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Any VW people here? (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by venusaur@lemmy.world to c/mechanicadvice@lemmy.world

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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

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[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I don't know about your car specifically, but in general, you align the car, then adjust the steering wheel to square, not the other way around. It sounds like someone aligned the car, but did not adjust the steering wheel. It should never go backwards as the steering wheel position is irrelevant and arbitrary relative to caster, camber, and toe.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, it sounds a bit like this happened. Corrections to the tie rods made the steering wheel straight but may have messed up the actual alignment and the computer is struggling a bit with that.

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

So adjusting the tie rods could have thrown off the camber and such and that’s causing the lane tracking to act funny?

For context, that offset was there before I had adjusted the tie rods and it hasn’t changed. Trying to see how to get it to 0 degrees.

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

How do you mean adjust the steering wheel after the alignment? Isn’t there a fixed range of mechanical motion for the steering wheel? I always thought they center the steering wheel and lock it in place then so the alignment.

[–] 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.