Does your Formentor have issue with steering?

Drobatz

Active Member
Aug 2, 2022
10
2
Serbia
Hello good people,
I am checking my sanity here, can you please share your experience.
Recently I noticed my Formentor trying to take me off the road when driving in straight line, like there is an issue with steering and wheel alignment.
I have around 3500km traveled, and no major issues, but what actually pissed me off was the response from the dealer, telling me that it is a “known issue” but they don’t have a solution for it, that service says that cars are by the factory spec, and they can’t fix it. They even told me that cars in UK tend to steer on the left because of the angle of the road, like here it goes on right because of the road tilt. It seem to me like a load of BS, I drove quite different cars and shitboxes on wheels, and they didn’t have problem with tilt of the road.
Can you please share your experiences, and any advice would be appreciated.
 

Korefan

Active Member
Jun 10, 2022
36
5
Latvia
Just try to switch of Line Assist.
I switch it off every time I'm on the wheel and I didn't experienced such behavior since test drive :D
 

SRGTD

Active Member
May 26, 2014
2,388
1,279
@Drobatz - I’ve found that some cars can be more affected by road camber / angle of the road than others. My VW does drift very gradually towards the kerbside on roads with a fairly steep camber if I take my hands off the steering wheel. and previous cars I’ve owned have also done it.

Check that your tyres are all at the correct pressure. You could also get an alignment check carried out at an independent specialist wheel alignment place to make sure the alignment’s correct. Only if it’s safe to do so (on a quiet road with no other traffic around) you could try driving down the centre of both lanes, straddling the road markings to remove the effects of road camber / road slope to see if it drives in a straight line or still pulls towards the kerbside.
 
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Ninjakebab

Active Member
Apr 12, 2022
176
91
@Drobatz - I’ve found that some cars can be more affected by road camber / angle of the road than others. My VW does drift very gradually towards the kerbside on roads with a fairly steep camber if I take my hands off the steering wheel. and previous cars I’ve owned have also done it.

Check that your tyres are all at the correct pressure. You could also get an alignment check carried out at an independent specialist wheel alignment place to make sure the alignment’s correct. Only if it’s safe to do so (on a quiet road with no other traffic around) you could try driving down the centre of both lanes, straddling the road markings to remove the effects of road camber / road slope to see if it drives in a straight line or still pulls towards the kerbside.
This! Drift due to slope is definitely a thing. Remember that wind will also be able to have a big effect.
But in my Formentor the drift effect is less than in my previous Saab.

Not sure if this is the cause of what OP is experiencing. Is it a sudden and dangerous drift, or more of a slow one that you can easily counter?
 

Drobatz

Active Member
Aug 2, 2022
10
2
Serbia
Thank you for the replies, yes I have the checked tire pressure first, and optical inspection of possible damage to the wheel before embarking on a quest to find out what is behind all of this.

It is a slight drift, and can be easily corrected just by holding the wheel all the time. I noticed on some roads it did not happen, and my guess it was because of those roads didn’t have proper camber like all others. So far, my conclusion is that the car starts following camber, but why all of a sudden?

What troubles me the most that this did not happen for the first 3500km of driving; it started happening last week, and unpleasant surprise is the response of the dealership that they can’t fix it.

Also I did drive quite different cars before, with ba wheels, bad alignment, damaged rims from potholes, and various stuff, but this drift is annoying since a new car should not have issues that my old leon mk2 from ‘08 never had issues with… Yep, I drove on high winds and various conditions, but a new car, on a straight road, newly built highway, to me it is not normal that it can’t hold straight line.
I do understand that when I hit acceleration that it may drift into the side because of the motor position and XDS, but on steady road with no sudden acceleration new car should go straight if the road is straight with no extreme camber…
 
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Tormentor

Active Member
May 3, 2021
199
102
Have you had both front and rear wheel alignment checked at an independent garage?
 

Drobatz

Active Member
Aug 2, 2022
10
2
Serbia
Have you had both front and rear wheel alignment checked at an independent garage?
That is next on my list, since someone in the dealership told me “it happens in the UK, it drifts to the left there” I remembered that this forum has a lot of folks from UK, so I came to ask, is it true and do you guys have same issue as well on different mileages?
 

Tormentor

Active Member
May 3, 2021
199
102
No problems on my car in the UK. I think they are telling tall stories. If you get the 4 wheel alignment check done, they will give you a print out of the results.
 
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Ninjakebab

Active Member
Apr 12, 2022
176
91
...

What troubles me the most that this did not happen for the first 3500km of driving; it started happening last week, and unpleasant surprise is the response of the dealership that they can’t fix it.

...
Oh yes, this is the interesting part. Is it always the same direction of drift?
Have you had your wheels off or had anything done to the car immediately before it started doing this?
 

Drobatz

Active Member
Aug 2, 2022
10
2
Serbia
I only felt the drift off the road, never to oncoming traffic.
No wheel was removed since I got it, and there was nothing worked on that would lead to the issue, no big potholes with large speed etc.

