I have a 05' Rx8 with 20,000 miles and it pulls to the left only when you step on the throttle but when you are not on the throttle (ie: letting the gear run out or in neutral) it rolls straight, This has nothing to due with road conditions, it does it on side streets and highways in and out of IL. all tires @ 32 psi and are matching numbers, Plus they are directional and installed correctly. anyone have some info on what is going on, I could see if this was front wheel drive but its not. FYI only mods done to car - Exhaust but that was installed @ 8k miles and this problem just started @19500k. Any info would help very much.

Thanks in advance

 

Have you motor mounts checked.

 

Are the tires on it new or have you recently had an alignment performed?

 

Not only have you had an alignment performed, but have you tried to rotate the tires to see if the car starts to pull to the right? An alignment & rotate would be my first action, plus an alignment should be done yearly (specially if you live in an area with a lot of potholes like I do).

 

Yeah Jon316G is right....I would definitely start by swapping the tires side to side and see if anything changes....sometimes directionals can cause a pull.

 

My understanding is *do not* rotate tires by switching sides. The tires are directional and if you switch sides you reverse the direction of rotation. The only reason to do this would be if the tires were somehow backwards to begin with.

Switch tires front to rear and see if the problem persists. Given your symptom of pulling under power, if it's a tire it would be the rear tire(s) causing it.

I had a "pulling" issue that turned out to be the wiring harness for the power-steering, giving bad data from the torque sensors. It felt like it was pulling, but also turning in one direction was taking more effort and turning in the opposite direction was very quick. Solved by soldering the pins on the harness connectors as described elsewhere in the forum. This was after 2 trips to the dealer for alignments.

 

^^I believe when you have your tires rotated that your rear tires move to the front (but stay on the same side) and your front tires move to the rear (but switch sides).
When I had "pulling" issues I had an alignment done and my toe adjustments were way off for my front driver and rear passenger side tires. I also found while changing spark plugs that the lock nut for the toe adjustment was loose (this of course was on the front driver's side) but my car was also shaking a little because of that.


Edit: I was curious about the tire rotation so I did a google search. If you have a rear wheel drive vehicle, then you rotate them as I explained above. BUT, if your car has directional wheels/tires, then yes they do have to stay on the same side.

 

[QUOTE=Nubo;1965354]My understanding is *do not* rotate tires by switching sides. The tires are directional and if you switch sides you reverse the direction of rotation. The only reason to do this would be if the tires were somehow backwards to begin with. QUOTE]

You are correct in that you don't want to switch directional tires side to side and leave them that way. I wasn't recommending that he switch them perminently, but temporarily on a quick road test to see if the pulling goes away or changes. It's just a quick way to illiminate tires as the cause of a pull, but is usually only done after the alignment is checked and a pull still exists. The best method is obviously to do a quick wheel swap with a buddies car.