I would like to correct the title. It should say "perfect alignment, steering wheel auto corrects to the right slightly"

Vehicle 2008 Honda Civic Si

Stock Wheels, Bridgestone Potenza S04 Pole Position

Had an alignment done and the measurements look to be perfect.

The car is very sensitive to road crown.

When I center the steering wheel, the steering wheel auto corrects and likes to be off center slightly to the right.

When the steering wheel auto corrects to the right (slightly) the car will start pulling towards the crown of the road (right)

Is this normal? Am I being to picky?

See alignment in attachment.

Any thoughts?

 

Are the tires brand new?

 

The tires were purchased a few months back. I had taken the tires to be mounted and aligned fresh at another shop.

Based upon the "before specs" on the alignment page attached to this post it appears that the front toe and rear toe settings were out of spec. ???

Could this mean that the newly purchased tires when aligned at the first stop i went to, did not have their machine calibrated correctly or just missed the alignment up?

 

Yes it seems like your tires have worn into the previous alignment so it will drift until it evens out at some point.

 

look for torn or worn compliance bushings. look for a sticky caliper also.

take it back and have them recheck the alignment. maybe something was left loose. or maybe their machine was off.

also, try rotating the tyres.

 

A completely different shop aligned the car when I first had the tires installed. This would have been the settings dialed in on the attached alignment spec sheet under the (before column)

The second alignment which would be the (final measurements) on the attached alignment document is the second shop I decided to go. This second shop which is closer by and they have a very good alignment machine and competent tech.

 

If I rotate my tires, will it throw off the toe settings? Should I swap the fronts to back?

 

If rotating the tyres throws off an alignment...then there is something wrong with the tyres.

Go front to back first. I believe S04's are non-directional. After going front to back....swap them side to side to see if the pull moves with the tyres. The goal is to single out the problematic tyre so you can do something about it.

 

What concerns me is the "initial" settings:
Front Right -.40 degree of toe
Rear Left +0.25 degree toe.

I never received a print out from the first shop that aligned the car when the tires that were first put on. I did see the measurements and everything did look to spec. Do the initial settings mean these are the actual measurements from the first alignment ?

 

initial would mean "how it came in". was your steering wheel off center before? Is it off center to go straight currently?

 

Ok so this means that when the car was aligned when I purchased my tires a few months ago the technicians didn't do a good job or their machine is not calibrated properly.

The steering wheel does feel like its more slightly centered after the second alignment. When driving straight and me holding the wheel with both hands the steering wheel appears pointed straight when the car is driving.

The thing I notice the most is when I straighten the wheel center while driving and then let my hands off the wheel, the steering wheel wants to auto correct off center slightly to the right.

 

your tyres may be a bit worn from the previous alignment.

Try rotating them first.

 

It's possible that the sliding pins of the calipers are sticking or the caliper is sticking.

 

Does the whole brake assembly have to be taken off the car to replace this ?

 

Just the caliper.

The fact that your car goes right when the steering wheel rests to the right points to a possible caliper or slide pin issue.

 

I have been advised to set the front toe slightly + toe in so the car will track straight. With a 0 toe setting the car is more prone to wander..??

 

Do this, buy a dial indicator and test for lateral run out at both hubs with the rotors removed. You should see less than .002 of run out. There are howto's on youtube that show how to do this properly if you don't know how to do it. You don't want to test with the rotor on, test with the rotor off, testing just the hub itself.

It's also possible that one of the rear calipers is sticking.

 

ooo thats weird it maybe the tires but let us know how you fixed it!