back and gone. A few years later I rotated them back to front but with the original location no pull to the left.

 

just swap the frt tires side to side ..........If it pulls the other way or if pull is gone , you know that you got a tire issue

if it still pulls the same direction after swapping tires than you might have other issues ,, get the final alignments results and post them here

By the way , input infos about your car..yr ,model, etc, etc .

 

The only problem we didn’t mention is a frozen brake caliper but you would have a bad vibration.

 

I vote to swap them side-to-side. Unless they're directional tires, then I'd swap ALL 4 front-to-back.

IIRC, for quite a few years the Accord spec for front camber is quite wide. So the cross-camber could be pretty far off & still be technically "within spec". (You don't say what car, so I'll have to assume it's not a 72 Pinto.) Just another reason to have the actual angles printed out, not just a statement that it's "withing spec".

 

Thanks all for the inputs!
I swapped the tires side to side today after work, but haven't had a chance to test drive it on highway. The pulling problem is only noticeable at higher speed on highway. I will do that tomorrow morning when I go to work.
The car is a 2003 Accord Coupe V6.