CLK meanders to the left ???

[rf065]

My CLK & 2 previous non MB cars have all pulled to the left. The only thing they all had in common was wide, low profile tyres. Any time the tracking was checked it was found to be OK on all of them. Previous cars with small width tyres have not suffered. In fact, on one car, which drove OK, I swapped wheels and tyres with a mates, his were larger width wheels and tyres, instantly the car tramlined all over the road and constantly had to be steered to stay in a straight line. Needless to say, I put my original wheels and tyres back on straight away. I think modern tyres and how they react to road camber are more of the cause than tracking.

Russ

 

[ambiente]

have had two lots of 4 wheel allignment at the same place all within 4 months with about 1200 miles difference.On two different machines with two different people with totally different readouts ,but both costing £80 a time ,and the usual 2 new tyres each time and it still pulls left even on motorway.

 

[Rory]

I'm glad I decided to leave mine alone!

 

[grpar]

I sought help here a couple of years back when my C-class drifted to the left. Merc did the revised suspension bolt "fix", which forces the wheels to align to the right. It meant the car tracked straight, but the consequence was that it wallowed horribly in corners.

After a couple of months I had the fix reversed and a 4-wheel alignment done by Mr Benz. They charged me half-price for the reversal (as goodwill) and that was still comfortably into 3-figures. It didn't solve the problem, but the car did corner and ride noticeably better, and the tyres wore evenly across their tread. I note at this point that the Conti Sport Contacts aren't the best tyres, but at least they were wearing evenly - one's glass was at least approaching half-full.

Whilst I can almost swallow the story about "camber sensitivity" even though logic tells you that a premium manufacturer ought to have sorted this out well in advance, does anyone know if BMWs and Audis display the same trait in general ?

 

[dano]

I've been looking at CLK goes left posts here for a while. I purchased a used 2002 CLK320 from Mercedes Direct in Manchester back in April this year.
This was my first MB and I was disappointed to find the handling very vague and more so with the pull to the left. I'd say mine was a bad case, even in the outside lane of the motorway it would pull left.

This fault was really bugged me and made me feel like buying an MB was a mistake.

I look it back to MD within the 30 day cooling off period. They said "it is 3 hours work to look at the geometry". What I got back was a car with a steering wheel facing 11 o'clock. So you when you turn the wheel straight, you drive in straight line. Laughable initially, but then I got angry

At this point the handling generally felt unresponsive, cornering was jerky, and the pull left was still there... maybe even worse.

I said I was still not happy, but it took almost 2 months to get MB to acknowledge there was a fault and get the car looked at by a "specialist".

2 days ago my car was sent off-site somewhere to a specialist. I was told at the end of that day, that they needed the car for another day to re-align the steering wheel. "Goodbye 11o'clock steering wheel position" I thought

Next morning (yesterday) I phone and they say, the steering is still not quite right. It goes to the specialist again. It comes back to MD who "swap the tyres round"... I take it for a test drive and its perfect. Tracking slightly right on adverse camber, generally driving straight. And at last it feels like I have a coupe... The handling feels so much better

Thinking about this forum I tried to extract information about what had been done. Blood out of a stone. No-one was able to tell me what had happened, or what was done to fix it. The specialist apparently, had "fixed the geometry" and then back at MD they swapped some tyres round. Disappointed not to hear a definitive root cause and fix, but all I can tell you is my front left tyre used to be on the back right!

So the lesson here is be persistent, get someone to go out in the car with you, drive on the opposite side off the road and show them, look it really goes go left on an adverse camber!

 

[Rory]

Thanks for posting that.

I would say that “vague” is a good description of how my C270 feels, although on mine the drift is camber related – it does drift right on right hand cambers.

I admire your persistence – I’ve left mine alone as it’s not unbearable and I dread the thought of someone messing with it and it ending up worse that it is at the moment.

 

[Bolide]

There are lots of threads about this

The cars are camber-sensitive. A well-setup Merc should travel in a straight line on a flat surface, pull left on a left camber and pull right on a right camber

You have no chance of getting the car to run true if the alignment has been out and the tyres have worn conically. You'll need a set of straight wheels (preferably of original size & manufacture), new tyres and a 4-wheel alignment before you can start getting it to track straight

Nick Froome
www.w124.co.uk

 

[Rory]

You have no chance of getting the car to run true if the alignment has been out and the tyres have worn conically.

That's another reason why I've left mine alone - despite the drift, the tyres are wearing pretty evenly. Just the usual wear on both front edges, which all MB's (and rear wheel drive cars) seem to do.

 

[David Nock]

Am I alone? Two mercs - a C180 followed by a CLK270CDI, both running straight and true with no perception of pull to left or right and lovely even tyre wear? Please help me I feel left out!
Seriously, the CLK has wider backs than front. Its a 54 reg. Is that perhaps to help drift or is it to even out tyre wear?

 

[Rory]

Seriously, the CLK has wider backs than front. Its a 54 reg. Is that perhaps to help drift or is it to even out tyre wear?

Mine (complete with drift to the left) has wider rear tyres too - I assume it's just a style thing, they still wore out a lot faster than the fronts.

 

[grpar]

The left drift on C-classes happens irrespective of the tyre width, so that seems to be somewhat of a red-herring. A geometry check on all 4 wheels seems to help most folks in getting the car into better shape handling-wise.

 

[leicesterboy15]

Hi All, haven't been back to this forum in a while. My CLK is like this, it pulls to the left and wanders all over the road. My BMW 540i is the same as well but this is down to worn suspension bushes which are a common problem on these and I am in the process of replacing them now. Do the Mercs use the same kind of set up? Could the bushes (or other suspension links) be the cause of all these problems? I am not familiar with these, any work on my Mercs (I've had 3) have always been done in a garage but I do all the work on the BMW myself so I know these well. I am now starting to think the Merc is not as complex as I originally thought and at least if I do the work I know its done properly so I think I will start doing the Merc as well.