Pulls to the Right

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

rcpalmer78

rcpalmer78

10 Year 15 Year
Joined
Dec 1, 2010
Threads
15
Messages
108
Location
East AL
So I decided to swap my 2014 out for a 2016. Navy with terra, 60 miles. Great looking truck. Got it for dealer cost - hold back and all. Got what I wanted for my truck. Put on my 34" Toyo MTs from the 2014 as part of the deal. Did fine on the way home from TN. Local dealer put on front end leveling spacer last week and did alignment. Now pulls hard to the right. They redid alignment, rotated and balanced tires. Still pulls hard right. They are now saying I may need new tires. Next step is to try the tires and rims off a local 2013 TLC trade to see if it does the same. If so, they are going to say swap out tires. I call BS - Toyos have 5k miles and did fine on my 2014. Only difference is they are on 2016 rims. If they tell me I need new tires I'm going to ask for my money back on the spacers and labor and go ahead and get a lift at a 3rd party shop. Any thoughts?
Thank you,
RCP
 
Last edited:
My 08 has pulled to the right for 8 years... works great after an alignment for a few days --- then right back to pulling ...

I am about to put some Old Man EMU shocks and control arms on ... Maybe that will help...

Love my truck - but damn that annoys me :-)
 
I just drove my 08 for nearly 6000 miles in a month...including 4 days beating it up in Ouray and Moab. After Moab...drove the final hundreds of miles home on the highway...no pulling.

Not all alignment shops are created equal. In my experience, its more common to get an improper alignment than proper--until you find a good shop.
 
Update - they realigned it with the stock tires from the 2013 on the lot. Said it drove well. They then put my MTs back on; it's about 75% better. Like Markuson said, not all alignments are created equal. Didn't charge me anything for 5 hrs work. Kudos to those guys since it's my local dealership and didn't buy it from them. Appreciate the input; hope this helps somebody else.
RCP
 
if your truck is lifted by more than 40mm you will need aftermarket UCAs to get back to correct geometry,particularly caster runs out of tolerance. There's no way of making it back into correct alignment no matter what any alignment shop tells you unless you upgrade. Wandering , floating and pulling to the side are common symptoms of a lack of positive caster.
 
Billfish said:
if your truck is lifted by more than 40mm you will need aftermarket UCAs to get back to correct geometry,particularly caster runs out of tolerance. There's no way of making it back into correct alignment no matter what any alignment shop tells you unless you upgrade. Wandering , floating and pulling to the side are common symptoms of a lack of positive caster.
Click to expand...
I just have the 3/4" spacer. Tires do come out to 34". Does that count as enough lift to need new UCAs? Happy to do it if it helps. I didn't have this problem on the 2014 with the same setup.
 
numbers[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]
CoffeeGeek said:
What's your castor numbers? Smaller on the right by chance?
Click to expand...
Not great with suspension. Is this what you are talking about? Toward the front they are the same. These are the rearward two. First is passenger. Next is driver.
Thank you!

image.webp


image.webp
 
rcpalmer78 said:
I just have the 3/4" spacer. Tires do come out to 34". Does that count as enough lift to need new UCAs? Happy to do it if it helps. I didn't have this problem on the 2014 with the same setup.
Click to expand...
I put TRD Pro shocks on my Tundra that Brian sold me. My castor is still low on right side causing a right side pull even after I got a second high dollar alignment at a suspension amd spriing shop, where we got the most we could out of the riht and reduced castor on left side. Although I either have to have shop reduce castor further on left or add upper comtrol arms to get a better alignme t. I have a feeling the additional lift I added to he rear to keep rake has reduced castor to an extent that it is too loose for my liking.
 
rcpalmer78 said:
numbers
Click to expand...
[/QUOTE]

Not great with suspension. Is this what you are talking about? Toward the front they are the same. These are the rearward two. First is passenger. Next is driver.
Thank you!

View attachment 1340026

View attachment 1340028[/QUOTE]

Did you get an alignment after installing the spacers? Do you have a copy of the alignmet report? You are almost dead center on those alignment cams. I would expect some adjustment in them with a lift to get proper alignment. In my case I am fully adjusted on passenger side to get the +1.7 castor I have.
 
No printout. They put the spacers on, did an alignment and sent me home. I couldn't take it after a week. Brought it back. New alignment. Rotated and rebalanced tires. Still pulled to the right. They then did an alignment with original dunlops off a 2013 and it apparently did well. They left that alignment and put my 34" MTs on. It's better but not perfect. Makes no sense to me though.
 
The problem with most alignment shops is they use digital means, and do not really know how the cams work on the lower control arms. Also, to safely adjust the cams, weight needs to be unloaded from the respective coil for the tire you want to adjust. The cam tabs are only held to the frame with two TAC welds, don't really want to torque 150+ lbs with half a 200 weight on that. Then after adjustment, the truck would need to be rolled of the rack, suspensions jounced, placed back on the rack, and alignment tools reattached.

No make money quick shop is going to do that, combined with you are not going to have a certified mechanic or even a guy who understands the theory of caster and camber in relation to the cams playing under your truck. So I always recommend finding a semi frame shop, those guys usually do the old way, measuring bars and marking paint to get alignments right.

