I had a 2013 MS85 and noticed that the car tends to pull to the right when I'm traveling at higher speed (60mpn+) and even more noticeable during hard acceleration. Now i'm on to my second MS (2016 P90DL) and it appears that the problem is still there. I had it taken into service last week and they performed an alignment checked. However, the pull is still very obvious as if no alignment corrections have been done. My car literally will veer out of its lane on the freeway within 3 seconds. I also experienced the same problem in the loaner that I recently drove for a month. Maybe its the crowned roads in SoCal that's responsible for this odd behavior? My other cars don't have this problem though, at least not as obvious. Anyone else experiencing the same thing? Should i take it back into service?
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Car pulls to the right at highway speed
- Thread starter Andino
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- Driving Dynamics Model S
When service does an alignment, they can align strictly to specs or they can compensate for road crown. If they compensate for road crown then your car will drift on flat roads. We have crowned roads here in Arizona and the same thing happens. Service told me that the HOV lane contains the least amount of crown, and they were right - when driving in the HOV lane the car does not drift.
Gizmotoy
Active Member
The place I used to get my alignments done when I lived in Ohio would only compensate for crowned roads if you specifically ask and also sign a waiver. If you do make your way onto a flat road, the car will tend to drive into opposing traffic.
OP, what tires do you have? I get standard (spec) alignments, and when I would swap to my more aggressive (stickier) summer tires from my winters, the behavior got substantially worse. Presumably the greater friction of the stickier tires causes it to want to follow the road more than simple inertia would suggest? Could possibly explain what you're seeing.
That said, sounds like relatively normal behavior. The car won't stay in its lane on a straight highway up here in NorCal either.
Thanks for the reply. I'm currently running on Continental ExtremeContact DW with aftermarket 20' wheels. 245/40/20 in the front and 275/40/20 in the rear. Yea maybe Tesla's spec doesn't compensate for crowned road but my Honda HRV tracks perfectly straight on freeways. I will take my car into service again in a few weeks for some rattling and will have them check the alignment again. It's kinda annoying to keep on doing steering corrections but I'm getting used to it.
Gizmotoy
Active Member
So the Tesla has a very sticky "Max Performance" class summer tire. I doubt your CRV does. That alone could be the difference, IMO. Cars with sticky tires always wander. Worse, the reduced tread depth will make the reaction occur more quickly than on the harder and much deeper all-season tread likely present on your CRV.
Do you notice tramlining too? http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=47 Both behaviors are generally considered characteristics of soft compound summer tires.
Yea. I'm pretty certain my car has been tramlining after reading the descriptions indicated in the link you provided. Thanks again for pitching in!! Do you think I will get uneven tread wear given I had to constantly do minor steering corrections? My daily communicate consists mostly of highway driving.
Gizmotoy
Active Member
Probably not. That said, those tires wear like crazy no matter what. And if you have the air suspension, when it goes to Low on the highway it'll do a pretty good number on the inner portion of the tread because of the increased negative camber as the car lowers. In the early days, those tires would be maybe good for 10k-20k miles. They may have improved since, but all Max Performance tires have relatively short tread life.
At the same time, it's hard for me to sit on here and tell you it's fine without driving it. If you think there's something still wrong, you take it back to Tesla and they tell you it's fine, and you still think something's up, take it to an independant tire shop. There's nothing super magical about our alignment... anyone can really do it. You just have to make sure their lift can support the weight and they use proper jack points on the vehicle (if they use the wrong part of the battery and it is damaged, it could total your car). I'd ask for a recommendation in the California forum if you need one. There's lots of SoCal folks on here.
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