Last year I installed new shocks/struts assembly, new inner/outer tie rods, new sway-bar links, got an alignment and it's been pulling to the left after that. I've had an alignment 4 times since and it hasn't fixed the issue. Yesterday I installed adjustable camber bolts and got an alignment, still the same thing pulling left. Tires have been ruled out as its never pulled before the new shocks, and I've also rotated them and its still pulled left. Anyone have experience with similar issue and what was your culprit? All I could think now is maybe one of the shock assembly was bad, or maybe the brakes are sticking, or maybe one of the bushings or joints are bad. It's a 2012 plug-in with 159k miles. Let me know if you had similar issue and what common culprits are for 3rd gen.
And you're in California I would think you can find a real alignment shop old school alignment shop in California with no problem I don't know where in California you are that might help you in the LA area up in thousand oaks Mulholland drive area so on yeah you should be able to get that nipped in the bud pretty quick I'd love to know what Toyota's going to tell me as a tech when I call the regional service office that's a good one All of these things that are in this chart is what my old alignment guy generally would do He was from the '50s and he knew all of these procedures for this alignment business moving the tires around the shaving tread where necessary which for street cars is not a thing All of that stuff He had a Deb's dyno tune set up in his shop. We had two gen three's and an alignment and issues of any of that was never a thing basically a Corolla suspension if you will I I can't even imagine I've owned Corollas most of my adult life and have never had any kind of an issue like this with any of those Corolla models with similar front suspensions or Yaris so maybe the car was in an accident at some point in its life and something is not straight again a good alignment guy will be able to generally look at the car not Sears or Firestone now that's where there may be the problem mavic tire all that kind of stuff yeah you just messing with franchises that know how to use equipment with algorithms That's where it ends.
Lube the brake caliper pins. If it pulls left, lube the left side brake pins. Happened to mine, did the pin lubes before any alignment or Calibration.
Mine pulled to the right. I did try to change the camber with the special bolts, but made no difference, maybe I didn' t change the inclination enough. The left wheelbase was 2 mm longer than the right one, I loosen the rear beam bolts and with a combination of levers and tension streps between frame and beam I was able to reverse it. After that it was still pulling, but lesser. I decreased the caster of the left wheel by loosing the strut nuts, lowering the strut, filing the frame holes to the front, and moving the strut to the front, by a few mm. In general the car will pull to the side with least positive caster. The advantage of changing caster other than camber is that it will not affect the tire wear.
I think we're getting the use of caster and camber and toe a little mixed up. And that's just fine because it's kind of hard to understand so maybe read up some more understand a little better yeah there's all kinds of tricks he's people can do You can drill and slot holes and alter camber at the top of the strut at the bearing or top plate housing You can have pillow mounts up there to adjust camber You can have crash bolts down in the steering hub knuckle assembly that swing your wheel out at the bottom and at the top vice versa to adjust camber there and so on suspension geometry on the front end of a car is somewhat difficult to grasp It's tricky again all this stuff today is done with algorithms and very little tooling back in the old days it was done with more tooling and no algorithms just a little bit different but the front end of the car hasn't really changed much other than some of these newer types of pieces that can self-adjust and electronically adjust and so on but you were not going to find those on a Prius just yet this is basically a Corolla suspension and Corollas have been going straight down the road for 50 years now without any problems so you're Prius should be able to do the same with most of the same antics used on Corollas and Yaris so having everything move freely and not be sticking and all of that goes a long way slide pins guide pins wheel bearings all of it. I've bashed into things in my work Prius haven't had an alignment in years It's still drive straight as an arrow You can let go of the steering wheel so there's always that so I'm not sure what's happening to this particular front end But I'm sure it's quite reasonable and easily dealt with when you find the right person that knows how to really do front end work and really solve problems which may be a little more difficult now.
Finally found the culprit. Replaced my brake pads this morning and one of the sliding pins were seized. Rusted inside with no grease in sight. Cleaned it up real good with a wire brush and loaded with grease, no more pulling
