I am not familiar with this particular car, but every car has a mechanical way of adjusting the steering linkage such that the steering wheel will be centered, even if this means removing the steering wheel and replacing it in the correct spot. A lot of VW's are done this way. What has happened with your car is simply laziness on the part of the technician. He could have insured that your steering wheel was straight through counter adjustments in the steering linkage and properly test driving the car. I do wheel alignments for a living and would never let a car go like this. Take it back, demand it be fixed properly, ask for a print-out of the alignment, if they can't provide a print-out, ask for your money back and take the car somewhere that can.
You have answered your own question:
"Provided the wheels are correctly aligned at the tie rods"
Get the car correctly aligned at the tie rod ends! This will not make it "crab". You have to alter the rear alignment to create a crab.
Don't try and re-engineer the system. Someone adjusted the tie rod ends unequally, make them correct it.
If you want, you can do this yourself, I'll tell you how if you like. Look at the front suspension, tell me if the tie rod ends are behind the front lower ball joint, or in front of it. Then tell me if the steering wheel rests off to the left or right.
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No it's an Idea, but I couldn't post the question unless I chose one of the 4 fiats that were listed. The Idea has the same electric steering as the Punto, so my question applies to that too. Thanks. Mike
Daves,
Thanks for the response. However, the steering wheel is much less out than the minimum adjustment you can make taking it off and turning it one 'notch'. It is a degree or two at most. And the wheels are all aligned parallel and symmetric, as adjusted by the tyre fitter. If the tie rod alignments were changed to make the steering wheel central, then the car would crab along and left/right turns would be dynamically different. So it's a question of how to reset the angular sensor in the steering system so that it knows what is dead ahead. Renault have a method of resetting the steering system (also electric on our megane) by turning full lock left, hold for 5 seconds, full lock right and hold for 5 seconds, which resets the steering dead ahead to the mid point between the two lock extremes. Provided the wheels are correctly aligned at the tie rods, then the dead centre will be correct. I have tried this with the Idea, but it doesn't change. Thanks. Mike
this is an X19?
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