I finally decided to have my truck run on the rack again. Last year I had a dealer do an "alignment" only to have the tech tell me that "the tires weren't balanced on pressure" and "we didn't have to touch it". So I spent my money for them to tell me my tire pressure wasn't right.

So this round I tried a different dealer and they actually did some work to it, and there was a noticeable change in the handling. However, it still is pulling to one side more than I'd like.

As soon as I felt things weren't "right" I called back in so they had a time record as to when I reported the unsatisfactory service. The manager I worked with was at lunch so I left a message with another one. When I got in touch with the manager/writer that handled my service he gave me the run-down that "the pulling is due to the sloping of the road" - meaning that the highways are graded for water run-off and the slope is also causing the pulling. No matter what lane I was in at the time it had a slight pull to the left. So I finally got through to him that they need to revisit the alignment. I paid almost $300 for the "maintenance" work today, and half of that was for the alignment - it needs to be "right".

That all having been said, I'm 3 states away this weekend and along my travels I paid close attention to the road surface and the steering/handling. There were times that the truck tended to veer to the right slightly. However, the vast majority of the time it would pull left - center and left lanes on the highway. The magnitude at which it pulled was noticeably more, and more often, than it ever went right. That leads me to believe that it is still favoring the left side.

If the numbers I have in my documentation that they adjusted the alignments to are in fact "within spec" and that ends up being the set line I get when I get back to the dealer (appt. set for Tuesday to have them re-visit), is there anything else I can try to go for? Is there any tuning of the alignment that will bring better stability to the steering on the highway? Maybe toe-in slightly to track straighter/with less pull? Are there any specs/values to put to any of the adjustments?

My original thought was just to have the alignment adjusted, however it is done, to favor the right side ever so slightly more to take away some of the left pull, but given that in some, although few, situations the truck still pulls right I am not sure if that would make the situation worse. Therefore, I'm left with the question of tuning the alignment with a bit of toe-in, or if it is already, making it more so, to stabilize the steering.

I'm certainly no expert on alignments, but I know how the truck handles now, has handled before today, and how I think it should handle. I'd like to get to that outcome, how is the question.

 

I believe the overall goal of an alignment is to make sure the tires are all running perfectly parallel to minimize premature wear and unnecessary resistance against itself. Pulling to the left or right may not be a sign of alignment issues. It may be in the steering linkage, control arm, ball joint, rubbing caliper... I'm not expert, but how would additional "toe in" fix your problem and not cause premature tire wear?

When they did the alignment, did they check the steering wheel to ensure it was perfectly straight? I've watched the guys do mine before and completely disregard that tiny step and line the wheels up and then the wheel is still way off center and the truck pulled to one side. Of course the wheels were in line, but the steering linkage was off.

 

If all is "within spec"I would request then to add some caster first. This done by swapping a sleeve that the upper ball joint resides in, but I'm not sure how much that can give you. I just saw someone put a kit together to add more caster in at the radius arm, I'll look and see if I can find it.

 

Here's what I was thinking of. It doesn't list our trucks but I didn't think Ford made any changes, but double check me on that.
BD Power - Product: Cam Caster Adjuster Kit

 

Could you be chasing the famous radial tire pull. Swap frt tires side to side and see if it changes your pull. Usually thats the 1st thing I did.

 

Absent a tire rotation if the shop doesn't seem to think there is an issue I'd try a truck repair shop that deals with the medium duty trucks.

That is where I do my alignments. For one they have the larger racks to get the truck completely on the rack.

 

Just for reference, I rotate my tires every 5k (same time I do oil changes). The tire wear seems to be decent - original tires and they still have tread left (this was the 50k interval, at 51k now).

The service dept. is equipped for big trucks - they have a whole separate building for them/equipment.

 

Do you have the stock steering stabilizer or a gas-charged aftermarket unit?

As the weather here in Michigan began to get cold, my truck started pulling to the left. In addition, the steering was starting to feel a bit light. More like a '65 Pontiac Catalina than today's stiffer feeling steering. Several thousand miles before I noticed this, I had proactively replaced the stock stabilizer with a Bilstien 5100 because of all the bad things I had read on FTE about the stock one. I had also noticed some instability on bumpy sweepers in where I had never experienced a problem before.

Bottom line is that I replaced the 5100 stabilizer with the stock one and it was like I got a new truck! I don't know how I put up with that for as long as I did.

 

Steering stabilizer is the stock one. I have the rancho 9000 series shocks, but never changed the steering stabilizer.

I think the pulling left started a couple years ago when I was in MN - stopped at the store on my way to Canada and drove over a curb, not fast just navigating the parking lot. Just trying to get it back to normal. Its a lot better now, but just not "there" yet.

 

If this all started after a curb hit perhaps your looking at something tweaked. Track bar is my first thought. I personally bent a radius arm bracket on my old '87 F-150 when I skidded into a curb, caused a pull that could not be seen by the alignment rack.

 

Took the truck back this morning and went for a ride. That was pretty much wasted time. I wasn't on a long stretch of road that was straight enough to put much of a perspective. What I kept getting from the tech and manager is the roads crest on the right lane (3 lanes), and the left 2 are sloped. I don't entirely buy that. It may be a factor, but I was out of state last weekend and the amount of pull to the left was a greater amount, quite easily noticeable, than it ever was straight or drifted right.

They offered to rotate the front tires side to side in addition to the work that was previously done to see if there was any bias in the tires. So far I have yet to see any change in handling since then, but I haven't been on any different roads so just comparing to those I have driven on there appears to be no change in performance.

 

I had a brand new 08 Cummins that I put a new set of toyo m/t's on and it did exactly as you describe. Truck drove fine on original tires but the new ones pulled so hard,3 alignments later and swapping tires around didn't change it. I had the tire shop swap out the m/t for a/t and truck drove perfect again. I know you are on original tires but I just wanted to share that tires can cause this. Good luck sorting it out because it is definitely frustrating.