steering

[Brad92accord]

I noticed a while ago that whenever i take my hands off of the steering wheel..it tends to lean toward the right...and I am also considering getting a strut bar (im pretty sure thats the one that goes under the engine bay, correct me if im wrong).

so my question is...will putting a strut bar on help correct that and help it stay straighter?


Thanks
Brad

[alkoholikwun]

no, just getting a strut wont do the trick, your alignment is probably out of place, which is not a problem, just take your car to an alignment shop like Les Schwabb and they can fix it for you. Its about $70 bucks to do all 4 wheels.

[Brad92accord]

alright...so what exactly is out of whack?

[ExplodingCake]

Toe

[Brad92accord]

huh

[Law Grandeur]

tires, alignment, and balance all can play a role in that

[ExplodingCake]

huh

Your toe is out of alignment.

tires, alignment, and balance all can play a role in that

Don't forget suspension components that are possibly worn.

[ChillPhatCat]

Toe-in is a correlation between the wheels that shows whether they're both pointing in the same direction... incorrect toe in will result in one tire pointing a little off while the other is straight and thus pull to one side in the neutral position.

[johnl]

Toe-in is a correlation between the wheels that shows whether they're both pointing in the same direction... incorrect toe in will result in one tire pointing a little off while the other is straight and thus pull to one side in the neutral position.

Only if toe is uequally set at the rear wheels. There is no such thing as unequal toe at the front wheels because front wheel toe will always automatically 'equalise' when driving in a straight line, but the steering wheel will be off-centre (with the tie rods being slightly unequal in length).

I assume the OP means he has a steering pull and not merely an off-centre steering wheel. If this isn't being caused by unequal rear toe, it will be caused by other front alignment issues, i.e. camber, caster etc, or possibly the tyres not being exactly the same side to side (which can be the case even with 'matching' tyres with identical wear, due to a manufacturing problem called 'conicity', which can be unequal in individual tyres). There's info on the web about tyre conicity.

A "strut bar" or tower bar fits on top of the suspension towers and ties one tower bar to the other in compression and tension through the bar (which passes above the engine). These are very worthwhile, but they have to be good quality and very rigid (especially in the brackets that attach the bar itself to the tops of the towers). Many cheaper tower bars aren't nearly rigid enough (epsecially in the attachment brackets) and don't do much for handling because of this. A tower bar won't affect a steering pull. but will tighten up steering response and handling in general.