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

4217 Views 35 Replies 23 Participants Last post by mr.bill, Jun 5, 2002

potts

Discussion Starter · May 21, 2002

I think you buggers have made me paranoid?

Got my MAY build Cooper last weekend. The car is FANTASTIC, I love it and when I get around to scanning my photographs you'll be able to see it.

However...

On driving down the A1 on Sunday night my worst fear appeared to be coming true - the drift to the left - at least, I think it is...
My first question is this: Even when there's no obvious camber in the road, is it still possible that there is one? i.e. for drainage.

Being on the A1, I was sometimes able to get it to drift to the right by driving in the right-hand lane, though more often than not it would drift to the left when letting go of the wheel - the same was true when driving in the middle of the road. However, it was sometimes possible to see an obvious left camber even in the right-hand lane! Maybe I'd have to drive south in the north-bound lanes to test this properly.

I phoned the dealer, who obviously said to bring it in for a drive (it's in on Saturday) - he knew about the problem on early builds and said all new cars are fine. I might suggest he let me take out a BMW as I'm quite open to the fact this may all be in my head having read about this 'left pull' on here over the past few months.

Ok, next questions. If he says it doesn't pull and after I've driven another car which I think is as straight as a die, at least compared to the MINI. What should I do? It's like my word against his - some graduate ex-old-banger driver against Mr BMW know-it-all. What could I do?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated - I can't believe I’m making this post

Potts

p.s. I know this should be in faults & fixes, I just wanted to attract as much attention as possible.

Note: This is my first car with power steering and I must say I'm a little disappointed with the slight 'numbness' compared to the 100% solid feel (warts n' all) from driving cars without.

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oxfordmini

· #33 · Jun 3, 2002

Apial,

I haven't been around for a few weeks so apologise for the late comments.

The White gator you can see is the bumpstop, the old suspension would have had this, it was just covered by the black gator, which I would have thought the new suspension should have had. The bumpstop probably changed slightly as the top mount has changed.

The top mount, this is where most problems came from, there were quality (manufacturing and assembly) problems with the bearing. Redesign to solve those problems. (and some last minute tuning by the comments on noise)

The shiney Anti Roll (or stabiliser) Bar link is only there because it comes with the strut from the supplier (look at the top connection it is difficult to get too with the spring in place), this part should be identical, try measuring it with an older car.

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