On 18 Nov 2003 00:51:52 GMT, (JFLEISC) wrote:

Customers want two
things; First they want the car to go down the road straight when they take
their hands off the wheel. (don't ask me why the hell they are taking their
hands off the wheel, I couldn't figure that one out).
Jim

It's not that they want to drive with their hands off the steering
wheel Jim, it's that they don't want the car pulling to one side or
the other. I don't like that either. When I find that happening to
my car it drives me to distraction. I don't want to have to hold
constant pressure on the steering wheel to make sure the car is
tracking straight down the road (unless the road is crowned, or there
is a steady side wind).

I used to do alignments too. I remember one guy who came in with a
Datsun 2000Z and was complaining about it pulling to one side. Z
cars, like many Japanese cars and a lot of cars now, don't have any
adjustments for castor or camber. All I could do was adjust toe-in,
and that would not correct for a pulling condition. So I took the car
out on the road to find out if it really was pulling. The wind was
blowing strongly directly out of the west that day and the interstate
heads north and south. The car veered to the left when heading south,
and veered to the right when heading north. It COULD NOT be a
mechanical pulling problem or the car would have veered only one way.

I explained that the high winds were simply blowing his car to one
side. He didn't believe me. I suggested we go for a test drive. He
drove. We went south on the interstate, I told him to let go of the
wheel. Sure enough, it veered left. I pointed out the bending
treetops, which were showing us which way the wind was blowing. We
turned around and headed north. Same thing, let go of the wheel and
the car now veered to the right.

I explained that there was no adjustment I could make to correct for a
pulling condition, that the wind was causing his problem that day.

I still did not believe me. Drove away convinced I was just trying to
avoid doing a good alignment.

Corky Scott