Car pulling to the side

[sebass]

Guys so my car pulls to the left. Naturally i thought it is alignment so i went to get my alignment done and I was told that my alignment is good and nothing to be done but my issue was diagnosed as 2 front bad tires. Not sure if that is correct diagnosis or not? Thing is tires look fine to me but maybe. Also i had wheel bearing done on right wheel and car pulls the the left. Would wheel bearing have anything to do with pulling to the left side? Just want to make sure that i do not replace the tires and issue still persist. Thank you very much guys

[theholycow]

For the wheel bearing: Jack it up by the control arm and grab the tire top and bottom, trying to rock it...should stay still. Do the same front and back(which checks stuff other than bearings). Also spin it, make sure it spins smoothly and freely (apart from drivetrain friction). It can pass the tests and still be bad but if its fails it's definitely bad.

Could also be a brake issue.

[sebass]

Thank you. I don't have a garage as i live in condo so that's almost impossible for me to check without going to to mechanic. Is it possible that improperly installed wheel bearing would cause it to side?

[theholycow]

Checking the wheel bearings takes less time than changing to your spare tire and uses no tools other than the jack, you could get away with it in a Walmart parking lot. I imagine that if the preload was set far too tight or if the bearing was defective it could cause the problem, but it doesn't seem too likely.

I recently had a used tire mounted and my car started pulling to the side. I switched the front tires (left <-> right) and the pulling went away. That might be worth a try.

[Rusty94cx]

Check that the tires are the same size and same inflation if one is off enough it will pull. And as said flip left to right see if it follow the tire.

[sebass]

I know that one tire has like 3 weighs placed in different places and other one has only one weight. This never looked right to me and looks like someone did hack job at this and it was not done by tire shop, however in past that did not seem to cause any problems. I'll swap the tires first and check. Should i also rebalanced them? Could weight balance on wheel do that possibly? Thank you guys for tips.

[theholycow]

It would be a miracle if both tires had identical weights. I've never seen two tires need identical weight placement. If you don't feel the tire bouncing/vibrating then there's no need to get it balanced.

Also, to clarify just in case, don't get the tires remounted on opposite wheels, just swap sides by bolting the wheels off/on.

[CapriRacer]

The problem could indeed be because of the wheel bearing. It could have caused a tire to wear unevenly - and that would cause a pull.

So try the side to side tire swap to see if the pull completely changes direction. If the pull doesn't change at all, it's 100% the vehicle.

If the pull completely changes direction, then it's 100% the tires. This is something that can only be fixed by replacing tires. No, it's not covered by the tire warranty as it was caused by something else.

If the pull disappears or only changes slightly, then it's both the tires and the vehicle.

[sebass]

What's odd at least for me is that one wheel has 3 weights placed on one wheel and other wheel has one weight placed. To me that looks odd but car does not shake or anything odd like that besides pulling. Thing is car was great until i was trying to get out of tight spot so i was moving the steering wheel while parked to one side then to another side to get out of tight spot. Then right after this stared to happen or could have been coincidental with timing. So i thought i screwed up aligment doing so which wasn't the case.

So i should swap front right wheel to left and left to right. DO Not put rear to front? Isn't that tire rotation thingy? I thought this was suppose to be done anyway every so often? What do you guys thing about those 3 weights on one wheel?

[theholycow]

It is absolutely 100% normal for one wheel to have 3 weights and another to have 1 weight. If they both had 3 I would be surprised. It would take a lot of luck and effort to make them have similar quantities of weights. You'd have to start with brand new wheels and tires, know where the seams/belt overlaps/etc are in the tires, mount them exactly the same relative to the valve stem, and even then you'd still need luck on your side.

Yes, just swap front right wheel to left and left to right. While a complete tire rotation is a scheduled maintenance item, it would not help you diagnose your condition. You need to only swap the front tires. (After driving it like that, a complete rotation may provide further information, but if you do it first then it may only confuse matters.)