Adjusting steering for the camber of the road

[maurice28]

On the couple of cars that I own/lease (a 13 year old Vauxhall Astra with 75,000 miles and a new Hyundai Tucson with 2,000 miles) I've noticed that when I'm driving along a straight road, I have to hold the steering wheel perhaps a couple of degrees to the right to keep the car straight. It's more pronounced on fast A roads and motorways, although sometimes noticeable on slower roads too.

It's a bit more obvious on the Astra than the Tucson. The wheel alignment has be done at various points on the Astra, and is never really much out, and if I let go off the wheel while driving along, both cars will keep going mostly straight with the wheel tilted slightly to the right, there's not a dramatic pull to the left.

I assume then, that it's just a case of slightly compensating for the camber of the road and the speed meaning this is more necessary. But I wondered, how much do you find this in your car? Is your steering wheel always absolutely central as you are driving along straight, or is this slight compensation for road camber just perfectly normal?

[E-bmw]

This is a standard feature of cars on UK roads, it is due to the camber that is built into the road surface to allow for drainage of standing water to the outside of the road.

If you were to compensate for it to be straight on one road it would be off on another, not worth even trying to adjust it out.