Do newer Hondas need special equip

[WhyMe]

to do an front end alignment? drove my mom 2017 CRV and felt its got a pull to the left. i can feel it on the freeway mostly. the wheel is slight off center also. i asked mom if she hit a curb or anything. of cousrse she does not know

So this thing has electric steering rack, Do these things need special equipment at honda, or can any good alignment place do it?

Thanks

 

[IMSA_Racing_Fan]

Alignment is done at the wheel side, it has conventional tie rods so a good independent alignment shop should handle it.

 

[t1snwrbrdr12]

With electric steering the alignment shop needs to program center to the steering system. They cal all do the alignment, but if they set to to a different center than the steering system is programmed to then you'll experience problems. Most alignment shops are capable of relearning the steering center, though.

 

[IMSA_Racing_Fan]

If the relearn isn't done I am curious as to what happens. Does it drive you off a cliff in the mountains? Too many computer controlled ####### #### in cars today.

 

[mk378]

No but you would have to keep pulling on the steering wheel to drive straight ahead though. And like any other car which has has a shoddy job of alignment by not equalizing the tie rod lengths, the wheel would not be at 12 o'clock when going straight ahead. Hydraulic power steering does not care about that for its operation but electric does.

 

[The Critic]

Originally Posted by WhyMe
to do an front end alignment? drove my mom 2017 CRV and felt its got a pull to the left. i can feel it on the freeway mostly. the wheel is slight off center also. i asked mom if she hit a curb or anything. of cousrse she does not know

So this thing has electric steering rack, Do these things need special equipment at honda, or can any good alignment place do it?

Thanks

If it is equipped with Honda sense features you are supposed to perform a calibration afterwards as well, but I suspect this step is being skipped 99% of the time.

 

[JimPghPA]

Originally Posted by IMSA_Racing_Fan
Alignment is done at the wheel side, it has conventional tie rods so a good independent alignment shop should handle it.


This ^ information above could be obsolete. Not all independent alignment shops have machines that measure the toe, and camber, and thrust angles of all 4 wheels down to 1/100 of a degree.

A good large Honda dealer will have a very expensive alignment machine that reads Toe, camber and thrust angles down to 1/100 of a degree for all 4 wheels. You should find out what Honda dealer has this and us them.

I bought a 2016 Honda CR-V EX with 19,7xx miles on it on February 18, 2019 and after driving it a day I could tell that the steering had a slight constant pull to the left on straight roads. I called the Honda dealer I bough it from Baierl Honda in Wexford PA and they scheduled me in for Monday morning the next week. They measured the tow, camber, and thrust angles of all 4 wheels and the back left was out on a couple of measurements. They adjusted them back to within speck and it drives fine ever since.

I stopped by my local independent mechanic and told him about the machine the Honda dealer has that measures down to 1/100 of a degree for Toe, camber and thrust angle of all 4 wheels and he said that he thinks that machine cost $60,000. I said it is a good thing that I took it to the Honda dealer because the alignment shop that I had been using with my previous car does not have a machine anywhere near as accurate as that. And there is no way they would have seen and fixed the problem.

There are some other Honda dealers around Pittsburgh, but I wonder if all of them have that kind of investment in an alignment machine.

My Honda dealer said the alignment machine is made by Hunter but the person I spoke to did not know the model number of the machine.

 

[WhyMe]

ok. guess i may have to bring it to the dealer. gonna try swapping the tires first to eliminate a bad tire as the source of the pull.