Steering wheel off center, but wheel alignment is fine.

[Black S]

Curious if this is something I can fix on my own, my steering wheel on my 14 S5 is slightly positioned to the right when driving in a straight line. My alignment however, seems to be fine. Btw, is this caused by cranking the wheel to hard.?

[bdons]

No. Turning too hard won't do it. The steering wheel attaches to teeth inside the column. You can take the wheel off and move it to be center.

[Black S]

Thanks for the reply.

Question - since the Column is attached
To teeth, how then could it come off
Centre?

[JamesRS5]

Wooooah, wait a minute, don't go taking the wheel off unless you absolutely have too.

It may drive straight, that is by no means an indication your wheel alignment is good. If I were you, I'd take it to a shop that can carry out a good 4 wheel alignment and see what that shows up.

If that comes out as being ok (I suspect it won't) then set the wheel straight and count how many turns it takes to go fully left and then fully right from centre, mark the wheel position at each full lock with tape. From that you can work out the true centre point and get the wheels aligned at that.

Has the steering wheel been removed at any point?

[NYSpeedRacer]

You can adjust the shims for the steering wheel. Have the alignment tech do it. They did mine when they aligned it.


Sent from my Rickshaw

[Lil evil]

Most steering wheels are splined. Toothed is another way of putting it. As stated in previous post. The steering shaft is the same.
Steering shaft external spline. Steering wheel internal spline.
Once you remove the air bag/ horn centre unit. (Which I would be very careful when doing. If in doubt let a pro do it.)
Undo centre nut. Don't take the nut off completely at this stage. Pull wheel towards you. May help to wriggle side to side. Not much force though. Steering wheel should start to come off shaft towards nut. Keep undoing nut a little at a time and pulling wheel up. When wheel feels like it will slide straight off Then take nut off completely. Make a visual note, scribe or fine pen mark steering shaft and steering wheel. Lift wheel just off spline and rotate wheel in direction and distance to get it back to where you think would be centre to nearest tooth alignment and slide gently push wheel back on shaft. Nut back on. Don't over tension. The rest is putting back what you took off.

ps. Main reason not to take nut all the way off before trying to pull off steering wheel is ( although you'll pee yourself watching someone else doing it). If wheel is stiff at all when it does come loose you'll likely smack yourself right in the face with the wheel.

Apologies for long ramble. Good luck.

[Lil evil]

Thanks for the reply.

Question - since the Column is attached
To teeth, how then could it come off
Centre?

Some car builders fit steering wheels on assembly line before wheels or alignment. So it's a bit of a guess. Rarely one or two teeth out.

[Lil evil]

Curious if this is something I can fix on my own, my steering wheel on my 14 S5 is slightly positioned to the right when driving in a straight line. My alignment however, seems to be fine. Btw, is this caused by cranking the wheel to hard.?

If its always been off centre. Prob from factory.
If its happened since you've had it. You've got a problem most likely alignment issue. Thers no way you would strip the spline unless you were hanging off the wheel on full lock. Still doubt it. And if spline was stripped wheel would feel sloppy on shaft.

[Lil evil]

Curious if this is something I can fix on my own, my steering wheel on my 14 S5 is slightly positioned to the right when driving in a straight line. My alignment however, seems to be fine. Btw, is this caused by cranking the wheel to hard.?

If its always been off centre. Prob from factory.
If its happened since you've had it. You've got a problem most likely alignment issue. Thers no way you would strip the spline unless you were hanging off the wheel on full lock. Still doubt it. And if spline was stripped wheel would feel sloppy on shaft.

[JamesRS5]

Please just take it to get the alignment checked before you attempt any of the above.

[GSS5]

i've always assumed this has been from the roads being banked.

[Lil evil]

i've always assumed this has been from the roads being banked.

I've heard this too. I heard its done to compensate camber on roads.

[WildHareMS]

Road crown is compensated by caster settings in alignment. If the steering wheel is off center it's an alignment problem. It's not rocket science. The only time I've ever come across a case that is otherwise is when the vehicle has electronic steering and there is an update or correction to the programming to correct it.