Just to clear this up for me, can bad alignment or a dragging caliper cause a car to pull to one side
only when accelerating?
Of all the cars I've driven, many with alignment issues, I've never noticed a clear difference in how much it pulled to one side when I was on the gas compared to when I was coasting, maintaining speed, or braking.
After I fixed my front calipers and replaced the pads on my '92, instead of pulling just slightly to the left as it has for a long time(after new tires and an alignment job), it pulls noticeably more when accelerating. It's more noticeable since I have to shift and so when I put in the clutch and go to the next gear I feel the force go away and I have to adjust or I'll start to turn the car to the right.
Only things I could think of that I could have done during the brake job (I rechecked everything last night and it's all good) was that I try not to use my e-brake b/c the rears stick (no time to do those yet) and I pull the e-brake up as high as it will go when putting the car on jacks.
Let's say that maybe the left rear is sticking more than the right, or that maybe I somehow managed to mess up the frame when I jacked it up (
h::nervous::chuckles
or just the allignment itself, would it matter if I was giving it gas?
If I coast in neutral or maintain speed it still does track a bit to the left, maybe just a bit less pull (straighter) when in neutral. It's almost unnoticeable though, same or better than I remember it. I just don't remember comparing how much it pulled when on the gas as opposed to off, there might have been a difference before that I wasn't aware of.
Only car I've driven where I remember a big difference in pull when on the gas was a grandprix. It happened suddenly and I had to fight the wheel (no PS made it worse) to keep it straight and it went away the next day, obviously something with the differential. A month later the diff./trans. went out on that car :nervous: