Just came back from the Nissan dealer alignment issue / car pulling to one side

Originally Posted by semtex

Regarding the pulling to one side, are you guys sure it's not 'tramlining'? I don't know how bad your roads are so I can't say. But tramlining is when a road is so worn that both sides of the lane where wheels constantly go over have actually compressed down, and the center of the lane kinda comes up in a hump. When you drive over it, it's almost like you're driving on rails as your wheels want to conform to the compressed strips on either side of the lane, and the steering wheel will move itself to follow the compressed path (hence the name 'tramlining' as it's like being in a tram). Now, often time, roads aren't 100% level -- they're deliberately slanted off in one direction for water drainage. Combine this with surface compression, and you could experience pulling to one direction. Again, I haven't seen your roads, so this is completely speculative on my part, but I just want to throw it out there for consideration.

Regarding being worried that your car will be taken for joyrides by service techs. I always make a point of jotting down my odometer mileage when I leave my car, and I make sure the service advisor sees me doing it. That way they know I'm no fool and I'm keeping an eye on them. If I pick up my car and it has anything more than an extra 5 miles on it, I raise hell and tear them a new one. I picked up my car once and it had an extra 20 miles out of it. I raised such a stink that the manager took my invoice and marked it as paid in full just to get me out of there. He wrote off about $200 in charges.