Anybody who has or has had the left pull, PLEASE READ.

Left Pull or Left With No Brain

OK, time for some kon-tro-ver-see. I fully expect to get a flaming but am still saying as I see it:

Does the left pull exist?

Yes, possibly! I've driven my sisters MINI One which she claims has a left pull. I've driven it but it's nothing like as extreme or severe as I expected - just a (very)mildish tug. I don't have any pull syndrome on my Cooper.

Any other reasons for the left pull?

Some people may have been pyschologically "convinced" that they have a left pull by other posts.

Drainage gradients/camber exists on all roads. Some roads are worse than others. Camber exists on roads unexpectedly. You may think it looks flat but looks are often deceptive. I thought that one 5 mile stretch of the A20 was totally flat until I rode it on my bike and nearly had a hernia at the tough going!

Channels created by lorries often cause ruts which cause the steering to tug. You often cannot see the ruts unless it's been raining. If you drive a route regularly then you may think you car has a problem.

I also think that many MINI drivers may have driven "lesser" machinery with poor steering responses. I know my sister did - a Vauxhall Corsa 1.4 with appalling steering that fought through the wheel when you cornered. I had until April a Saab - which was also indirect in steering. After driving the Saab for a week, I'd jump into the MINI and be constantly steering excessively for the first few miles. I'd turn the wheel on the MINI and be finding myself steering too close to the kerb.

Food for discussion perhaps?

PartlyPerplexed DC

I think alot of people, me included, were more aware if not actively looking for the reported problems when they received their cars. However, would I / you have been concerned had you not read about the problem on here first? It is a difficult question. All cars drift with the camber, the mini has very direct steering so may drift slightly quicker than on other cars.
My Cooper doesn't pull left and it does drift left or right depending on road camber. A road local to me has a right camber and my car drifts to the right. On 'perfectly' flat ground the car tracks dead straight. I would not have had any concerns at all if I had not read the faults and fixes section of this web-site everyday for a year. I do have a couple of the other reported problems, but these really are niggles that i have not raised with my dealer. The left fix supposedly went onto the production line in build week 9, which was early march, my car was built late march.
MINIGUY when did the left pull 'fix' go onto the production line on all models?

Paranoia probably
When I got my MINI I was very sensitive to every pull this way and that of the steering wheel and I'm positive that mines absolutely fine. One deeply tracked tarmac the steering will follow any grooves in the road.
This is just becaurse the steering feedback is SO GOOD you know exactly what they are doing. To be honest after having my car for just over 3 months now, I love this attribute to bits.
I've driven several BMWs over the last couple of weeks and to be truthful they are nothing feel wise compared to my Cooper. And they're supposed to be the ultimate drivers cars
The thing is now though I can't drive anything else without critising the lack of feel

How bad is your "drift"?
I can drive on the motorway and admittedly the car will drift ever so slightly, but this is due to camber and all I need to do is rest my hand on the wheel to stop the drift. I do not need to hold it frimly at all and I have no lack of confidence in it. In the fast lane however there are no problems.

Give it a chance I say. It took me a good month to persuade myself that mine was normal

Does the "left drift" exist you ask? or is it "left-pull" you mean?
Some people have become convinced that the left pull is a figment of their imagination that does not really exist. They have listened to people on the internet and some dealers who say that the problem only existed on a handful of cars and that the problem was of sub-standard component manufacture. Some dealers insist that they have never heard of the problem. They have simply popped a few tablets and happily driven off. I jest of course, because the reverse arguement is used by those whose cars steer as straight as an arrow, and they refuse to accept that the problem was widespread on earlier models.

Sadly many cars have been built with varying degrees of left pull and not just a drift.
Of course the car should be camber sensitive, but we are talking annoying tug, arm ache stuff on more extreme cars.

To address this problem BMW will happily fix these cars with steering pull provided you kick up a big fuss should the dealer try to play dumb. Don't get me wrong, not all dealers deny the existence of the pull. My dealer says that all the early models had a left pull to one degree or another. That's why my MINI is at the dealers right now getting a new front suspension system and is travelling back to the BMW plant at Thorne tomorrow to get the realignment done. If it was all psychological then it looks like I have even managed to convince BMW too.