So if you have a pull to the right, and you know its related to alignment and not a component dragging. Then check your camber, between the two front tires, if you're pulling to the right, add more camber to the right side, and reduce camber on the left side. You do that by looking at the cams and rotating them to push the wheel out to add camber, or rotating them both in the reduce camber. (I'm not going to get into caster as despite what most people thing, is not as important as camber)

When I bought my '11 I did not have my alignment tools with me and had a 1,000 mile trip to get home, took it to Toyota, it was within specs. It pulled to the right bad. When I got home, I checked my alignment, and it was so out of spec that I called that Toyota just wanted the service manage to know he needs to retrain his guys (I'm sure he didn't care though).

I'm not home right now but I think I'm going write up an alignment how to with pictures for everyone. Alignment are really easy, no reason to waste money on bad ones.
 
Last edited:
Taco2Cruiser said:
T

I'm not home right now but I think I'm going write up an alignment how to with pictures for everyone. Alignment are really easy, no reason to waste money on bad ones.
Click to expand...

Man, a write-up like that would be so appreciated, Taco. -Not because I'm prepared to do alignments myself, but because the level of confusion over this is so high--including in my own brain. I'd love to see that from you...especially because I think you could manage to explain in terms we could all have a shot at grasping. -Maybe even me! ;)
 
Last edited:
Initially my 13 required constant attention to the steering inputs and did not track well. I maximized castor within the factory specs. It is worth noting that the right side was the limiting feature. It would simply not match the range of adjustment on the left side. The truck is now 'pretty good' on tracking and I put this down to some kind of bias in the way the truck was built. Tolerance stacking or some such. I do not get any pull under acceleration or braking. I am stock except for 33s.
 
chilibit said:
Initially my 13 required constant attention to the steering inputs and did not track well. I maximized castor within the factory specs. It is worth noting that the right side was the limiting feature. It would simply not match the range of adjustment on the left side. The truck is now 'pretty good' on tracking and I put this down to some kind of bias in the way the truck was built. Tolerance stacking or some such. I do not get any pull under acceleration or braking. I am stock except for 33s.
Click to expand...

Perhaps all should upgrade to SPC upper control arms (or similar)--whether lifting of not...?
 
Last edited:
Don't mean to renew an old thread, but after changing my tires my stock 2016 is pulling to the right very very slightly. Just enough where I have to constantly pull to the left a tad bit while driving on road trips. This started after I recently switched out all 4 tires to E-rated 275/70/18 KO2's. Well, I then decided to downgrade because of the rough ride down to the C-rated 285/60/18 KO2's in stock tire size. After returning to stock size, the pull to the right is still there. I took the LC in to Toyota dealership (notoriously bad about everything) for an oil change and alignment. They worked on it and drove it, then said everything is within 0.01 of where it should be, they asked if it was pulling to the right just a tiny bit, I said yes, they said it's a safety feature so if I fall asleep or something the vehicle pulls to the right off the road. One other person in the office agreed, I was surprised as I hadn't heard of it, but let it go as something new I learned. Is this true? I haven't been able to find *anything* confirming this online. In addition, I don't recall this being a thing on my vehicle until after I changed the tires.
 
LALC said:
Don't mean to renew an old thread, but after changing my tires my stock 2016 is pulling to the right very very slightly. Just enough where I have to constantly pull to the left a tad bit while driving on road trips. This started after I recently switched out all 4 tires to E-rated 275/70/18 KO2's. Well, I then decided to downgrade because of the rough ride down to the C-rated 285/60/18 KO2's in stock tire size. After returning to stock size, the pull to the right is still there. I took the LC in to Toyota dealership (notoriously bad about everything) for an oil change and alignment. They worked on it and drove it, then said everything is within 0.01 of where it should be, they asked if it was pulling to the right just a tiny bit, I said yes, they said it's a safety feature so if I fall asleep or something the vehicle pulls to the right off the road. One other person in the office agreed, I was surprised as I hadn't heard of it, but let it go as something new I learned. Is this true? I haven't been able to find *anything* confirming this online. In addition, I don't recall this being a thing on my vehicle until after I changed the tires.
Click to expand...
Sadley no, that’s an old “stop bothering me” line. There is a difference between a strait driving truck on a road that has a slight lean to the right (road crown) that slowly drifts the vehicle; and that of a truck that just constantly pulls to the right.

Would you mind posting your current alignment specs?
 
LALC said:
Don't mean to renew an old thread, but after changing my tires my stock 2016 is pulling to the right very very slightly. Just enough where I have to constantly pull to the left a tad bit while driving on road trips. This started after I recently switched out all 4 tires to E-rated 275/70/18 KO2's. Well, I then decided to downgrade because of the rough ride down to the C-rated 285/60/18 KO2's in stock tire size. After returning to stock size, the pull to the right is still there. I took the LC in to Toyota dealership (notoriously bad about everything) for an oil change and alignment. They worked on it and drove it, then said everything is within 0.01 of where it should be, they asked if it was pulling to the right just a tiny bit, I said yes, they said it's a safety feature so if I fall asleep or something the vehicle pulls to the right off the road. One other person in the office agreed, I was surprised as I hadn't heard of it, but let it go as something new I learned. Is this true? I haven't been able to find *anything* confirming this online. In addition, I don't recall this being a thing on my vehicle until after I changed the tires.
Click to expand...

Wow. That line your Toyota guy concocted really takes the cake... Pulls to the right to protect if you fall asleep?? That is such a blatant falsehood that I’d be tempted to mail the quote to the dealership owner as an example of why he won’t get your continued business. Such a pet peeve—when service guys just flat out make stuff up...
 
I would have laughed hysterically right there in front of them, what a crock. Then I would have asked for written proof, something in the Toyota tech docs that says this. When they failed to produce anything, tell them "now go fix it the right way like I paid for".

Sheesh...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom