one other point to add.....

There have been countless posts on s2ki about crooked steering wheels, and they've all be slightly to the left, from what I can remember.

Perhaps in a manufacturing thing......

 

Stop taking your car to dealers and go to a good alignment shop. Get the UK alignment. It did wonders for my car.

 

Ok I will be clearer in my description. When I first got the car it always wanted to pull right, so you had to steer to the left to compensate, it would be worse when a second person was in the car, and if it was colder out. After taking it to the selling dealer a few times they replaced the tires and did 2 or 3 alignments on the car and it seemed ok, not perfect but I figured that it was as good as it was going to get. I always checked the tire pressure and yes both were/are at 32 psi. Anyway, a few moths later the car was having issues again, this time though the car actually seemed out of alignment in a classic sense (straight wheel car slowly veers in a direction), so I took it back to the selling dealer again. They did another alignment as well as something else and again the car seemed good enough, or as good as it could get.

As summer (2005, one year later) approached I started driving the car more and sure enough the alignment/steering wheel issue showed up again, so this time I took it to another dealership and paid for an alignment since my 1 year (by 3 days) was up and Honda NA decided not to pay for it. They got it pretty close to perfect (steering wheel was straight, or almost), more so than the other dealer, but it only lasted a few weeks. So, currently when I am driving the wheel is a few degrees off center on every road surface, in any lane. If I line the wheel up perfectly the car quickly drifts to the left, almost like I am pointing it that way, but as I said the wheel is straight.

Now, I don't know if the S2K's handling becomes shitty in the hot whether, but over the last couple days, when I have driven it, it has been very unstable from the front during rapid acceleration or around corners/bends. It is unsettling how unstable the car is, I checked the tires and they do not seem to have any damage to them and the wear looks normal, again I have less than 9K miles on my car, mostly because I am so displeased with it, it makes me sick to think I am stuck with it the way it is.

As for the tires, they are the stock Potenza's that come on the 04 + models. I will check my area for a "real" alignment place, but this isn't Cali, and we don't have the performance places like some of the ones out there. I appreciate everyone

 

Any decent tire shop should be able to do a 'factory spec' alignment on the car. Ask for a printout of all 4 wheels camber- toe- caster and bring it back here and post it. I think you should try to get an experienced S2K driver to drive your car. I know what it's like to have factory problems with a car, and how frustrating it can be trying to explain them, but I'm not sure from your description that there actually is anything wrong with it, other than that you are unhappy with it.
Best of luck to you,
Mike

 

let me ask you this......

when the car goes straight....your steering wheel is crooked? Now when you let go of the wheel, does the car pull in any direction?

If it doesn't, then just get your steering wheel adjusted

 

Are you sure there are no bent suspension/steering components that would prohibit the car from being aligned correctly in the first place? One of my friends, and a member on this site, bought his '02 new only to discover about a year later one of the control arms was bent when he picked it up. Check it out, and good luck.

 

I too had alignment problems. It drove my bf and I crazy because it kept on pulling to the right, and we bought it brand new.

He kept on taking it back to the dealership he worked at (where we also bought the car) and he watched one of tech's he worked with align the car. According to him, a little breeze would set the alignment off. *shrug*

Anyways, try having somenoe you know align it or as other ppl said, maybe there is other things wrong with the car.

 

Apparently, the car here is basically pulling to the right. Mine will too, just a little, if the road is crowned to the right or if there is a hard side wind from the left. But to the same extent, the car does the same things to the left when crown and/or wind are reversed. This means that my car is aligned just fine.

If you get it aligned to where it drives "right" again, make sure you get a print out of the settings. S 2000s actually have a rather broad alingment range of acceptable settings, depending on how you want to drive it. For example, though my car drove straight as possible, my OEM SO2 tires were "shot" at about 9K miles. The rear treads were worn evenly off. The fronts were balding on the inside treads. I found that some permissible factory specs allowed the tires to be set nowhere near "straight ahead" and "straight up and down." I had my settings changed to 4mm. toe on rear, 0 toe in on front and negative camber on front at minus .36. That, coupled with longer wearing tires than SO2's have resulted in my tires looking much like new 10K later. Jim at Tirerack was very helpful in getting a solution for my problem, and perhaps you should contact him.

Now, given my experience that OEM tires are not long wearing on this car, if your car were out of alignment far enough to cause serious pull, the surprise is that you have any tread left at all. This makes me wonder if you possibly have a brake "dragging", and that is much of what is pulling your car to the right.

The advice given above about taking it to a GOOD independent allignment shop that specializes in sports cars and the like is good advice. I have a good dealer who gives good service in my immediate area. No all are this fortunate.

Hope this helps,
Richard

 

Help. I too am having issues with Alignment. The shop I'm working with are wheel / suspension experts that's gain press recognition for the work they do on high performance cars. But you never really know if they're competent or not and they're having to redo it for the fourth time! All I want is for the car to stop pulling to the right. I've checked tire pressure and don't care if the steering wheel is a bit off. I got the car realigned because I was told it's a good idea when mounting a new set of tires (S03's). As it is - I wished I had never opened up this can of worms. The car I love has lost that lovin feelin'. It's horrible - I'm actually depressed about it. It's like if your lovable dog were to all the sudden behave like Kujo or your girlfriend's rear end were to double in size over night!

As of today, my readings are (all degrees):

Front:
Camber: L (-0.6) R (-0.5)
Caster: L (6.0) R (6.0)
Toe: L (0.01) R (0.01)
Total Toe: (0.02)
Steer Ahead: (0.00)

Rear:
Camber: L (-1.6) R (-1.4)
Toe: L (0.29) R(0.29
Total Toe: (0.57)

If you have insight on questions such as: Are all the numbers supposed to match L to R? Is it this tricky to get the alignment set right or are the guys I'm working with Short Buses? My guy tells me that it is very tricky as adjusting camber messes with caster settings... blah blah blah. What are the techniques / technologies available in doing this? I've heard about lasers and optical readers. Are some better then others? Lastly, is this Art or Science? I thought the latter - pay the guy to get the alignment set and be done. Frustratingly not so in my case.

Jim? anyone? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.

 

If you are having trouble with the car and since it has been fixed on numerous occasions, you can have the dealer buy it back or give you a replacement. I think it's called a Lemon Law....if the problem hasn't been fixed, you should have them give another one. I think I remembered this correctly.....not 100% sure. Talk to your dealer, or better yet, stop by don't just call them. They never return your call.