Steering wheel not centered

Is this normal? Was like this since I bought it new. Now 2k on it.

The vehicle does NOT wander but as you can see from the picture center is achieved when steering wheel slightly tilted to the right.

If I keep it perfectly centered the vehicle will begin to go left.

would the fact it’s not wandering rule out an alignment issue?

See pic

 

Mine was like that after my lift - but I had a local shop that I trust do an alignment - and they got it perfect for me. I'm sure the dealership could align it under warranty, but my dealership was like 17 miles away, and this shop is right up the road.

 

thanks bud, I was under the assumption that because it didn’t wander an alignment wouldn’t be the cause but I’ll call the dealership and have them take a look at it.

 

A toe offset can do this. If that's the cause, a slightly crooked steering wheel is the only issue it would drive straight with no tire wear. If it bugs you, have the dealership look at it,but if that's the only issue, and you are ok with the wheel a bit crooked, you can drive it with no worries.

 

Many vehicles are set with a small amount of cross caster on purpose to deal with road crown. Where does the steering wheel want to naturally sit?

 

If your truck drives straight and the tires are wearing evenly the alignment is probably good. To center the wheel all you should have to do is adjust the left tie rod in a small amount and the right tie rod out an equal amount to to keep the toe setting the same.

 

2 things. Looks like you are driving on road crown biased to the left so the steering wheel would be slightly turned right to stay straight. Since you did say it’s not pulling one side or another then maybe this doesn’t apply.

Secondly, centering a steering wheel is easily done with tie rod adjustment and is an integral part of a proper alignment.

 

My wheel has always been canted left a little bit. 83k miles on truck, and the ridge grapps (w/ 50k miles) have even wear, probly got another 30k in them. I just live with it.

 

It can still be alignment related even if the vehicle drives straight, it's just the relationship of the tie rod positions to the steering rack and pinion. Should be a simple fix, it doesn't appear that you're off by much.

 

Both my new tacos needed to be aligned within the first year

 

Awesome guys thanks I’m here at the dealership and technician said he can see the misalignment after going for a spin. They’re working on it now. Hopefully it can be fixed even if it’s a small misalignment.

 

The good part is it’s warrantied for the first year or 12 k miles

 

So this is what the dealer did, after driving it back home I’m still seeing the steering wheel tilted to the right slightly. Not sure if there is a difference from before unfortunately. Again this is stock suspension and 2k miles on it.

dealership alignment:

 

They fixed your toe but they got it backwards on the caster. It's likely going to pull slightly to the right on crowned roads as the caster is the opposite of where it should be, left to right. If your wheel is still not straight, it's an easy fix by adjusting the tie-rods on both sides in the proper direction to maintain the proper toe but rotate the wheel.

 

I'm surprised the steering wheel is still off because it looks like you're close. You were slightly toe out to the left when they locked your wheel into place and set the alignment. But your cross-caster is wrong for us folks that drive on the right side of the road - kinda surprised your truck doesn't currently have the tendency to wander to the right with your hands off the wheel.

 

Hey bud thank you, would simply adjusting the right side caster to be higher than the left by default fix the steering wheel or is that done by adjusting the tie rods? Is there a certain degree I should aim for when taking it back to the dealer?

 

Adjusting the caster will not change the steering wheel but it will affect whether or not there's a tendency to pull one way or the other. Remember on the caster that you generally want it to be max'd out to as much positive caster on the passenger side (which on my stock height TRDOR was +2.8) and then set the driver's side a few tenths of a degree less - something like 3-5 tenths of a degree but not to be super anal about it, keeping in mind that the vehicle will always tend to pull toward the side with the lower amount of positive caster. If you live in an area with little or no road crown, you can set the caster to be the same on both sides, but if you have a lot of road crown you usually want a bit less on the driver's side to counter the road crown. The reason that adjusting the tie-rods will straighten the steering wheel is that when you drive and turn the wheel, you're really just pushing and pulling the tie-rods to turn the front wheels left and right, so you can twist them both and not affect the alignment but straighten the wheel out if it's not straight. My Porsche mechanic does this after he aligns my 911 - does the alignment, drives around the block and then makes a final tweak turning both tie-rods the exact same amount which pulls the wheel perfectly to the center and leaves the toe unchanged. Any decent alignment tech should know how to do this.

 

Awesome thanks for the explanation bud, I’ll have to take it back to the dealer and speak with the technician.

 

same here

 

I had to adjust mine right away since the steering wheel was crooked off the factory. Then oddly the steering wheel started to pull in a different direction after, also seemingly crooked in the direction I adjusted it to. So I adjusted it back the other way again and it’s center now and perfect. Maybe these suspensions just need time to settle. If everything is torqued down properly from factory and set in place, then the steering wheel should be tight and center. Maybe they missed a few bolts on the assemble allowing for an out-of-alignment setting.
2k miles is enough for a suspension to settle in. Good thing you waited on an allignment since the springs, and shocks need to wear into place for the long haul.