I am going to insist for the dealer to do all the checks and provide documented proof that car is by the factory spec, then off to a independent garage to re-check…

It really is a fun car to drive, but I strongly feel that this is not right, and it is not supposed to be like this. That’s why I reached out to get your experiences on the matter. Thank you, and hope we will continue to enjoy driving.
 
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barqqsanu

Active Member
Sep 9, 2021
59
23
So...I have also studied the problem as it happened to me too. I have 19" wheels for summer and 18" wheels for winter. Here is what I have found: the 19" wheels are more sensible (as they are wider) and tend to steer by themselves on uneven roads. The problem is not so evident on the 18" wheels, but they also steer on uneven roads. However, in both cases, only a small amount of correction is needed to keep the car straight. More than this, if the road is perfectly straight and not angled, you shouldn't notice any deviation (I have checked it on a new road and both sizes behaved well).

But, on my case, after changing the 19" wheels with the 18" ones, I noticed that the 18" were steering to the right like crazy and I had to keep the steering-wheel straight by applying force constantly (this didn't happen on the 19" nor on the 18" wheels 6 months before). So I went to the garage to check the wheels balance and the alignment and everything was OK. I tested the car again and the issue persisted. Nobody from the official Cupra/Seat garage knew what is happening. So I went to a specialised wheels garage and they told me that this is a common problem for cars with 17inch+ wheels: you shouldn't change the rims position when changing wheels (eg: mixing front with back and left with right) as in time the rims get "used" with their position and will change shape accordingly. First I thought that they are joking (in my view it was absurd...) but I changed the rims to their original position (I had them marked) and the car was perfect again. In my case this was the issue...I hope it helps!
 
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RainyDay

Active Member
May 9, 2022
92
6
Hello good people,
I am checking my sanity here, can you please share your experience.
Recently I noticed my Formentor trying to take me off the road when driving in straight line, like there is an issue with steering and wheel alignment.
I have around 3500km traveled, and no major issues, but what actually pissed me off was the response from the dealer, telling me that it is a “known issue” but they don’t have a solution for it, that service says that cars are by the factory spec, and they can’t fix it. They even told me that cars in UK tend to steer on the left because of the angle of the road, like here it goes on right because of the road tilt. It seem to me like a load of BS, I drove quite different cars and shitboxes on wheels, and they didn’t have problem with tilt of the road.
Can you please share your experiences, and any advice would be appreciated.
I've had a left bias in my steering for as long as I rember having my 2022 Ibiza FR. But mine is left hand drive 🤷

Also keep in mind your weight may affect suspension geometry on one side which may include toe in/out
 

gletts

GL53TTS
Jan 7, 2008
121
8
Crawley, West Sussex
I have a brand new Leon FR Sport, which has exactly this problem, and I got exactly the same response from the dealer. I am in the UK, and the car veers off quite badly to the right. It's done it since I've had it (about 6 weeks), and hasn't got better or worse the more I've driven it (the car has now done 800 miles). The dealer was not in the slightest bit interested in sorting it and just told me "it was within spec when it left here" via my leasing company. Literally no help whatsoever and refused to do anything further. (as they did with the 5mm chip in the windscreen that they delivered with the car... it's 'within specification' apparently).

It's nothing to do with any of the safety systems, because if I turn them off it still does it. The issue is, I believe, that the steering wheel alignment is not set correctly (or it IS set correctly, but something else is making the wheels not straight).

I'm going to have it checked by an independent specialist to see what they say.
 

M6TT F

Active Member
Dec 27, 2009
237
24
Never heard of wheels ‘changing shape’ according to their location. Sounds far fetched to me. I’ve switched fronts with rears on my golf and no problems
 

Alex667

Active Member
Jan 10, 2023
302
92
United Kingdom
Never heard of wheels ‘changing shape’ according to their location. Sounds far fetched to me. I’ve switched fronts with rears on my golf and no problems
If this was an issue, tyre rotations wouldn’t be recommended by most people…. Your tracking has to be pretty far out to wear the tyres that badly the pure shape of the tyre affects steering when you switch wheels around.
 
Mar 26, 2023
1
0
I have the same exact issue - bought a Cupra Formentor a year ago, drove for 3500km exclusively on very good highways, never hit a pothole or anything else etc. Then the car suddenly started veering to the right, to the tune of "if I let go of the wheel on a straight and flat patch of the highway, I'm in the right lane within 100 meters". We stopped right away and checked the tyres, which were fine. Went to a specialized independent alignment garage and had the alignment checked - everything was fine. Went to the dealership next, they kept the car and got back to us a few days later saying that the wheels are out of alignment (which we knew was crap because we checked), that we must have hit a pothole (which we knew was crap because we didn't), but that they aligned them and it was now fine - which we found out was crap when we picked the car up, as it was still veering right. Same as drobatz, it only takes holding the wheel to correct it, you're not fighting to keep it in a straight line. So we got it back to the dealer, they admitted they have no idea why it's happening and that other cars have started popping up with the same issue. The admission was, of course, off the record - officially, the car's steering follows the tilt/camber of the road and the factory says all is as it should be.
 
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