Problem from new suspension?

[Legacy98]

Today I got new springs/shocks/struts for my 98 Subaru legacy Brighton wagon. The thing is all of the parts were for a 96 legacy outback. Everything fitted good, and then had anlinement done after. A few minutes of driving later on I'm noticing that the car isn't performing as well and it has a little hesitation going straight. Also it pulls a little tiny bit to the left. My mechanic says if I get some high performance sway bars this would take care of the problem.

Please respond on what u think i should do, thanks.

a picture took during the process.....
https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2012/01/photo6-2.jpg

[anothernord]

Sounds like the shop sucks at alignments. I'd take it back and tell them to make the car go straight. :lol:

[02_Legacy]

no get a new mechanic, he clearly does not know basic suspension, sway bars have no effect on vehicle tracking what so ever, they only come into use when cornering. I would say it is a bad alignment.

[Thomistopheles]

Yeah, sway bars won't do anything to fix a shitty alignment. Find a new mechanic and get it properly aligned...preferably a mechanic who actually knows what sway bars do.

[Huffer]

I'm noticing that the car isn't performing as well and it has a little hesitation going straight. Also it pulls a little tiny bit to the left. My mechanic says if I get some high performance sway bars this would take care of the problem.


You mentioned performance... do you mean engine performance or overall driving feel?
Sounds like your alignment is a bit off... possibly the toe-out.

[StuartZickefoose]

do you drive in the left or the right lane most of the time? road crown is often compensated for in alignments, and if you drive in the left lane on a freeway, and they set it up to pull left to compensate for RIGHT lane driving, then its not messed up, just setup a certain way so it will work correctly based on how you drive.

[MonstarMotorsports]

^ where in the world are you from, i work in an alignment shop and i've never heard that lol.

have your alignment rechecked, since new suspension just went on it sounds fishy its pullling all of a sudden. How ever, tires can also make a car pull left or right. switching them from side to side some times cures the problem, sometimes it makes it pull the other way.

Sway bar will have nothing to do with it though.

[Huffer]

do you drive in the left or the right lane most of the time? road crown is often compensated for in alignments, and if you drive in the left lane on a freeway, and they set it up to pull left to compensate for RIGHT lane driving, then its not messed up, just setup a certain way so it will work correctly based on how you drive.

WTH?

All roads crown from the center... this is so water runs off into the gutters. So the middle lane on a 3 lane freeway is actually crowned left and right, the left lane is crowned to the right, and the right lane is crowned to the left:

/|\

Cars are supposed to be aligned to drift to the RIGHT, to the slow lane or the shoulder so in the event that the driver happens to fall asleep they will head into the ditch and not into oncoming traffic.
At 60mph your car needs to be aligned so that it is in the berm or shoulder within 10seconds of the driver falling asleep.

[02_Legacy]

OK so I am in tech school and we just went over alignments, this is what my teacher told the class. The goal is to always make the vehicle go as straight as possible, no pull either way, however that is impossible so the best thing to do then is set up the suspension so that is slowly drifts left to compensate for road crown. This is so small though that you should not really notice it. As a matter of fact when I align vehicles at work I always make sure that they go left in the right lane and right in the left lane even if the alignment specs say the vehicle should theoretically pull left.

[Huffer]

Drift LEFT? That's a terrible idea. If you're on a rural both-way road, and you fall asleep, your vehicle is going to drift INTO oncoming traffic. You don't want that. You need to drift OFF the road so that you don't cause more casualties.

[02_Legacy]

well if the road was perfectly flat you would go left, but no roads are flat, like I said usually you go with the road crown which ever way that may be.
When I say set it up to pull left i'm not talking about anything major like thrust line or such, just more negative camber on the right side then the left or less caster on the left than the right.

[MonstarMotorsports]

im not giong to start a pissing match here, but from my knowledge and what i've been taught, Huffers dead on. Car should go straight down the road for a good ways but eventually slowly head right off into the ditch.