Does this sound correct to anyone? Bear with me for a second...Last week I hit a small metal pole pertruding up through the blacktop in my drive way. It ismaybe about 2" high. There was alot of snow and my driveway is on an incline. Long story short...trying to back the car out of the driveway in snow car shot completly sidewides (almost like I had bow thrusters) andthe front passengerrim (back of the rim) caught the pole with the steering wheel turned 180* and threw off the alignment.

I take it up to my mechanic, knowing it's probably the tie rod, which in fact it is. I get the car back after he adjusts the tie rod and doesan alignment but the steering wheel is still off center. The car drives straight as hell. He says he has to remove the steering column in order to remove the wheel to get it back straight again. He also states that it is very time consuming. You think he is just feeding me crap or is it in fact a bitch to fix?

Sorry for all the words here!
Thanks

 

A standard alignment aligns the wheels to the center of the steering rack, over time the rack can shift slightly (or bumped) which can throw off the steering wheel angle.

The way I align cars is to use WIN toe. WIN toe aligns the steering wheel to both of the front wheels, so the steering wheel will always be straight, but you can get slight feathering as a side affect. I've had my car aligned this way for the last 30,000 miles and haven't seen any feathering however, and of the 1,000+ cars i've aligned this way none have had a crooked steering wheel.

 

Ok that makes sense. Thanks auditech79!

As far as getting the steering wheel straight again would you recommend I take it in to the dealer to have them use WIN toe format? What would be the proper procedure?
Thanks

 

Some old school alignment machines don't have WIN toe built into the machine, nor do alot of idiot techs know how to use it.
The machines by Hunter that use a red blinking light and a reflective material on each wheel i know for a fact have it built in, that of course is a $50,000 machine. I would ask around to see if they know what WIN toe is first off, and you want your car aligned that way.
As for the procedure its exactly the same until you go to adjust the toe, using the machine you scroll down on the page and select WIN toe settings and it will have you adjust each wheel individually, but the steering wheel won't be locked in place as in a standard alignment. Some people lock them, it really doesn't matter, the machine will compensate.
So if the tech doesn't know how to do it, tell him to go through a program without a car on the rack until he has to adjust toe, then scroll down the screen on the alignment machine to see if there is a selection for win toe.

 

I always thought that centering the steering wheel was step one in the alignment process.

If someone does an alignment for me and the wheel is not centered when he is done I would return and tell them to do it right.

In your case things got a bit bent but that dosen't mean the job should not be done correctly. If he changed a tie rod or tie rod end, it sounds like he took the easy way out and did a sloppy job. If he sticks to his story about having to remove the steering wheel to center it, I would definately find someone who knows what he is doing andcares enough to do it right.

On second thought -- Even if he fixes it correctly, I would go elsewhere because my trust in him would be very low.

 

The toe is the last thing you adjust during an alignment on an audi.
You have to first turn the wheel lock to lock and center the wheel before performing an alignment if thats what your talking about. Thats just telling the machine the total wheel movement and caster sweep.