Ok so here's the deal. As most of you know I got new wheels and tires a few weeks ago. But since then the element has been pulling hard to the left. I have 66k miles and haven't replaced the struts. I know its coming due but would this cause the car to pull hard to the left? FWIW i rotated the fronts to the back and that didn't help it. The Front Drivers side tire I believe was causing the problem because after moving the fronts to the back (without crossing them) it still pulled. So I swapped the 2 rear tires for S&G's and it seemed to help the pulling.

My question is, does this sound like a bad tire or a bad strut? The guy working on my car rode with me and said the front end feels a little "drifty" but he might just be trying to sell me new struts. Any ideas?

66k mile is a bit early for struct reaplcement, unless you are off roading all the time. Most of my car has struct last over 120k. Regardless, worn out struct usually doesn't casue pulling. On the other hand, worn out suspension part or bad while aligment is the usual suspect.

I would take it to Sears and have them do an alignment check and advise them to check for any lose suspension joint.

Brian

I also would have the suspension looked at.

It does have the sound of a bad tire though. If it was not doing it before you put the new tires on, then it sounds like the tires to me. If you still have your old tires and wheels, out them back on. See if that fixes the trouble.

With out knowing what size you replaced them with, let me add this.

The larger size tires will often magnify alignment troubles. The wider the tires the more noticeable the trouble will be.


Dom

I know that you said that you rotated the front tires, but did you check the tire pressures. Sometimes improper tire pressures can cause this problem. And it's a whole lot cheaper than new struts.

Tire pressure is right on. We did put the old tires back on and there was no pulling. We tried it with new tires (from the rear) on front and old tires on back and there was no pulling. We put the new (front) tires on the back (without crossing them) and it pulled to the left. I switched the rear tires with each other and the pull was gone (maybe a little to the right, now). I'm thinking it's the new front drivers side tire that was the cause of the problem.

Oh and the new tires are 235/50/17's

Just to note: some members have mentioned a bad strut here and there as a result of it just being defective from the get-go. Although, I would not be so quick to jump to that conclusion with out first ruling out all the other possibilities with your new tires.