jsimon77

My 07 sport has 3,000 miles on it. Recently I have noticed that it is pulling to the right. I'm finding my self compensating for it almost all the time. I have not hit anything that would knock the car out of alignment and I have also checked tire pressure.

Anybody else notice this? Is this something that my MB warrantee will cover?

AndrewAZ

All Mercedes pull to the right.. Go to a flat parking lot and see if it pulls hard to the right it should only pull a very little, the road is crowned so it makes this pulling more prominent. I was told the reason being is safety more specifically if you were driving down the road at night and feel asleep at the wheel your car would not drift into on coming traffic and you would end up hitting the wake up bumps on the side of the road first before going off.

cyclerider

So do all Mercedes in England pull to the left?

toubia320

My car pulls slightly to the right also, but that is when my hand is off the steering wheel, if i place the slightest bit of pressure it goes straight, your explanation makes perfect sense but i dont like the reasoning behind it, I mean how often do ppl fall asleep on the wheel, enough for every benz to have innacurate alignment?

MARK CUMMINS

Take the car to the Dealer and complain that the vehicle PULLs on Level roads..

Mercedes WILL Do a Alignment under WARRANTY if the car is Less than 12 Months old with LESS Than 12,000 miles...

Double Eagle

You used to be able to get one alignment for free on the early, 2003, W211's and they also installed a bolt kit to make future alignments easier. compolain about it and you should get it done for free with only 3,000 miles.

I have not had a problem with pulling to the right in either of my E-500's. At my last free service, prior to the four year warranty expiration, I had a "Dealer Special" alignment performed for $90 as I had some uneven tire wear. After this, car tracks perfect. You must get a four wheel alignment and not just the front wheels. Good MB dealers all have the proper alignment equipment for this. They even give you a print out of the before and after alignment specs upon completion.

konigstiger

I would suggest that you discuss this matter with the shop foreman and recommend that camber/caster kits be installed under warranty to allow for proper alignment to correct the pulling.

Vik888

If my nearly 13yr old Toyota 4Runner, and nearly 20 year old MB 420SEL can drive straight, I think a W211 should have no problem.

I think dealers just make up that bit about slightly pulling to the right to get out of fixing the problem because so many cars have it.

vettdvr

Correct,, this is the issue. My E500 drives straight as an arrow and requires almost no pressure while driving to keep it straight. Get it fixed. You could have a bad belt in a tire, low tire or caster off in the alignment. Jim

irishstout

Our new 2007 E550 we just bought in July also pulled to the right. We had the dealer check and they had to adjust the alignment. I would definitely bring it up to the dealer and have them drive it with you in the car to validate if they don't find anything wrong with it.

Out dealer here in AZ has been great to work with.

Happy driving!

justforfun

my 08 E350 also pulls slightly to the right. i brought it to the dealer and they refused to correct this safety feature. the shop advisor recommended me to bring my car to any alignment shop and that the alignment shop can take out the safety feature, but not the dealer.

I will go back to them and request for a camber/caster kit to be installed under warranty. Will this kit take off the safety feature and correct the alignment?

j_belll

mines fine. slightly to the right, very slight. not a major issue.

AndrewAZ

I was told this by both a BMW and MB service advisor.. I am probably the most sensitive person to alignment issues, I have had to have my car re aligned when the rear camber was off by a fraction of a degree. But I have access to 2 E350's and both behave the same slight pull to the right but just resting your thumb on the wheel corrects its. My BMW is strait as an arrow and I made that comment to my BMW SA about how BMWs are strait and MB tend to drift and he also told me the same story about falling asleep as the MB SA.

vettdvr

No,, the kit is a mercedes factroy replacement part available at all mb dealers. Therefore there should be no issue. Remember they are aligning to the center of the range and you probably do have a good alignment. But within the range there is room to adjust out the pull / drift to the right with caster. Which ever direction it pulls to , that side will probably need to have the caster set more +. But within factory specs.

If the service rep is telling you it is alligned, it probably is but still needs the castor adjusted. The kit is basically an adjustable bolt that ($35 ea) allows shifting the rear piviot point in the front suspension to allow caster changes. Mercedes caster in NOT adjustable until this kit/bolt is installed which is a factory item. The kit is to allow for some variations in chassy for alignment, and MB knows about this. The dealer however might not really like having all the cars come back to take their time aligning so they could stand behind, "it is within spec they all do that". They might all do that but Mercedes don't have to pull if set properly.

You do have a responsibility to insure the tires are set at correct pressure and at least once rotate front to rear tires to confirm it is not a tire issue before going back to the dealer. Once you have done this you can pretty much assure it is a caster issue.

