Hi All.

 

I have got 97 Outback. One of my front tires causes pulling to a side (if I do not hold steering, I get about 2-3 ft to the left within 100-200 yards). How do i know it is a tire? Wheel alignement is okay and rotating of front wheels caused pulling to other side.

 

I have about 10K on the tires. What to do? Of course, I can buy new tires.

 

Do you think that it would help to move one of the front wheels in the rear? Is this good for transmission?

 

Thank you,

 

Jan

Are all 4 tires a matched set? Same amount of mileage on all of them? Cheapest experiment, of course is switch them around. If you have differing tires, thatmay be the answer.

Did you have the tire rebalanced??

Did you have the tire rebalanced??

 

No I did not since nobody at both BigOTires and Subaru dealership (where they dealt with my problems and did alignement) suggested that this can be a cause of the problem.

 

Jan

Are all 4 tires a matched set? Same amount of mileage on all of them? Cheapest experiment, of course is switch them around. If you have differing tires, thatmay be the answer.

 

same tires , same mileage

No I did not since nobody at both BigOTires and Subaru dealership (where they dealt with my problems and did alignement) suggested that this can be a cause of the problem.

 

Jan

 

If the toe and camber was done appropriately and alignment is on and especially since the problem followed the move of the tires, I would suspect something amiss with the tire that brought the problem with the swap.

You could move the tire to the rear but then you don't know that the rear tire you bring forward is balanced.

$40 to balance all 4 tires and when they are on the machine (or even just balance the one tire that brought the problem along when you moved it), the tech can tell you if you have a bent rim or even a defective tire. Put the 2 best tires/rims on the front and let us know. 10K is too soon to replace a tire unless defective and if it is defective, you should be able to get an adjustment from the seller.

found a defective tire. They have a tendency to put it on the balancer and if it is even it must be fine. This tire was out of round and drove me nuts at speed.

As brues said you have to look for side to side play as in a bent wheel or bad lay up. I know you have checked pressure by now haven't you? That is the most common cause of pulling.

I once found a pulling problem that was caused by two different widths of brand new tire that had just been insstalled by the tire dealer.

Could be both tires pulling the same way too. Tough to track down without rotating one by one to the rear. Often called ply steer or conicity. Take those Michelins back to the dealer and get new ones.

I have had this same problem. What went wrong on mine was the tires had developed a wear pattern by lack of rotation. By switching the front two tires it would change the direction of the pull. I bought new tires and fixed mine.

Also, make sure your tire pressure is matched from one side to the other. If one tire's got a few less pounds of pressure, that can definitely cause a little bit of pull, depending on speed.

Wow sometimes I come on the board and see my exact problem, for me its my 90 legacy and new les schwab tires I also had rear struts replaced and alinement done after 3 weeks of pulling I returned there to have everything checked out alinement was fine. They said it was radial tire steer and put the pulling tire on the back, then no more pull, but when rotation time came around woop there it was again, sucks. I have since put the puller on the opposite side of the car and that had a vast improvement............... I say get the tire dealer to take care of it, thats what I wish I'd done, or live with it for 40,50, 60K miles?