Steering wheel turns by itself to the right - 2017 Toyota Tundra Platium 4x4

Hi everyone,

This is my first post before Christmas - Happy Holidays!

I'm new to Tundras and Toyota in general. I came from the "money pit" German engineer machines, and while they were a blast to zoom around, with age, just like everyone else, i got tired to keep throwing money to fix them. So my mentality kind of changed to move my driving experience to Japanese cars thinking that I will have a more successful experience, but i must say, I started to become skeptical about my Tundra.
I got it used in 2020 between Christmas and New Years a 2017 Toyota Tundra Platium 4x4, and since this is my first truck that I ever owned, I took the liberty to literally strip the whole interior to the metal and soundproof it with sound denting and sound isolation packing about 1,000RMS and ran new speaker wires everywhere. So now here I am bragging about my beautiful white concert-driving, windows shaking Tundra machine while being a dumb about the continuous fight with the steering wheel since the day one that i got this car as a second hand. It didn't really occurred to me that this is problem till the other day i got the car for a tire alignment and after the guy tested car, he is like "have you notice your steering wheel turns to the right by itself", i was like well, time for an alignment. So they did the alignment, then after testing the car i still had same feel in the steering wheel. Then brought the car to the Weston FL, Toyota dealer, charged me $650, got the car back, guess what - same problem.
So basically after two alignments, one at a tire shop and one at the dealer, this car has its own mind.
The problem: While driving in perfect road conditions flat, at speeds of 5-10mph going straight, the steering wheel turns from perfect 12 o'clock to 1 o'clock by itself without applying any brakes in less than 5 seconds after releasing my hand off of the steering wheel.
Checks made by the Toyota dealer:
- Suspension check fine
- Tires check fine
- Bushing check fine
- Literally, nothing around suspension checked wrong (according to them)

The bad:
Toyota claimed:
-Bad alignment
-Brake fluid required attention
-Steering fluid required attention
-Attempted to sale me carbon cleaning through BG products - Well, they got the wrong guy on that one, especially coming from The Kingdoms of Carbon buildups VW, BMW and last, Audi.
-Paid $650 to have all that addressed attention required points stated above
- Drove the car afterwards and the steering wheel still does the same thing - turns by itself to the right at 5-10mphs and turns to the right at higher speed in less than 5 seconds under same conditions, not holding the steering wheel. Making this a continuous tog war fight at very slow speeds, and a bad strain to my left hand while doing 1-2 hour drives on the highway.

Does anyone heard or experienced anything like this before or this is a Tundra thing?

 

Have you swapped your front tires around? Sounds like a radial pull, I had it with my last set of tires. I swapped the front tires around and it fixed it. Could be an alignment issue as well, can you post your alignment numbers? Many people have left an alignment shop with a bad alignment.

 

sounds like a radial pull to me too. or cross caster/camber got the alignment sheet print outs?

 

I complained to the tire shop and they did: front to back swap, same results. They also tried the cross X swap from the original change with same results.
From tire shop here are the numbers:

As far as when I paid the the dealer, I only have the invoice with what checked to require attention without alignment sheet numbers like the tire shop did.

 

slight bit of cross camber going on.. but what has my eye is the .33 degrees of toe on the rear left. any signs of the truck ever being hit in the back?

 

Oh you meant when i tried to to do my first parallel parking attempt in a roundabout with circle guardrail? I was living it when i did that, but nothing broke, in rear passenger corner, only some paint came off that i had it buffed out. Drove it on the highway back upset, and no shakes no nothing, but that steering wheel issue for which i had no mind to it, until got pointed out to me. In addition, all cars that i purchased came with a clean CARFAX history, including this one. While i understand that some, do not report incidents, i've looked everywhere for all signs of bolts painted - common scam points, underneath the car, i latterly found nothing that stated out. I normally purchased a used car every 2-3 years, so at this aspect if i got scammed, well, i would call them very good scammers because the dealer that i purchased from the car was also the ones servicing last time the car with the steering wheel having its own mind.
Maybe this helps? My tires came brand new under the brand name of SAILUN TERRAMAX HLT 275/55R20. But then again, logically, if the tires where such a problem, when the tire shop changed the tires around, the consistency in pull towards the right was the same. So either all these shops missed something, or like empty_lord said this car must of been in some sort of a backend crash that was never reported in CARFAX and i'm pretty much driving a wacky frame aligned car. If that would be the case, this would call for a clear lawsuit. I doubt that a major company would take such risks.

 

If you can snap a photo of the tread pattern on the tires. Seeing the brand name makes me think they’re probably cheaper tires. Tread design can also cause a pull. And this pull will not change when rotating the tires around since the tread pattern will be the same on each tire


Either way, I would pester the dealer for the alignment numbers that were from your truck. What you’ve got going on sounds like a radial pull or alignment related pull

 

I just took this picture several minutes ago with the front driver side tire:
Looks normal to me, unless there is something that i'm not aware of.

