Steering Mischief Managed - 2015 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk Long-Term Road Test
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Steering Mischief Managed - 2015 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk Long-Term Road Test
A strategic tire rotation and a needed wheel alignment cured our 2015 Jeep Renegade Trailhawk's pull problem and has it tracking straight and true once more.
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J/K! Good work. We had a pull and slight steering wheel wobble in our BMW e90. I wrote a long post in bimmerforums about the steps I took to get rid of it. Had new control arms and a (stuck) tie rod replaced, road force balance, alignment, eventually a second alignment, and finally new tires ultimately solved the problem.
It can be so many things and it is interesting how often the tires can actually be at least a contributing factor.
As far as camber adjustments on the front go, there are aftermarket solutions for most of the cars out on the road today to bring alignment angles back into specification. Installation of these components that allow for adjustment that was not included from the factory is at an additional cost over the base alignment. Depending on the vehicle design the change can be made at the strut to the knuckle joint, or it can be done with offset mounts or ball joints (and more).
Where people sometimes get into trouble is they fail to directly measure SAI (steering axis inclination) which is the angle from the centerline of the top of the strut through the lower ball joint. Adjusting camber at the strut to knuckle connection can restore the camber angle but can change the included angle if the real problem was an issue with SAI. The problem with that is modern alignment machines basically guess at SAI and display it on the print-out. Measurement of that angle correctly requires additional steps that are usually not necessary and therefore skipped "to try and be price competitive" ( aka cheaper). Measuring SAI requires lifting the vehicle, locking the brakes, leveling the targets and then performing a caster swing that requires additional turning angle during the measurement as compared to just doing a caster measurement.
Even this basic work isn't as simple as many want to believe. It takes years for someone to encounter and have to work through enough problem child's to really be considered experienced. Even then there will always be another one that will be waiting to teach yet another lesson.
Then, rather than an alignment being performed during the lengthy and uncoordinated dealer service at 14,803 miles, you folks accepted a rotation rather than your requested alignment, which seemed to cure the left-pull problem, but in reality just put off the problem to another day, and probably resulted in a second tire getting its tread ground away and increasing its conicity by that left-rear toe issue.
So after 10,000-odd miles of one kind of pull or another, you have gotten an alignment. Yes, lots of times one kind of pull or another is a proximate symptom of a tire issue, rather than an alignment issue, but other times, the tire issue was caused BY the alignment issue.
The lesson here is that the point of getting service is getting what needs to be done, done regardless of how long it takes or how much you're inconvenienced...not getting it done within a preconceived time frame and convenience level.
Nobody likes being screwed around by a shop that can't seem to get it together...but you can't let that cause you to take your eyes off the ball.
The end story here is if someone has a vehicle issue that is annoying them, tell the shop what the car is doing and let them go find it. If you go in and say you want an alignment, but don't tell the shop the car has a lead then you are likely to be disappointed. If the wheel is off center when driving straight down the road with your hands off of the wheel, then explain that is what you are concerned about. If the car has a lead one direction or the other and you have to steer to stay straight, then say so. If you try to diagnose and a problem and tell the shop what to do it isn't their fault if they do what you asked for if you were wrong.
FWIW they were told to cross rotate the tires right here on the forums each time the issue was raised. That is only one possible cause for the vehicle to have a lead, but its the easiest to rule in/out.