this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2025
9 points (100.0% liked)

Mechanic Advice

453 readers
1 users here now

This community is for getting help with vehicle or other mechanical problems.

Remember, there are no stupid questions, we want everyone to feel welcome. If you don't want to answer a question that you think is silly, then just move on and keep it to yourself.

Rules:

  1. Don't be a dick

That is all.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

2019 VW Atlas SEL

Alignment has been off since I bought the car used. Dealership had to replace the steering rack for something unrelated and I told them to make sure the alignment is right. It was not. Maybe in their machine it is, but the wheel was not centered when driving straight. I looked at the live data in OBDEleven and there was an offset for mechanical center and straight line (see screenshots).

I adjusted the tie rods of each wheel equally so it would drive straight when steering wheel centered and ran the steering angle sensor basic setting in OBDEleven. I now notice that the dynamic lane assist (the alternate setting to stay in middle of lane) always veers to the right first and then centers. Also, the sensor offset is still there.

Is there something else I need to do to get rid of the offset? Something with ABS control unit?

EDIT: some additional live data

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I do not know how many modern systems work, like drive by wire stuff. With old cars, you either loosened a clamp near where the steering shaft enters the rack or steering box. Or, you physically pull the steering wheel from the shaft splines, and reinstall it in the correct orientation. This is the last step of the alignment process.

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

So for this car there is assisted steering but it’s a mechanical steering system. There is an angle sensor setting that you can run to calibrate it to center by turning the wheel all the way left and all the way right, and when I run that it reads 0 degrees with the wheel centered, so that tells me the steering wheel is centered and the alignment was off. The steering angle sensor was reading 0 maybe that 5 degrees to the left before I ran the calibration so I’m wondering if they just let the car center the wheel at that incorrect 0 and then they did the alignment without seeing that it wasn’t actually centered.