 

Normal highway tire. Probably not the case. Honestly I would attempt running different tires if you can find a local willing to lend a set. At least rule out the tires. Past that alignment is really all that will cause what you’ve got going on

 

Understood. I'll try that option as well. I just wanted to rule out upper control arm failure diagnostics by the dealer or anything pertained to the bushings that the dealer missed. Not too familiar how to check for those parameters, but i can always go the usual German car route, replace parts - just because "that might" be the problem.

 

From Experience working at the dealer up here, control arm bushing issues are very rare unless we’re talking high mileage or damage from abuse/accidents.

 

Sounds like is time for me to listen to my instincts from a year ago replacing these historically unknown tires on arrival with the car for my trusted Radar Dimax AS-8 and some road force balance on them.

Thank you empty_lord for your input on the matter & Happy Holidays to you and your family!

 

Best of luck! Happy holiday to you and your family as well!

 

Hi everyone,

Turns out - two shops were wrong about correctly aligning my Tundra. So basically, let this be a "lesson learn" on service trusts offered by certain tire shop locations, including Toyota dealerships. In my case, this includes at very least the Toyota dealership in Weston, Florida. My car was purchased from them in 2020, thinking that their entire operation is honest, however based on the latest data, that seems to be badly lacking at least, in my case. So basically, that dealership does not have any clue on how to correctly align a 2017 Toyota Tundra. Period..! I brought in the car claiming that has hard pull to the right, and I opted to their added services like brake fluid, steering wheel fluid, alignment service (no misalignment papers handed - before & after ), and to be fair, one bolt, and one oil change (the last was requested) - and walked away without $650 in my pocket. Bear with me, this gets worse... So now, here I am driving around to different shops trying to figure out my issue, most said there is a radial pull, and one shop Midas in Davie said I have one bad tire, circling with chalk the area that was not normal on that tire. After cross-referencing that info, i end up in a high performance mom&pap shop where initially the guy was nice to tell me, that hey - that is true that you have a radial pull, let's put the culprit tire on the road force balance and see with what we come up. Sure enough, that tire couldn't be aligned and he recommended new tires. Paid $29 - worth every penny for that service, but unfortunately when I went too on cheap same brand tire from the four set of brand new tires, the guy had the feeling that he's time is more important on the BMW's (counted 7 in work in he's shop) than earning that money on 4 new tires installed on a Tundra truck. I was a nice guy and send him a bag of food for he's 80lbs dog to request a scheduling to have my tires installed - the result, my call went straight to the voicemail. So that's the end of that shop. Anyway, desperate, i walked into a nearby shop with no road force balance and they installed the new tires, no more bad wheel vibration - but that hard pull on the new $750 tires plus ~$110 install was still there. Next day i went back, this time i took my time to tell them my annoying ONE YEAR Toyota dealership purchased car issue, and I was told that it will be a 2 hour waiting time and that one of their mechanics will have to look at the issue and if the alignment turns out to be the issue - to fix it will be about $120. Clearly at that point i did not care about the waiting time. I just wanted this car fixed. So here i am sitting in the waiting room, and after seeing one of their mechanic pulling back in the parking lot from test-driving the car, the truck got driven straight into the alignment lift area with zero hesitation.

Here is what they discovered that Toyota dealership in Weston that service on the car last failed to check nor handed me any paperwork of such alignment being done:

After Midas in my specific location (Davie) addressed the issue, here is how it looks now:

I would like to make it also clear that my intent is not to vent, i don't have anything to lose nor gain either way, but to be honest, if the dealership from where i purchased the car put me on an ~$1,600 (Toyota dealership in Weston $650, mom&pap shop not worth mentioning their name $28, SimpleTire $750, new tire install $110, alignment $120) adventure for something that could of been fixed for $120 or better yet "Certified Toyota Presale", take it with a huge grain of salt what certain shops are saying. At the end of the day, it might end up being just a simple alignment. So yeah, I paid over 10 times the price of something that should of cost NOTHING at that Weston Toyota based on their claimed certified inspection nonsense let alone $125 for fake alignment.

The car now drives like i have never experienced before. Literally. I can drink that coffee in the morning without worrying that the car will hit someone on the right lane.

 

What a mess! But it’s good that it’s finally sorted. Someone really messed up that alignment or their machines out of whack .

 

That was a rough ride, hope it's smooth sailing from here 8)

 

I thought all vehicles had a little right turn action. So you end up in the ditch instead of oncoming traffic during a snooze.

 

Nope...roads are often built with a crown to do that to water...the perk, potential ditch hit for vehicles in-lieu of head on with a other vehicle...but it's hard to pick up the clean end of a turd in this case...

 

Are you going to seek retribution? Sounds like a clear cut case.

 

I doubt that they'll give me any money back. Here in South FL everyone is money hungry.
Regardless, today i noticed that my issue is still there but more noticeable on reverse. In other words, when I reverse straight, the steering wheel turns to the right all the way to 2 clock versus going further that's barely noticeable but still have a light turn to the right. So no matter what going further or reverse, the steering wheel will turn in same direction, to the right.
I haven't got the car to the any of the shops yet, maybe someone has an idea of a good shop here in South FL that they actually know what they are doing.

Just took this video earlier and here is what's going on: