Steering Wheel Cockeyed / Bad Alignment / New Tires back / Old Tires Front

My steering wheel is cockeyed and the traction control comes on very prematurely. I'm not sure if I got a bad alignment, or if because I have fresh rear tires but not a lot of tread depth on my fronts, or the combination that is causing these problems. Here are the details:

I just had some sidewall damage to one of my rear tires. I got the replacement tire for free on the road hazard warranty and bought a matching tire for the other side of the rear so they'd both have the same tread depth. I just had these installed and also had a 4 wheel alignment done. The front tires have seen better days and by my inaccurate eyeballing they probably have roughly 5/32" tread depth.

When I got the car back the steering wheel is now cockeyed when the car is traveling straight. It leans toward the left (leaning to the counter clockwise direction if that makes sense) by a few degrees. In other words instead of the top center being aligned at 12 o'clock its aligned at 11:57. The car feels a little floaty and when I'm going on an on or off ramp (right hand curves) at a decent speed but nothing even close to the limits of the car's grip the traction control cycles on and off. I'm not sure if I'd have the same symptoms on a left hander as I have been on a road with a fairly sharp left hand curve yet.

I took the car back to have the alignment redone and on the second time they did say they didn't get it right the first time. When I got it back the second time, they told me now all parameters are in spec. But its still doing the same thing as described above. I did specifically ask the shop if they were using the most recent alignment parameters accounting for the tire feathering TSB and they said their machine just downloaded the most recent specs 2 months ago. Results of the 2nd alignment are attached.

So I'm thinking the alignment is still bad and if they screwed up the first time then they also screwed up the second time. This is at Firestone mind you but I have lifetime free alignments so I'll deal with their less than stellar work. The steering wheel is cockeyed so it leads me to believe the alignment is still off and is probably giving the steering angle sensor bad data and making the TCS system go haywire. Or it could be that the rear tires have fresh tread but the fronts have less than half their life yet and the slightly different tire diameters are confusing the TCS system.

My next plan is to go back and get it re-aligned again. And if I have to I'll buy new front tires prematurely. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

 

Your steering wheel should NEVER be off center when you get it back from alignment. Bring it back, Good luck.

 

When the front end is aligned the mechanic should straighten the steering wheel. Its easy. Look at the linkage.

 

There a difference between steering wheel being straight and the linkage at steering rack. You should be able to center the wheel without touching the rack using aligment adjustments only. However, if the steering shaft has been pulled and not properly replaced, (I had this happen), then wheel be off center and will throw a VDC light ( if off enough). You need to pull the shaft and center in that case. My wheel is still a tad off center (car drives perfectly straight), but not enough to trip VDC.
It's a ***** to center the shaft exact once pulled. You really need to mark (index) the shaft BEFORE pulling it out.

 

7 days and no reply. This is the new my350Z.com norm. Dead end gonnaget threads. Please help with no followup. 17 year olds planning to slap on a turbo without a dime to their name.