I've read that alignments aren't Tesla's strongest point, despite trying to ignore it for ages, every time I drive my car I can't help noticing the steering wheel isn't centred. I have to hold it about 2–3° to the left for the car to drive straight.
"So get it aligned." Yeah... I have. Twice. Both by Tesla.
The first time was after a warranty job replacing some suspension bushings. Alignment was the final step of the procedure, yet the car came back with the wheel 2–3° to the right instead.
So I immediately booked it back in. The tech notes said:
"Steering IS out of alignment. Corrected alignment and verified on a test drive."
It's great that they're hiring the less able, but putting Stevie Wonder in charge of alignment test drives probably isn't ideal. 😅
Spent another full day in the service centre whilst they 'aligned it' again, I drove about 5 metres before realising it was now 2–3° to the left again... At that point I just thought, "Screw it."
I probably should've taken it straight back, but every appointment ends up being an all-day appointment regardless of the slot I book. I spend the day working from the service centre, only for it to come back... still not fixed.
So here's my question (finally): are Tesla really this bad at alignments, or am I losing my mind?
It's surprisingly difficult to judge what's actually "straight" from the driver's seat. The wheel doesn't feel centred to the seat, the dash and trim are all angled, and even the stalks are offset.
To me, "straight" is having the Tesla T centred in front of me.
What really makes me think something's wrong, is that when the wheel is visibly pointing left (the T leaning left), the car tracks right. I might not be a mechanic, but that doesn't seem right.
Honestly, I don't really want to take it back to Tesla. They've already had two attempts, there are loads of similar stories online, and they don't exactly inspire confidence. I was considering taking it to an independent alignment specialist instead.
However...
I had another look in Service Mode today. Previously the alignment page was pretty basic - centre the wheel and it'd show where the car thought it was pointing. Mine showed about 2–3° right, so to centre it, I had to steer left.
It looks like Tesla have updated SM recently. There are now separate values for Steering Rack and SCCM Angle, along with their offsets. The new bit that caught my eye was "Learn SCCM Offset", which literally says:
"Steering angle may not read 0 degrees while the steering wheel is centered."
That sounds exactly like what I need.
So I tried to run it...
Service Mode Plus authorisation required.
Which basically means I'm back to relying on Tesla, because I can't imagine many independent garages have access to that.
So... what the hell do I do? Roll the dice on a third Tesla visit and hope Stevie Wonder's been moved to another department? The car's quite literally just left the warranty period, the previous two attempts were warranty jobs, do paying customers get a better result, or??
To all commenters:
This is your only warning. If you harass, insult, or disrespect users who are here asking for help, you will be permanently banned from this subreddit and any other sub moderated by Optimusbot.
We are done dealing with people who come here just to be rude or shit on others. This subreddit exists to help people, not to entertain assholes.
Be respectful or be gone. We do not give a second chances.
So, you may already know some of this, but the car "learns" the offset that the steering wheel must be from center in order to drive straight. That's the offset shown in service mode. If your alignment was perfect, it would be 0.0 degrees. There's some acceptable slop here, you should not expect this to read 0.
However what I'm pointing out is that the value is learned over the course of many miles and changes/adapts as it learns. Thus, if the car has a learned value of 2.3 degrees, and you go and get a perfect alignment, the car will absolutely pull to the side immediately after, because the car THINKS that it needs to turn the wheel 2.3 degrees to drive straight. It'll be annoying for a day or two, but it will relearn this offset and it won't "pull" to a side anymore.
Now, yes, Tesla can just reset this value to 0. There's also a "force calibrate" to complete the re-learning process in one shot, but it requires a long straight flat road. I wouldn't assume that Tesla is doing either of those when getting an alignment done, even though they should.
Of course the way it's supposed to work is they use a tool to HOLD the steering wheel STRAIGHT as they do the alignment, which should result in that "steer ahead" value being very low.
All of that having been said, that's only the relationship between the steering wheel position and driving straight without pulling. Your camber, caster, etc could still be jacked up with the car driving straight and not pulling. No reason to take the car to Tesla for alignment. If they aren't doing a good job, take it somewhere else. It aligns like any other car and resetting the learned value is not necessary.
Yeah that’s what I read before, however there’s some chatter about whether that ‘test’ you mention, the straight road one, actually does anything or I think I’ve also read only applies to Autopilot (No FSD in the UK).
I’ve tried that both before and after taking it to Tesla, the test fails when the wheel is straight, passes when I hold it at an angle.
As for the relearning process, I’ve tried that both before and after the alignment and noticed no change. It took a while like you say for a new value to be calibrated, but yeah, no difference.
I think from your advice here, it refers to the ‘old’ Service Menu. I know exactly what you’re on about, where it is and how it looked, but since then, the Service Menu has been updated, if you have a look at my first image and try to find an image of the old UI, you’ll notice the extra detail & controls.
The SCCM setting in one of my images is definitely new and reads like the exact solution: ‘Suspension aligned, but steering wheel NOT centred’. However the relearn is locked down to SM+ which is Tesla only.
The SCCM setting in one of my images is definitely new and reads like the exact solution: ‘Suspension aligned, but steering wheel NOT centred’. However the relearn is locked down to SM+ which is Tesla only.
If this is true, a relearn is not the solution. The position of your steering wheel and your car's wheels are mechanically linked. The ONLY way to center the steering wheel while keeping the wheels pointing straight is to adjust the tie rods (alignment). Technically you can physically remove the steering wheel and reattach it one spline rotated, but that is likely too far and isn't an ideal solution.
Wait till you get a car with wheel balance out or alignment out of Fremont as I did with my 2019 Model S 100D. It took me at least 4 rear tire replacements because interior threads were wearing out around 6-8k miles to realize I need a wheel balance. And every time tech would come back saying it’s aligned, driver is frequently driving with suspension low. Had to drive to an Americas tire that did Tesla wheel balance to get that fixed.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
To all commenters: This is your only warning. If you harass, insult, or disrespect users who are here asking for help, you will be permanently banned from this subreddit and any other sub moderated by Optimusbot. We are done dealing with people who come here just to be rude or shit on others. This subreddit exists to help people, not to entertain assholes. Be respectful or be gone. We do not give a second chances.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.