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JCL · #6 07-04-2007, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by watrob

Cars that are produced for righthand road driving have a caster set for that. That is the distance between righthand front & righthand rear wheels is greater than the distance between the lefthand front and lefthand rear wheels.

So when cars arrive in Australia where we drive on the lefthand side of the road, a lot of cars (not all, as some imports have caster adjustments built in or are designed for Australian, England & South African roads) pull to the left. <snip>

I don't have your years of RHD vehicle buying experience, but something just doesn't sound right.

I fully agree that setting the caster different on one side can cause the car to pull in that direction. I agree that this could be used to compensate for a roadway with a lot of crown to it. I just don't think that your problem is that simple.

Many vehicles built today (including a lot of those with strut type suspension) don't have adjustable caster. A lot of those vehicle are used in RHD and LHD applications, without problems.

I have driven my RHD vehicle in the UK to France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and back, and never found a problem with pulling. I have also driven on many dual carriageways in the UK, and each lane has the opposite crown. You can't assume that all road lanes have the same crown. If you set the vehicle up for the curb lane it would be wrong for the passing lane. Also, the X5 is widely sold in the UK and has not had this problem reported.

I suspect there is a problem with your active steering. I would be worried if they wanted to adjust the caster out of spec to fix the problem, as it would potentially be masking another issue.

Just my $0.02

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