[fantanas]

BMW North Oxford seems to be having trouble aligning my car. The alignment is fine, but they keep messing up the steering wheel centre. I have taken it there 4-5 times and always the same issue. I have attached some pictures, showing the wheel pointing slightly left, when the car is going straight. I have done about 300-400 miles on roads I do all the time and I am sure that the steering is off.

Are they missing something? Why is it so hard? Can I do something?

Please help out. It is making me not want to drive the car.

[fantanas]

I forgot to say that the car is a 2015 435d M-sport X-drive

[kern417]

It sounds stupid, but is the steering wheel itself potentially misaligned? Why did you get an alignment in the first place?

Dealer protocol is to hook up the scan tool to your steering angle sensor and straighten it until it's 0*. If the steering angle reads 0 but the steering wheel is crooked, you'd experience what you described. But something would have to be very off for your steering wheel to be crooked when the sensor reads 0*.

On previous cars I had this happen with aftermarket steering wheels. You can recenter the wheel manually (by just straightening it by eye) but then when you're driving, sometimes the car torques the steering wheel in an attempt to straighten it out. You'll see the steering wheel straight and know the car is driving true, but the sensor reads off (for example 15* or so) and so the car tries to correct it.

[fantanas]

Originally Posted by kern417

It sounds stupid, but is the steering wheel itself potentially misaligned? Why did you get an alignment in the first place?

Dealer protocol is to hook up the scan tool to your steering angle sensor and straighten it until it's 0*. If the steering angle reads 0 but the steering wheel is crooked, you'd experience what you described. But something would have to be very off for your steering wheel to be crooked when the sensor reads 0*.

On previous cars I had this happen with aftermarket steering wheels. You can recenter the wheel manually (by just straightening it by eye) but then when you're driving, sometimes the car torques the steering wheel in an attempt to straighten it out. You'll see the steering wheel straight and know the car is driving true, but the sensor reads off (for example 15* or so) and so the car tries to correct it.

I got an alignment because of an insurance claim (a driver drove me onto a curb). I had both rims changed. The car was driving fine after the accident. The alignment messed it up. I saw him do the alignment and he does it by eye.

Where can he read the wheel angle sensor? In ISTA? Can I calibrate that my self? I tried something I found in the forums saying to turn the wheel from edge to edge twice, but didn't work.

[SoCalCarGuy]

dude...you got in an accident. Something is bent or broken. Take it to a body shop that fixes cars and reopen your insurance claim.

[fantanas]

Originally Posted by SoCalCarGuy

dude...you got in an accident. Something is bent or broken. Take it to a body shop that fixes cars and reopen your insurance claim.

It was not an accident, that is why I didn't say it in the beginning to not confuse people. The car barely touched the pavement doing 2 mph. It is like a curb rash. The alignment was done just to check and it wasn't off. The car tracks straight, they just can't seem to get the steering wheel straight. It has happened to me in the past as well but they managed to fix it that time but not this.

[xpro]

I did my own alignment as the steering wheel was not straight after I hit a minor pothole.

I took a fair few attempts to get it straight. But its fine now.

Bring it to someone that has a proper laser alignment and most importantly the understanding on how to track a car. This will sort it out. And you dont need any BMW scan tool for that. Thats again BMW drama