Alignment goes out within weeks on Protege5

[findoe]

Hi guys

Im hoping someone can shed some light on this dilemma.

SO..a couple of months ago I notice that my car tends to ever so slightly pull to the right, on the freeway, on surface streets, etc, leading the steering wheel (of course) to not be completely straight when traveling in a straight line.

immediatly I think, hmm, must have hit a major pothole, or something and the car needs to be aligned. I wait a little too long to do anything about it (its the busy season for me), look at my 8-9 mo old tires one day, and am horrified to find that one tire (the passenger front side tire) is way more worn than the other side! On a side bar here I feel I should mension that I got the car aligned when I had these new tires put on.

So, I say, oh well I really should have taken care of that immediatly, I guess Ill just eat the cost of putting new rubber on the thing, get it aligned and be done with it. And admittedly I think some of it is my own doing, seeing as I live in a twisty canyon road and have probablly been hitting those curves with more than nessicary speed

so I get a 4 wheel alignment done 2 weeks ago. Get the car out, steers perfectly straight, fine. Now, 2 weeks later, the car is doing the exact same thing! steering wheel is tilted to the left *slightly*, car wants to veer right slightly if you were to let go of the steering wheel.

Can anyone tell me what may be causing this to happen? Or what kind of things I should investigate or have checked out to see what the culprit is? Should I consider more dubious causes, like the body being f-ed up, bent wheels, twaked suspension, etc??

some additional info - I bought the car with 22k miles on it, as far as I know everything is straight, no accidents, however I do have aftermarket wheels on there (from the prev. owner), Rota Sub-Zeros, 17". They look OK (some scratches, etc.) and I cant tell anything wrong w/ them by looking with my admitidly untrained eye. Is it worth thinking about any correlation here if the alignment does seem to 'fix' the problem, if only for 2 weeks?

The only wierd thing that has happened w/ the car is both rear wheel bearings (both sides) went bad for no apparent reason, at about 35k. fixed under warrenty.

p.s. the car is still under warrenty for another 6 months or so, so if its something thats mazda's fault, I need to get that goin

many thanx for any help in this matter,

/S

 

[AznXstazy]

ya, i also would like to no mine does the same thing too....

 

[justanotheradikt]

same here...wore my tires down pretty quick....brand new ones dammit!

 

[lcruz64]

Check you tire's air preasure that happens to me a lot because of the air.

 

[justanotheradikt]

i check my pressures every few days... if you lose pressure a lot im thinking you have a leak somewhere?

 

[pro00]

that is normal too. That is how my car behaves too. I think, (not to sure), but i believe there was a major discussion here about this pull to the left. I think it is normal for the car.

 

[apexlater]

Cars will follow the crown of the road. That is why the car will/should pull to the right. If your steering wheel is turned right (off center), then you have too much toe in on the driver's side or too much toe out on the passenger side. Get a print out of your alignment next time. Verify the before alignment and post alignment to make sure they did it correctly.

This will also affect your tire wear, along with what was mentioned about tire pressure. The lower pressure will cause the car to pull to that side as well. Make sure that they tighten the nut on the tie rod that adjusts toe, if not, your alignment will go wonky.

If the alignment print outs show that the total toe is even, then you may want to also look at your camber and possibly bent suspension bits.

 

[Iceman112k3]

IMO it's because most road surfaces are slanted to the right slightly, especially highways. If the wear pattern was that bad then somethign else is going on (agressive driving in turns or another problem entirely)

 

[findoe]

Cars will follow the crown of the road. That is why the car will/should pull to the right. If your steering wheel is turned right (off center), then you have too much toe in on the driver's side or too much toe out on the passenger side. Get a print out of your alignment next time. Verify the before alignment and post alignment to make sure they did it correctly.

This will also affect your tire wear, along with what was mentioned about tire pressure. The lower pressure will cause the car to pull to that side as well. Make sure that they tighten the nut on the tie rod that adjusts toe, if not, your alignment will go wonky.

If the alignment print outs show that the total toe is even, then you may want to also look at your camber and possibly bent suspension bits.

I understand the road's tendancy to make your car veer to the right, This aint that. it does the same thing on roads that are (seemingly) 100% flat and unbiased to any direction.

moreover though if this was the only problem I would just get the alignment done, which I did. the other concern is that it was fine for like a week and a half and now appears to be doing the exact same thing.

Some others mensioned this is a common issue with these cars? Ill definatly have to do some more scouring of these boards. It personally doesnt really bother me, as long as it isnt chewing up my tires every 9 months!!

I guess I just want to make sure this isnt a symptom of a greater problem.

thanx everyone

/s