I had my upper and lower ball jts replaced, since they were worn out. My truck pulled left before I had them done, and it shimmied. Thinking the new ball jts and alignment would fix the steering problem. After they replaced the ball jts, the alignment still veered left. So I took it back and they said it was a tire with a possible broken belt because the alignment problem was following the left front tire. So they ended up veering right (safety) so I would not tend to drive towards on-coming traffic (problem tire place on rear passenger side).

Later in the week I picked up a slightly used tire thinking it was a broken belt. I saw nothing wrong with the wheel when they took the tire off. So I preceeded to put the purchased tire on in place of the damaged? tire. Nothing changed, and I even put on my spare and the same thing happened.

Now I've ruled out a tire or wheel issue causing the problem. My question is if it was veering left, and now they had it veer right cant they tweak the alignment to go straight? Also, does the alignment machine line up front and back tires without taking into account wear on steering linkages and the steering gear? (I live in Denver with many potholes and ice mounds during the winter which might have caused the alignment problem)

 

Is there a way to determine if a wheel it bent or not true? Can this be done while it is on the truck?

 

I'm assuming they touched nothing on the tie rod end and if so, put them back THEN aligned after ALL work was done? Only thing I can suggest is swap tires left to right and see if it's THAT tire/rim. But, you said even putting the spare has no bearing, how's the rears? Maybe one's low on air or something? Perhaps even a caliper sticking? After an alignment, this thing should be almost dead nuts straight driving if all wheels are inflated properly etc. I had an alignment and they showed me a tie rod just starting to go bad making an alignment thrown off, I replaced, brought it back, perfect and then I paid. It should be their issue though, hell, that's what they road test afterwards for, no?

 

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I took my truck back to the shop, and they rechecked the alignment. They said the alignment was dead on. Then they switched the 2 front tires and the truck pulled to the left instead of the right. They said it was radial tire pull.

The tires are fairly old, but still have about 50% tread left. The tires have over 50k on them, and that's why I purchased these tires again. I cant seen a measureable wear to the tire that is pulling, but does age cause radial pull?
And does radial push happen much?

I'm trying to figure out if it's more than one tire, since the one we thought was the problem has been replaced.