when i am going straight, my steering wheel is turned to the right. When I straighten out the steering wheel, the car goes to the left. What is causing this. Is it something to do with the alignment or is the steerin wheel screwed up?

 

alignment. I would make sure that your tie rod ends are in good shape before you spend your money on a wheel alignment then find out later that you needed tie rod ends. Firestone has a lifetime warranty on there alignments. The good thing about that is that if you later put on some lower spring (if not done already) and or ball joints then the warranty covers anything that you do your car.

 

yeah.. my 2004 has the same problem that you do. I'm taking it to ford to have them check it out...

 

When i put ball joints in, i went to get it aligned and they said that they couldnt because my outter tie rod ends were so loose. So i had to end up putting them on too. Only fun part bout the whole thing was trying to get the nut that holds the tie rods ends off. It was rusted on so bad. I ended up heating it was a cutting torch for 10 minutes until it was red hot.

 

Sounds more like a rack and pinion problem to me. When you're going straight, does it pull to the left? Or does it just go straight fine, but your steering wheel is crooked?

 

My wheel was cocked to the left but would track straight for the most part. I got my wheels aligned and the streering wheel was straight and my car when straight like a new car. So I don't think that the rack has anything to do with it. but could be wrong.

 

it is either one of two things 1. the last time you had it aligned it they didn't set the steering wheel and every thing is fine other than a crooked steering wheel.

the other thing is that your toe adjustsment is off. toe is set buy adjusting the tie rods if one of them gets out of wack enough it will cause your steering wheel to be crooked and also cause tire wear. you won't see a pull form it because the tires will track them selves to make the car go striaght.

as far as checking for loose or warn parts any competent mech will check this first so you won't have to worry about that. and most likely its not your rackandpinoin you will very seldome have problems out of them.