Cars built week 9 and after have the fixed suspension. That does not mean that it will not pull if the alignment is out though, or if the tyre pressures are up the creak. Its just a lot less likely though.

If you want to test your sanity try the following:

Find a deserted stretch of flat, smooth, straight road, on a windless day.

Drive from North to South and note the steering pull (or a lesser drift).
Now drive South to North down the SAME wheel tracks.


If the car always goes East or always goes West then your car is doing what it is supposed to. If you don't like it, tough. Buy a different car coz it cant' be helped.

If it goes East and then West, or vice versa, then you had better make tracks to your dealer to fix it as your car has a pull in one direction.

Does my left-drift exist?

Thanks for all the responses guys, it really is appreciated - my first task will be to try and gather some more empirical evidence, probably in a similar way to what Apial has suggested - it's the only way I'll be able to put this to bed.

Smiffy, you've got a new car which seems to exhibit the left-drift, do you have anything to add in your case?

As for my paranoia, that may have been caused by a mis-spent youth. If only I could convince myself the drivers seat didn't creak...

Cheers fella's, I'll post an update.

Potts


p.s. Selling the car could never be an option.

pull is real, not psychosomatic

I had just got mine and had just come back from my first extended drive when I first noticed it. I had never heard of left pull, or this site before. I found MINI2 because I was searching the net to find out if anyone else's MINIs were pulling left.

And it wasn't due to the crown of the road. Here in the US, pull-to-the-left means propelling me & my smiley-faced new friend up over the crown and into oncoming Ford Brontosauruses.

I was appalled at my dealer's response. At first they said "Yeah it's definitely pulling. Must be wheel alignment" blah blah blah. Then after having talked to corporate, called back and said like brainwashed automotons "There is no pull. All front-wheel drive cars do this." Having driven nothing but Hondas for the last 15 years, I knew this was a lot o' hooey.

I decided to be philosophic and not engage in air guitar while driving. I knew that when they had a fix they'd let me know. These big monolithic corporations are inherently evil, but BMW seems to be making an honest effort in spite of themselves.

Yesterday they did call, saying the fix was ready. Surprise surprise -- especially since it was the first time they had admitted there was a problem! I only hope the mechanics at my dealer have gone to school on this. While nice as all getout, they don't seem to know a whole lot about the MINI yet.

Regardless, I love my MINI to the hilt!

Left Pull - The Australian experience

I also found this site while looking to see if anyone else had a MINI that pulled left.
Forget the psychobabble about being influenced by what you read on MINI2, does everyone now have a dash that rattles?If you can feel the pull then it is real.
I drive the MINI on the same roads on which I have driven countless cars for the last 20 years. NONE of the previous cars (Minis, MGs, Rovers, Fords, Holdens, Toyotas, Mitsubishis) have ever pulled to the left. Here in West Aus road camber is very slight if it exists at all and as often as not it cambers the wrong way. (If the WA road engineers had worked for the Romans they would have been fed to the lions)

Took the MINI back to the dealer yesterday for a fix and guess what
"Its the camber of the road, they all drive like this" is the official line.

The service staff were very helpful and told me they had a BMW model that did exactly the same until replacement parts were fitted. They are searching for answers.

The left pull doesn't stop me grinning as I drive.

Psychosomatic my arse!

My wife who had her licence for 12 months when she drove my Feb build Cooper for the first time turned to me within five minutes and said, "Why does it pull to the left?". I drove her Celica on the same stretch of road, same 17x205x45 tyres and a wheelbase about 3% proportionally different and did it pull? Did it funk!

As for misinformation, my dealer told me that after it completed its geometry test that it 'exhibited the characteristic pull inherent in the MINI's design'. What the funk does that mean other than "fault" in any other words? He practically admitted it could have been a PR disaster for MINI and fortunately the mainstream press hadn't picked it up and ran with it in a bigger way.

I do however feel there is a grain of truth in the view that the forum actively encourages people to be unduly paranoid about their cars (especially if you check the faults forums daily ;-)

I honestly have to try really hard not to LISTEN for creaks and rattles, and forget about the b*llocks and just have fun in it! However, that increased awareness is a tiny peripheral consequence of spreading genuinely helpful information, for which I'll be eternally grateful. I know it sounds sad but I actually love the fact that we've all got the same wheels, are all mad keen on them and have this forum to express our views...

DBK