I have had my f150 in the shop six times in the past three weeks trying to address the problem of it pulling to the right after I had a flat on the right front tire. After three alignments, switching and rotating both wheels (six) times and tires as well as having the front end checked including turning the rotors. Every alignment person said the front end alignment was perfect and they didn't know why it pulled. Today the alignment guy who the mechanics told me to take it to told me the truck pulled because the rear end was out of alignment. I then called a frame person who said he would look at it next week. This has been an ordeal. Has anyone else heard of or had this issue. The truck is in pristine condition and has never been wrecked and I am just wondering what could cause this as it ran straight as an arrow before the flat. Thanks with any ideals or thoughts.

 

Mine pulls to the right ever so slightly. I'm going to have some alliment work done and see if it cures mine. It's not bad enough to fight it when your driving but if you let go of the wheel it will start to the right. Some one told me that the car companies are designing cars and trucks to go to the right incase someone was to pass out then the truck will head towards the sholder instead of oncomming traffic. Sounds good but I don't know how much truth there is in it.

 

Anouther thing with a slight pull to the right is that most road surfaces are crowned so that the water will run off of it during a rain.

Find a nice straight stretch of road, and with no traffic (DUH!) Run your truck right down the centerline of the road. It should track fairly true there...a little more on the left and it should start drifting left, a little to the right and it should start drifting right. This is with a "neutral" alignment. I'm pretty sure that some cars are spec'd to bias the alignment a little to the right too...for whatever reasoning. Or maybe that's just how some shops do them?
My 97 has a fairly neutral alignment...it won't drift if I center line the truck on a good road, but in the right lane it will slowly track to the shoulder.

If it's a mild to severe pull and things are aligned properly, I'd also check out the caliper on that right front. It's possible that the caliper mount got knocked around enough so that it will bind and not release fully when you're off the brakes. Have seen this on GM RWD cars before...if the slider bolts get rusty or tweaked, the caliper won't operate as it should and cause rotor drag.

I doubt having a flat up front would throw off the rear axle alignment...it usually takes some pretty serious banging around to knock a leaf-sprung solid axle out of position.

 

agreed with binder, good words of wisdom

 

Are they doing the alignment with a machine or by hand, cause i had mine done by 3 different machines and it pulled to the right and i finally found a guy that did it by hand (chalk and stick, old school) and i havent had a problem since, only charged me 34 bucks

 

DaMoose, you are absolutely right. Three companies used the computer to do my alignment and they couldn't align it. Two of the companies charged me $50.00 to align it, and one didn't since they couldn't align it. Last Friday I took it to the alignment shop that used the string method and it is going straight again. One alignment company even put a cam alignment kit in it and the last alignment guy told me they just put the cam kit in one side and charged me $60.00 for the cam kit and $30.00 to install it plus the $49.00 alignment charge. At least I know where to take my vehicles for an alignment now and I am going to try and recover some of my money from these other guys who told me it was pulling because of the rear end. Thanks, maybe someone else will learn from this as it apears the computer alignments are not what they are cracked up to be or it may be the person doing the aligning. Thanks for all the responses.

 

Can anyone explain the methods used for this string method.It sounds like something a guy would like to know.I live way out in the bush, and it's 200kms to the nearest wheel alignment rack.I just got my rig aligned,but it still pulls left.I'd like to try the string method if it's not too complex.

 

Ill try to explain it but itll be hard. They take some white chalk paint and spray the front and back of your front tires with it. Your tires will have a line in the tread all the way around the tire. They take a rod with two markers (thin metal rod not an actual 'marker') and tighten them down on the rod to match up with the lines. Once thats done, you see how far it is off from the back, make youre adjustments as required. Im not 100 % on this but i think that he said he turns the fron in like 1/16 of an inch. Someone else might be able to throw in some more detail. You also need something that is hard to park on but can also move (like the alignment shops have). You can jack your vehicle to do this.

 

ive always done my alignments to my best abilities with a level across the lip of the rims for adjusting camber and a tapemeasure and a piece of small diameter sq tubing for the toe. downside to this is obviously its basically a 2 man job. i set my toe at as close to 1/16th as i can get. and i try to set my camber as straight and even to eachother as possible. caster, well i just have to eyeball it.

 

i was having problems getting mine alligned a long time ago. i had a local shop do it behind the tire store i worked at because i figured they could get it fixed right. turned out it kept doing and would slowly get worse. finally i was smart enough to ask for a computer print out of everything. turned out they kept aligning to to steer to the right because of the "crown in the road" like was mention on here and they told me that was "fords spec" for alignment. I had to argue with them to do it the right way, when they did, problemt fixed.

 

why are they doing it on the ground? they should be doing it on a level concrete surface where the front tires sit on a piece of metal that can move if you turn the wheel?