Quote:
Originally Posted by jphughan
Pretty much no car drives perfectly straight when you take your hand completely off the wheel. Part of that is because there are very few locations where the pavement is perfectly level (often by design to allow water to run off to one side rather than collecting in a standing puddle on the road), and of course rough pavement can shake your car around (and cars with wider tires like ours have a tendency to tramline, i.e. follow road imperfections), and lastly there's also a certain amount of play in the steering rack. For example, I've noticed on every car I've ever driven that even if the car DOES track straight when I take my hand off the wheel, the steering wheel is never exactly centered, and if I center it, it goes off on an angle slightly. If you needed an alignment, you'd feel like you had to exert effort to keep the car straight.
I also edited my earlier post about alignments to add a bit more info.
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I guess I'll just end up asking a mechanic about an alignment if I end up getting a second opinion (probably will) and go based on his advice. That isn't the main issue though, my real problem is the $11,000 the dealership wants to charge me for possibly unnecessary repairs