To get mine to drive straight these and properly aligned these are my #'S:

Left Right

Camber -1.0 -1.0
Cross Camber 0.0
Caster 8.5 9.8 *
Cross Camber -1.2
SAI 3.5 3.7
Cross SAI -0.2
Toe 0.05 0.05
Total Toe 0.1

* NOTE THE RIGHT IS 1.2 more positive than the left. This moves the right wheel a bit more forward to compensater for drift. This is most probably where the drift / pull issue is and CAN NOT be corrected without the kit/bolt from MB.
Didn't list the rear, but it can also cause drift but not as sever as the front.

Hope this information is helpful.

Yacht Master

My W211 is no different, I would say less than one ounce of pressure to maintain a direction, however in the fast/left lane the crown in the road cancels out the pull and the car goes neutral.

Falling asleep is a viable reason to set up alignment this way. The number of single car accidents due to this is quite shocking. Over all 17% to 20% of all drivers have admitted to falling asleep at the wheel.

http://sleepdisorders.about.com/cs/s...wsydrivers.htm

jimm

ABSOLUTELY!

My new ‘08 when brand new did the same thing, bad! Dealer did new
alignment and, it mostly fixed it. In the alignment, they put new pins
of some kind in. Never understood the new pins.

FWIW the mechanic tried to tell me that MB cars come to Fla aligned
for “northern” roads .. “which are sloped differently.” What a crock!

jimm

==========

‘08 E350 Sport, P2, Black/black, Parktronic,
Voice, Bluetooth, Burl Walnut, Split rear seat,
Wood/leather steering wheel

vettdvr

You are correct. The pins are the pin/bolts that allow adjustment of the caster. They had to install these factory parts to adjust the caster and correct the pull/drift. This is the real solution to this issue. But,, your dealer must agree to do the work and remember "they DON'T ALL PULL".

Jim

gl996tt

My 07 E550 pulled right pretty bad if i let go the sterring wheel. Went to Rusnak Mercedes (Arcadia, CA) fixed 3X they said "No problem". They do the alignment and my car still pulled to the right. Supervisor test drove the car said it's fine, not pulling. When i left the dealership the next thing i know is the car pulling to the right again. They never solved the problem for me. Bad service at Rusnak Arcadia.

vettdvr

You are right. Remember they might have it aligned by the numbers but if they don't adjust the caster it will still pull. So they probably did the alignment but the guy didn't know how to set the caster to lead on the pull wheel and be within specs at the same time. Remember some guys are trained on how to use the equipment,, not to understand the dynamics of setting the wheels. I use to do the alignment on my 64 corvette with inclinometers, rullers and boards with markings. So it can be done to drive straight. You will have to find an old shop where someone knows what they are doing and buy the PINs (adjustable bolts) for caster aligment, pay to install the pins then get the alignment set. Best of luck. Too bad good aignment service is really hard to find.

Yosheego

So...what am to do when the dealer tells me that it's the way it should be and they can't do anything about it, and if they do, they can't because of "safety liability"?

vettdvr

Find another shop that can do the alignment. Or go up the food chain and fight the system in Mercedes to make a complaint.

I found a shop that installed the camber kit and did the alignment to solve the problem. Just less stress dealing with a professional shop that specializes in just alignments.

LaicepsYdobon

This is my 4th MB and I've never had any of them pull either left or right. I can take my hands off the wheel and the car will go straight as an arrow. Check with your SA and make sure your tires are up to preassure of both sides. This is definately not normal.

JWBinATL

Have an '08 e350 and it pulled to the right consistently from day one. I ended up taking it back three times before they did the new caster pins/alignment which fixed it perfectly. All along the way I got the excuses of 'road crown' or 'safety feature' or 'normal, they all do it', etc. Somehow the 'normal, they all do it' response did not give me a lot of confidence in my first MB purchase..... It was so bad I had to hold the steering wheel crooked to go in a straight line.

I always came back to them with the response, "Why does my '86 VW Scirocco with 250,000 miles track better that my '08 MB with 500 miles on it?" They had no answer so they just went back to work and finally fixed it. It took them the better part of 5 days to get it correct.

If you keep pushing them, politely of course, they will eventually get the adjustment correct. I think it is one of those things that 90% of drivers never notice so MB takes a chance and saves time/money by not fine tuning each car. Same issue with the large amount of orange peel in the paint, but that is another story.

gnma

sbutton

Got exactly the same problem on my CLK240... with AMG wheels. And I'm pretty sure it did not do this when I originally took it for a test drive before I bought it last month (when it had the original wheels fitted). This leads me to think there's a problem with the wheels, but guess it could be something else.

Originally they swapped the front and rear tyres (I'm in the UK so we don't have tires) and yesterday they did a 4 wheel alignment, but it hasn't helped at all.

and yes, I'm in England and Yes it seems to pull to the left. If I let go of the steering wheel and count 3 seconds I'm heading quite sharply to the left. This can't be right (no pun intended).

Perhaps I can convince them to do the caster adjustment mentioned.

Steve