steering trouble

cantdecide

I have an '02 passat tdi 130bhp with 130k on the clock. I recently hit a bad pothole. I had tyres on the car that needed changing. I was worried I'd split a tyre but it was okay. I got the car onto a straight stretch of road and made sure there was no vibration or exceptional pulling to one side or another. The car was driving the same as it always had. Maybe a week later, a mate of mine was kind enough to bring the car to a mate of his for new tyres. I didn’t tag along so I don’t know if anything out of the ordinary came up. I don’t know much about his setup but understand that it has all the required equipment.

The car came back to me with the new budget tyres (I’ll be trying to sell the car soon) and was pulling heavily to the left. I left my mate’s guy alone (!) and took it to my usual tyre place and asked them to track it. They told me it needed a ton of adjustment in the passenger side. I got it onto the road and it was clear that it was still pulling to the left but not as much.

I drove it maybe ten miles and noticed in the slow turns that the steering was very very light. There have been tons of Passats in my family so I know that this was amiss. I drove it for another bit and the steering got very heavy as if the power steering wasn’t working at all. No groans or noises though.

Earlier that day, I'd also checked the power steering level which was okay.

I really can't say how much of the above is related.

Any ideas?? Thanks.

Mr Benevolent

Anything could be wrong but it's obvious your suspension is way out of alignment. In other words something is damaged. You're going to have to get a garage to have a look at it, the track just compensated for it slightly. Get the suspension fixed and get it retracked.

Tenzor07

Bring it back down to the tyre place and get it checked for possible bent tracking arm or drive shaft...

Avns1s

Kinda strange that the pulling to the left appeared with the new tyres.

I have come across tires that are "faulty" and will cause a car to pull one way or the other and not necessarily in budget brands, though it is rare.

Try swopping the tyres from the left side to the right side of the car and see. is it makes a difference. Make sure the tyres aren't the directional type before doing this.

If the problem is with a tyre, now the pulling will be to the right rather than the left.

It could be something in the suspension but it would be unlikely that it would be pulling straight before the tyre fitting if this was the case.

Let us know what you find.

ianobrien

Ah, what's the tyre pressures? Are they correct?

I know that if you overinflate tyres, the steering becomes "lighter" due to the over-inflated tyres having a smaller contact area with the ground