NX wheel alignment

[paulrnx]

Bought mine in July and it felt like the tracking was out. Car felt a bit like it was on ice especially in wet weather and traction was poor. It also moved around a bit on rural roads. Left it for a couple of months to see how it went. I then started to see some feathering on the outside edge of both front tyres.

Had full alignment done at the dealership (not the one I bought the car from, too far away). They have a Hunter 4 wheel alignment rig so no concerns it wouldn’t be right. Got the car back and it was obviously much better and felt perfect on the road. But. Steering wheel was noticeably offset to the right. This is something I hate and it’s surely not too much to ask for is it - to clamp the wheel in the straight ahead position and align all wheels and re-check and re-adjust as required.

I returned the car to the dealership and the car comes back. Steering wheel still offset slightly but much better. Unfortunately it was immediately obvious when driving that the alignment was out. The car felt worse to drive.

I give up on the dealership because they’d had two goes and couldn’t do it right. I take it to an independent tyre place and they confirm that tracking is out - far too much toe-in. Adjustment carried out and car now drove properly but the bloody steering wheel was offset again to the right by the same amount as after it was first adjusted at the dealership.

After a bit of research I decide to take it to Wheels in Motion in Chesham Bucks. They did a full setup and all is well now. They got me to sit in the car and adjust the steering wheel myself to straight ahead. Then they adjust tracking and the car is perfect now. Great on the road and steering wheel sits perfectly level on most roads when running in a straight line.

A passing comment from the guy who did the work got me thinking though. He said my straight ahead looked offset to the left to him because the steering wheel spokes didn’t align with the light and wiper stalks. I got back in the car after and thought why did he think that and was it me perhaps? I then noticed that the wiper stalk was on auto which is one notch down. When I moved it back up the steering wheel was level and aligned with the stalks. I generally always have my wiper switch on auto during these wet winter conditions.

I’m now thinking that both the dealership and the tyre place aligned the steering wheel to the two stalks and clamped it in place. But because my wiper switch was always in auto they possibly clamped the wheel in an offset to the right position aligned with the stalks. Hence why tracking felt good but the steering wheel was always offset to the right.

What do you think? Worth watching out for  if you get your cars checked. There had to be a reason why this happened and maybe this is it?

[paulrnx]

It was almost definitely this because when the tech put the wheel spokes level with the column stalks (wiper in auto position one click down) the tracking read spot on. Whatever, I’m just pleased I don’t have to drive along straight roads with an offset steering wheel. Finally 😀