Steering wheel replacement gone wrong by main dealer

[clarky92]

Hi everyone, tearing my hair out at this.

My car used to drive straight as an arrow with the steering wheel centered. The car has not been in an accident and was one of the best tracking cars I've had from the factory, perfect alignment from new. However, I had the steering wheel replaced under warranty recently by a main dealer due to a defect in the leather. On collecting the car, I immediately noticed I had to hold the steering wheel off center by about 5 degrees for the car to drive straight. This was on local roads which only a matter of hours earlier my car drove straight with the wheel centered. The difference is night and day. The car doesn't drift or pull, so tracking is still aligned. On the motorway at 70mph, if I centered the wheel the car would fully change lane in only a few seconds. If I held the wheel off center at 5 degree's the car would drive dead straight until running out of road. At this point I thought the tech probably installed the new wheel off a notch or two by accident and it just needed correcting.

I returned to the dealership as clearly the car wasn't even road tested. The tech took my car back in to check. Airbag removed again and they noted that the new steering wheel was already aligned correctly as the notch/ line on the wheel matched the line on the steering column spline and nothing looked 'off'. Then the tech purposely refitted the steering wheel 1 notch (tooth) over so the lines on the wheel and spline don't match. I then road tested the car and the steering wheel is about 2 degrees off center, but to the other side, like its been over corrected. Its currently much more driveable, but the wheel being 2 degrees off center is noticeable and driving me nuts, especially since this car was perfect before this work was performed. I had to accept the car like that due to work commitments and for a few different reasons including illness, I had to wait a few weeks before booking the car back in for them to check again.

Does anyone know how to resolve this? I have a bad feeling I'm going to be met with shrugged shoulders, or 'the tech test drove the car and couldn't seen an issue' response. I have been googling and read of rare occasions when replacement steering wheels are slightly off due to manufactoring tolerances, but this is usually aftermarket stuff and not from the manufactorer directly. In that scenario the front toe had to be adjusted slightly in an equal measurement to align the wheels to the steering wheel central position.

Thanks in advance.

[Carlosfandango]

Just get them to do an alignment, the starting point of which is to centre the steering wheel.

[clarky92]

Just get them to do an alignment, the starting point of which is to centre the steering wheel.

Do you think to do an alignment with the steering wheel in the position it is now, or refit to match the lines on spline then alignment? Thanks

[Carlosfandango]

Personally I’d match up the markings on the wheel and column first. If in the unlikely event the wheel has to be turned significantly at the start of the alignment in order to centre it, it may be necessary to reset the basic settings for the dead ahead position, this is so that things such as the dynamic headlights etc know where the centre point is, a Volkswagen tech will know all about how to do this so it’s not an issue, it can also be done easily with VCDS or OBDeleven if you have it. This probably will not need doing though.

[clarky92]

Thank you for the advice, I’ll mention it to them on the day 

[The_Doc]

To add, the dealership should be paying for this, not you. They caused an issue by failing to do the job properly.

[fredgroves]

Steering is all electric isn't it?

In which case its a software tweak to set the dead ahead position?

[Carlosfandango]

Steering is all electric isn't it?

In which case its a software tweak to set the dead ahead position?

No, the dead ahead basic settings are purely to tell the control modules what dead ahead looks like, it has no influence on the physical steering angle, if you were to turn the steering wheel 5 degrees to centre it and then set the tracking, the clock spring will think it if 5 degrees off centre to which ever side you turned it ,things such as bend lighting on the headlights will no longer be set at zero degrees when driving straight ahead, mechanical tracking adjustment to the track rod ends is still how it’s done. 🙂

[clarky92]

Steering is all electric isn't it?

In which case its a software tweak to set the dead ahead position?

No, the dead ahead basic settings are purely to tell the control modules what dead ahead looks like, it has no influence on the physical steering angle, if you were to turn the steering wheel 5 degrees to centre it and then set the tracking, the clock spring will think it if 5 degrees off centre to which ever side you turned it ,things such as bend lighting on the headlights will no longer be set at zero degrees when driving straight ahead, mechanical tracking adjustment to the track rod ends is still how it’s done. 🙂

It might be me not understanding, but does the clock spring not move with the steering wheel? There are little guide pins so it can only match up one way. As the steering wheel is turned, the clock spring goes with it along with the steering angle sensor. So if the wheels are set dead straight ahead, but the steering wheel is off to one side by a few degrees, the clock spring is also not dead straight and the steering angle sensor would read -2 or something. Sorry if I mixed that up

[Carlosfandango]

Yes you are correct with what you say, but the problem here arises when the wheel is centered before an alignment, the OP stated that the wheel had been removed and moved, it’s very likely the basic settings of the steering angle sensor do not need doing, especially if the wheel is removed and moved back before any alignment is done, but in this case it would be best to check i think, as it’s not clear why the wheel became misaligned in the first place. you mentioned earlier about the steering being electronic, this is of course true, I do not know if it may be possible to centre the wheel by performing the calibration however, possibly?! But I don’t believe it has any effect on where the wheel physically is while dead ahead, it simply tells the control modules where zero degrees is.