Possessed Power Steering

[romulus120]

Having had the pads and discs changed on my '91 2.4td Surf, I also had the tracking checked as it seemed to be pulling to the left.

When the tracking was checked, it was found that if you turned the steering wheel full left and let go the wheels would stay pointing left. But if you turned the steering wheel full right and let go the wheels would then turn back to centre on their own.

Has anyone else come across this problem, as the garage did not have a clue.

[jet1749]

Self centring steering action is achieved by the castor angle steering geometry. In other words as you are travelling forward and you turn the steering wheel, the axis of the pivot through the upper and lower balljoint continues in an imaginary line which hits the road surface in front of the contact point of your tyre. This means that the road wheel tries to straighten up. Assuming you don't experience this lack of self centring on the road, and it has only happened on the tyre fitters wheel turntables as he has been adjusting the tracking, then there should be no problem, its probably that one of his turntables is a bit sticky. A double check would be that a full laser wheel alignment would show up problems with wheel "set-back" or other issues.
John