2007 Rx350 Steering Wheel Not Aligned

[White RX350 Lexus]

My wife and I bought a used 2007 RX350 several weeks ago and we love it. Recently while driving it on a trip we noticed that the steering wheel is not lined up correctly when you are driving on a straight away. In other words, while driving straight down the road the steering wheel is is about 5-8 degress to the left of where itshould be. Is this just fixed by having the front end aligned? Any thoughts?

[1990LS400]

Usually aligning will correct a steering wheel offset unless something is bent. Most modern cars require a 4-wheel alignment. In extreme cases, the steering wheel can be removed and reinstalled/repositioned on the spline but I think it has been several decades since that was commonly done. Here is a web page that explains wheel alignment: http://www.familycar.com/alignment.htm

[White RX350 Lexus]

Usually aligning will correct a steering wheel offset unless something is bent. Most modern cars require a 4-wheel alignment. In extreme cases, the steering wheel can be removed and reinstalled/repositioned on the spline but I think it has been several decades since that was commonly done. Here is a web page that explains wheel alignment: http://www.familycar.com/alignment.htm

Thanks. I checked out the link you provided and it appears that when they perform the alignment we will need to make sure they perform the "steering center" function correctly.

Thanks again for a great response.

[jgr7]

It seems odd that a car this new would have this issue unless some kind of event happened. Did you get a car fax report when you purchased the RX? I would check to see if it was in an accident.

Jeff

[SW03ES]

Its just simply that whoever had the car previously had an alignment done poorly at some point.

I very commonly have to take the car back and have it re-aligned because they failed to properly center the steering wheel...

[idoc]

It seems odd that a car this new would have this issue unless some kind of event happened. Did you get a car fax report when you purchased the RX? I would check to see if it was in an accident.

Jeff

I would advise to take it to a reputable mechanic/shop for an alignment. We weren't so lucky. We took it to our local place called Tire Kingdom and they did a very poor job at aligning our Rx350. We also had a few deep indentations or dimples on the wood portion of the lower right steering wheel where they put an anchor to keep the steering wheel straight. Our alignment was also completely off because they installed tires on the alignment rack and lowered the vehicle back down immediately to align the vehicle. Because the tires were up in the air and lowered onto the alignment rack, the tires were not in its normal posture causing a false reading for the alignment system. Needless to say, we took it to another shop to finally align our vehicle properly. Good luck.

[stcist2]

just a couple of things...

1 dont forget about the crown of the road, it is very common that the road has a slight slope to the right,causing you to steer slightly to the left to keep going straight ahead...

2 check your tire pressures, too little air in the right tire(passenger) or too much air in the drivers tire will cause the same effect,very common for someone to look at the drivers front tire and think that it is too low,addding air until it "looks" right will affect the steering angle when trying to go "straight".

[cduluk]

If everything is aligned properly (meaning it's just a matter of the steering wheel being off) you can remove the steering wheel and rotate it into the next spline to get it straight- the Rx wheel can operate this way. It might be a lot quicker and cheaper...