Steering pulling when slowing right down

I'll explain this a bit further, i'm driving along and i come to the traffic lights. As i depress the brake pedal and the car slows at the last minute it pulls to the left or right, not heavily so you can feel it, but it you let go of the steering it really does pull the car a lot in either direction. Now i know its electric power steering, and again in my last 2 posts I have spoken about a huge pothole i went down and this again is one of the results of that.

I've read a few articles and there has been mention of an adjustable part to the steering system within the rack itself but i thought i'd post here first incase there are any other easier and more obvious answers I should deal with first from those with more knowledge of these wee beasties.

Thanks again guys.

Hi

Does it only pull while braking?

1. From the description is sounds like a brake issue, where the front calipers are not giving balanced braking.

2. But if you did hit a pot hole, the tracking will be out now and a local garage can check this and will make that adjustment in the steering rack for you.


If the pot hole impact damaged the track rod ends then the garage can find that too when the tracking is checked and adjusted.


That's my two suggestions

Hi again, yes the pothole did untold damage it split the strut top mount on the passenger front clean in half. This was replaced along with 2 new tyres and also having the tracking reset. No other damage was found at the time.

Ever since but only during braking does it seem to pull but this doesn't seem to be caused by a caliper as it changes direction from time to time. There is no rubbing on the discs when freewheeling the wheels. If it ends up being a mechanical failure i'll go down that route but it only happens right at the end of a braking sequence.....bit weird.

reddandanfireman wrote: ↑Mon Jan 18, 2021 2:15 pm it changes direction from time to time.

I would say some thing is loose or broken in the suspension. If it was just an adjustment of something it wouldn't be so random. Besides, the only thing that can be adjusted is the toe in. It's possible the tracking has toe out instead of toe in but the people who did the work should have spotted that very quickly. That also tends to make the steering a bit "squirrely".
You can try going over the suspension with a fine toothed comb. The suspension is very simple but it's easy to get lax when inspection things.
I would pay particular attention to the bushes in the control arm(s).
It's possible some form of damage has been done to the rear suspension, however being a torsion bar suspension, there is very little to go wrong an consequently easy to spot damage.
You could check the pivot bushes where they mount to the chassis.

Hi again guys, yea i've been through the steering track rods suspension lower ball joints, all bushes seem fine and would create uneven wear on the tyres if they were at fault and cause steering wander as you accelerate and rarely at slow speed. I believe this is something to do with the abs braking system now.

Tell me if i'm wrong and jumping to conclusions here but i'm always one to believe there's no such thing as coincidence. On removing the front headlamp today (passenger side to try to get out the trapped water) I discovered the hidden maxi relay pouch spoken about in other posts, I looked below and noticed and thick bundle of wires besides the horn (this is the wiring loom for the abs unit) and part of the lower inner wheel arch cover that had sprung up in the air from the previous impact of the pothole that I hadn't noticed.

This inch wide ducting was now open to the road weather because the grill was wide open below it. On opening up the split in the ducting low and behold it was soaking wet inside. now I can't be certain that there is any contact between contacts but water is a fantastic conductor and this doesn't seem too clever to me.

The next step is i'm going to disconnect the wiring loom from abs unit and clean this all up and dry it out and see if it makes any difference to the braking abnormality.

reddandanfireman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:21 pm On removing the front headlamp today (passenger side to try to get out the trapped water) I discovered the hidden maxi relay pouch spoken about in other posts,

This doesn't sound like the maxifuse box, did you take a picture of that?

reddandanfireman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:21 pm The next step is i'm going to disconnect the wiring loom from abs unit and clean this all up and dry it out and see if it makes any difference to the braking abnormality.

ABS is inactive most of the time, some drivers it is never activated. I would be surprised if ABS is giving you trouble.

reddandanfireman wrote: ↑Fri Jan 22, 2021 5:21 pm all bushes seem fine and would create uneven wear on the tyres if they were at fault

While this is true, it takes quite a few miles for it to become visible on the tyre.