The 300M is very sensitive to any imperfection in tires. The original
Goodyears that came with the car were replaced by Chrysler for vibrations
and the new ones were replaced by me with Michelins when the second set of
Goodyears went bad after 10k miles. Lots of people had drifting problems
with the 300M. Personally, I think the guy doing the alignment today was
going for perfection after hearing all the problems I had had with the front
end of the car. I doubt I would have perceived any drift.


"NJ Vike" > wrote in message
ink.net...
> Art,
>
> I'm not sure I get it.
>
> "the car drifted slightly so they brought it back in and switched
> front wheels and that solved the problem"
>
> Why would they have to switch wheels for the car to steer straight and not
> drift? Something still doesn't sound right.
>
> One idiot lowered the air pressure on one of my friend's front tires to
> get the car to go straight. I'm afraid to let anyone touch the alignment
> on any vehicle.
>
>
>
> "Art" > wrote in message
> ink.net...
>> For those paying attention, after getting the clunk fixed (turned out to
>> be a inner tie rod bushing), the more competent dealer left the steering
>> wheel crooked. So I took it to Merchant's tire, etc store after
>> checking with them that they would listen to my concerns about doing the
>> alignment correctly (as described by Bill, Steve and others here). So I
>> printed out the advice previously posted here, highlighted the important
>> stuff and took the car over.
>>
>> They said they understood the issue and only a moron would do it wrong
>> and they weren't morons. In any case they did the alignment and took a
>> road test. The front end was indeed off, according to them and after
>> they aligned it, the car drifted slightly so they brought it back in and
>> switched front wheels and that solved the problem. Car is now properly
>> aligned, steering wheel is straight and the car tracks straight.
>>
>> By the way they said that they fix a clunk once per month in their shop
>> in these cars caused by bad bushing in the left inner tie rod. In their
>> opinion it is being cooked by exhaust heat because a pipe is too close
>> to it. I haven't heard that theory before. One of the guys owns an
>> Intrepid. At 50k miles he replaced the steering rack. It now has 100k
>> miles on it and nothing else has gone bad on it except for the weather
>> stripping. I told him Bill's suggestion of cutting the weather stripping
>> and buying one additional piece for splicing.
>>
>
>