Do you have a jack? The car has one.. Jack up the front driver's corner.
1) Turn the wheel. It should rotate easily and not make any grinding or clicking noises. You should hear only the "ssshhh" sound of the brake pads sliding lightly against the rotor.
2) Grab the wheel by the top and the bottom and tug the top towards and away from yourself. See if there is any play. There should be no play.
3) Grab the wheel by front and rear sides and turn it in and out, like you were steering. There should be no play (since the other wheel is on the ground).
If in doubt, compare to your passenger's side.
Most likely, if it's your tie rod, then test #3 will result in play. You should visibly see play in the tie rod end. Another thing you can try is grab the tie rod end and push the joint up and down, and see if it has any play. There should be no play.
Where did you get an alignment? Many places don't do a great alignment. Has the car ever pulled before? Try driving on the same exact side of the road, where you experience pull, in opposite directions. See if the pull direction changes. If the pull direction changes, then it's just the road crown. The steering on the Protege is very sensitive.
Best wishes Jeff!
I got the lifetime alignment deal from firestone. before the ms3 wheels, i would only pull when i was on the gas (stock wheels). when the ms3s went on it would pull kinda bad to the left and after the alignment it was the same deal, i dont think they actually did anything. Im going to have them redo it this weekend though, but ill check my tierod by the methods you listed. if they give me another bad alignment though im going to demand my money back.
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- 92 & 16 Meyatas
+1
morning ya'll...i've been driving the p5 to work the last few days...i loved the car, but it's no msm...anway, had this really bad dip in the idle coming off the throttle at almost any speed...had a check engine light come on last night on the drive home P0140 egr insuffient flow...time to clean her out i guess....i reset the pcm...good to go! no more dip idles great coming off the gas...back in business once again! now to get my sticka!
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Doh.
Drove the Kanc highway yesterday afternoon. Very nice, but did see some snow on the side of the road at higher elevations. Little cool with the top down but still a ton of fun. Little slipping on the edge of the road where it was wet and partially freezing in some corners.
Pulling the bumpers off today and taking the intake to get it PCed. Car will be down till tomorrow night.
/RX-8Chick
Member
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- Winning Blue RX-8 MT and Aquatic Blue Mica 2 MT
Morning.. Man I can't wait till the weekend.. this week has draaaagged for me.
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- 96 Miata M-Edition, 2015 Mazda 3 Hatch
well today has sucked ass so far.
had to jump the forester with the miata (not easily done) because I'm a putz and left an interior light on overnight.
I have to work out of the farmington office today, so it took me almost two goddamned hours to get there.
had to jump the forester with the miata (not easily done) because I'm a putz and left an interior light on overnight.
I have to work out of the farmington office today, so it took me almost two goddamned hours to get there.
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- 92 & 16 Meyatas
feel you pain dude! my daily commute is often 3+hrs (in and out) have a better day sean!
/RX-8Chick
Member
- :
- Winning Blue RX-8 MT and Aquatic Blue Mica 2 MT
I'm in the process of turning into summer mode (lots of mods and new wheels) and it's going to have to sit until spring! It's going to kill me!
Tautochrone
Member
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- 2004 Mazda rx8
At least today put out...
Hey I just took mine off too because the inspection station was giving me a hard time about it.. how did you end up getting it off? I just peeled it off and it seemed to work fine. When I was using some heat (from a hair dryer) it started to leave glue residue so I just peeled it off and everything came off okay.
Could be worse... you're in the same part of the world as your car... Haha.
If the behavior changed when you changed tires, it's possible that you may have bad/uneven treadwear, which causes pulling. The way to verify would be to slap on a set of P5 wheels/tires that you know are good and take her for a spin. You can also rotate front to back and see if the behavior changes.
In my experience, on Marc's RX-8 and my Miata, if there is uneven treadwear, then on gas car pulls one way and off gas car pulls the other.
