Wheel Alignment

[No457 Snowy]

Well, I can't say if that theory is correct or not but I've had my car from brand new and I honestly don't remember it doing that in any noticable way.

I checked out the Alignment section in my VW Repair Manual and it mentions that certain tracking problems can be corrected by slightly adjusting/moving the sub-frame. This isn't something your run-of-the-mill alignment place is going to attempt (they probably wouldn't even know about it). But it can be used to correct side to side Camber differences and also make minor Caster changes, either of which could be causing tracking problems.

Maybe it's something worth mentioning to them.


Snowy.

[D3bb4]

They usually do set cars so that they'll stay fairly straight on roads that aren't flat (as most roads are not) - but suspension places set that up, not the factories in Germany And it shouldnt heavily impact on the car driving in a straight line.

From experience with local pedders... i find they like to talk through their hats sometimes. And give bloody expensive quotes. That said, yours is obviously a different one.

[dubbed]

Hmm well tis all not very reassuring..

As for my girlfriend taking the car in, I don't think it made a difference (I hope) to what they were saying because she spoke to the guy who I usually deal with and mentioned it was my car etc etc. But who knows? Maybe they don't know their European cars too well... I will have to take it to a specialist in future.

I will show you the results of the alignment later and see if anyone can pick up anything odd. Nothing stood out as strange to me but I'm no alignment expert.

[brad]

Now as for the car pulling left... The story is that Golfs don't have much in the way of customising the alignment (camber/castor) which I am led to believe anyway. The reason for pulling to the left is that because Germans drive on the right side of the road, these cars are built to allow for the slight angle roads are made with - a slight slope from the centre and outwards / | \. So obviously in Germany cars slightly lean to the right side of the road. To compensate they have designed cars to ever so slightly pull to the left so you don't fight the wheel. In Australia we drive on the opposite side and would require the opposite to compensate for the tilt in our roads going the other side. His theory is that because I have new tyres I notice the pull a lot more due to the extra grip (that and they're fairly wide).

It makes sense to me, but I don't see why they would export hundreds of thousands of VWs for countries who drive on the left hand side of the road and not compensate for this. That and the fact no one here mentioned this new ideolgy to me!
.

Biggest load of bollocks I've heard in a while.
The above is true of a lot of US based cars (back in the '80s) such as f100 utes because the Yanks didn't look beyond their own market and most of the cars had been converted from LHD to RHD.
As for VWs - they make enough market specific vehicles to set them up properly in manufacture. The aligner hasn't a clue.

[dubbed]

Biggest load of bollocks I've heard in a while.
The above is true of a lot of US based cars (back in the '80s) such as f100 utes because the Yanks didn't look beyond their own market and most of the cars had been converted from LHD to RHD.
As for VWs - they make enough market specific vehicles to set them up properly in manufacture. The aligner hasn't a clue.

Exactly my thoughts

Um on the plus I can highly recommend these guys to align your run of the mill Falcon lol

[DIDZ]

Biggest load of bollocks I've heard in a while.
The above is true of a lot of US based cars (back in the '80s) such as f100 utes because the Yanks didn't look beyond their own market and most of the cars had been converted from LHD to RHD.
As for VWs - they make enough market specific vehicles to set them up properly in manufacture. The aligner hasn't a clue.

I've been given this garbage by several shops. I love how they just look to adjust the toe only.

I should post up printouts of wheel alignments I've done........

[D3bb4]

I've been given this garbage by several shops. I love how they just look to adjust the toe only.

I should post up printouts of wheel alignments I've done........

and recommend better places in sydney to go to