Hello, I'm new to the forum. I purchased a 96 civic ex about 6 months ago as hopes for a reliable daily driver. On the way home from the initial purchase, my buddy (who was driving behind me) said that the car seemed to be "driving sideways."
What he means is that the back end of the car seems to be about 3 inches off to the right. So if you were directly behind it, you could see the left front tire to the left of the rear tire. I hope this isn't coming off as confusing as it sounds. It literally looks like you're making a left hand turn, but driving in a straight line. My initial thought was frame damage. After close inspection of the undercarriage, unibody, and inside quarter panels I couldn't find any evidence of an accident or any damage. Then, after even closer inspection and a little research, I realized that I had rear disc brakes. Which I'm pretty sure wasn't an option for the ex model. A little more research and I found out that these were actually integra parts. So my question for you today is can interga rear trailing arms have any effect on the car "dog tracking?"

 

Check alignment.

 

Oh man, i can remember driving around with my dad when i was little and he would always point out "dog tracking" cars to me and say that they got absolutely pounded in either the front or rear on the side and yea the car is bent up and dog tracks.....i dont think any integra parts are gonna do that,they are bolt on an like 99.9% identical basically. and i doubt its an alignment issue but good luck man

a quick google search -

"Usually a car dog tracks when the car has been in a serious accident, and the frame was hit hard enough to bend it out of its original shape. If the frame is out of alignment, the wheels will not track in line with the other tires, giving the car the look of its rear end running offset from its front end (like a dog looks when it's running). "

unfortunately our cars are UNIBODY no frame so who knows, i would think it would be pretty obviously crashed but maybe it was repaired very well?

 

Doesn't mean something's not bent. A unibody still has a frame structure, it's just a unit along with the body. There are still subframes and attachment point that can move around... regardless of unibody or not. An alignment should begin to point you in the right direction. Check the bushings as well. Beyond that, the next weakest link (to bend first) would be suspension arms, then subframes, then body attachments.

 

"dog tracking" is when the front and rear axles are following the same direction, but not on the same centerline. This often occurs when the front end is aligned, while the rear is untouched either because it cannot be adjusted any further, or there is no factory provision for an adjustment. Here is a quick pic of dog tracking:

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In order for a car to drive straight like this, the front wheels must be turned to the right. This will cause the tires to appear staggered, and for the body to travel down the road at an angle. With a small steering input to the right, this is the end result:

This:

//-----//
.....|
.....|
//-----//

Leads to this:

()-----()
......\
.......\
...()-----()

Notice that if the body was pictured, it would be angled as the car drives straight down the road. Normally this amount of tracking is small and completely unnoticeable. If you have installed a completely new front axle or lifted your 4WD truck without a proper alignment, this is usually the end result. If your steering wheel is straight up and down, and your car appears to travel at an angle down to road as you describe, then someone has adjusted the front toe without evaluating the rear suspension condition at all. If your steering wheel is crooked when the car drives straight, then the alignment was not corrected after a previous suspension alteration (or suspected collision).

Odds are, someone threw Integra rear arms on it, and did not bother adjusting the rear toe adjustment points, or they slipped. The small 14mm bolt that attaches the small toe link to the body of the car is your toe adjustment. Check this bolt on both sides and see if there is room to adjust it side to side. If there is, an alignment will certainly help correct this.

Any modern Hunter or Snap-On alignment machine can measure squareness of the wheels to determine if parts have shifted laterally. If you get a alignment check, post your readings in here if your alignment tech cannot (or will not) help you pinpoint obvious problems related to this problem only. This setting is typically called "track width/track offset" in most software.

 

I know this is a little old but this is a great write up. I'm impressed even though it might be off Wikipedia.