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Steering pulls left


Megadan
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600 miles only, pulls left, dealer says it’s road camber. I’ve driven for 45 years I know nothing. Don’t buy one.

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I would suggest if it's significantly different to other cars you've owned and the dealer is saying it's not a car related issue maybe take it to a tyre centre and get the alignment checked.  Agreed it will cost you initially but if there is a problem then you have evidence to take back to the dealer, get it sorted and claim the alignment test fees back. If it's tested as OK then maybe it's characteristic of the car that you can not live with and you'll need to take appropriate action.

My car is also a 2021 and i always test a new car on roads I know very well to understand the steering pull etc., every car I've driven is different some have a more pronounced tendency to drift to the left. My new RAV is pretty neutral unless you operate the lane centring function then it does tend to pull you to the left. I just use this function for lane guidance so it warns me of drift rather than auto corrects.

I assume that your issue is all the time and that you don't have the lane centring function switched on?

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13 hours ago, Megadan said:

600 miles only, pulls left, dealer says it’s road camber. I’ve driven for 45 years I know nothing. Don’t buy one.

Welcome to the forums. If the dealer isn’t convinced ask them for a test drive in the demo car on the same roads, if it does the same, then they may be right, make sure it’s the same section of road and same direction of travel that you have experienced the issue on. If it doesn’t pull to the left, explain you want them to arrange to have the tracking checked on a Hunter 4 wheel alignment system or similar, also look at batch numbers on tyres - I had issues with tracking being perfect while stationary, but it pulled to one side in motion. Rotating the fronts to the rears solved the issue for me on a different car.

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Yes, sounds like a combination of dealer BS and the specific car.

It's funny, all the main dealers I've had, er, dealings with, have happily done whatever warranty work is needed, cos they just charge it straight back to the manufacturer.

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9 hours ago, Yugguy1970 said:

Yes, sounds like a combination of dealer BS and the specific car.

It's funny, all the main dealers I've had, er, dealings with, have happily done whatever warranty work is needed, cos they just charge it straight back to the manufacturer.

Not quite as simple as that, all dealers will tell you that they lose (make less) money on warranty work compared to retail work. I suspect your experience is not common and you would do well to stick with your dealer.

Warranty reimbursement is very tight and generally only pay for the remedial work i.e. what the repair is - not the investigative element. And the amount of time spent on diagnosis can be significant. Hence the oft repeated - if it isn't warranty we will charge you - which riles so many customers.

All After-sales departments have labour targets to achieve in their annual budgets and the pressures to achieve them are quite significant. If you have a technician who has a fondness for the odd Monday off after celebrating the week-end will seriously influence your figures and your standing in the company. Fail to meet your targets and a trip to the boardroom is in order.

 

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I agree with William above. Mr. T is not going to be splash happy with warranty work. What is legit and necessary Yes, but I am sure there is a careful eye running over all claims. After all dealers are independents, not part of the Toyota close family.

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There is a process for diagnosing this fault. If poster is a genuine owner - more information is needed.

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The "don't buy one" made me smile.  Aye ok then, I'll just cancel my order.

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20 hours ago, Yugguy1970 said:

The "don't buy one" made me smile.  Aye ok then, I'll just cancel my order.

Think how I felt reading that, we had them all parked up from 2nd gen to 5th gen on the drive last week - where am I going to get rid of a collection like that now the secrets out 😄

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The original poster, Megadan, joined TOC last Friday at 8:40pm and last seen Friday at 9:37pm. Wonder how he going on.

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  • 1 year later...

Started experiencing the same issue recently, the car was absolutely fine from new but now with 6k miles on the clock I have to keep fighting with the steering wheel. It takes just a little force, but previously I didn't have to touch the steering wheel at all and the car was going straight. The steering wheel position seems to be straight, tyre pressure is spot on, I think I need to rotate the tyres first, then take it to Toyota for the wheel alignment check? What do you think guys?

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A characteristic of the RAV4, or most Toyotas according to TCCN, is that they run very little caster, at least when compared to some other manufacturers. This means that the "on centre" nature of the steering is less pronounced and the car will be a bit more sensitive to camber.

For the OP, the first thing I would check is tyre pressures, then different road types with different cambers and super-elevations and then I would, if still not satisfied, get an alignment check.

All pretty basic stuff.

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This might sound daft but is the LTA switched off?

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4 minutes ago, Yugguy1970 said:

This might sound daft but is the LTA switched off?

That doesn't sound at all daft to me ... 🙂 

Many of us have found that with LTA switched on the car pulls to the left - i.e. it wants to sit further over to the LHS of the lane than we do so we end up fighting it all the time ...

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Does the steering pull to the left?

If you are driving on the left (are you in the UK?), then the effect of negotiating lots of roundabouts can eventually cause a particular wear pattern, I have found on our cars.

I have suffered similar steering bias (not on a RAV), and found swapping the front tyres across the axle fixes it.

I think that tyre wear from, in this case, clockwise roundabouts, wears the outer edge of the front l/h tyre. 

If you were to massively exagerate this wear effect, for illustration, then imagine that the tyre wears into a 'slice' of a  cone, with the top of the imaginary cone pointing towards the nearside kerb.

The effective contact area of the tyre will have then moved slightly towards the centre of the car, affecting the steering neutrality.

But, this is all up for discussion! 

That theory worked for me when I thought of it a long while back!

Or maybe your car pulls the other way...

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8 minutes ago, Gerg said:

Does the steering pull to the left?

If you are driving on the left (are you in the UK?), then the effect of negotiating lots of roundabouts can eventually cause a particular wear pattern, I have found on our cars.

I have suffered similar steering bias (not on a RAV), and found swapping the front tyres across the axle fixes it.

I think that tyre wear from, in this case, clockwise roundabouts, wears the outer edge of the front l/h tyre. 

If you were to massively exagerate this wear effect, for illustration, then imagine that the tyre wears into a 'slice' of a  cone, with the top of the imaginary cone pointing towards the kerb.

The effective contact area of the tyre will have then moved slightly towards the centre of the car, affecting the steering neutrality.

But, this is all up for discussion! 

But that theory worked for me when I thought of it a long while back!

Or maybe your car pulls the other way...

I'm in Ireland, so yeah I think you could be right, smells like a tyre wear. There are plenty of high speed roundabouts here where I live, the steering wheel seems to be straight when it happens. Even when I hold it straight by placing the hands on the back of it and the part of the cockpit, so I know it's in straight position, the car still pulls to the left a little bit. I need to test it properly today and will swap the front tyres first before bothering Toyota.

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On 7/6/2021 at 11:16 AM, Catlover said:

The original poster, Megadan, joined TOC last Friday at 8:40pm and last seen Friday at 9:37pm. Wonder how he going on.

And never again 

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