Had it new since 2002...4.7L...SXT 2wd...my steering wheel has been off quite a bit..well over a year now maybe 2...finally took it in to for an alignment...the front was out quite a bit...but they got everything aligned pretty good and well within spec. However my steering wheel is still off center...clockwise. The shop said it appears the rear end has shifted somehow? And the the truck is probably dog walking going down the road. It seems to drive just fine. Does not pull to one side or the other...it brakes fine. The truck has never been hit...not even the slightest fender bender. Any ideas on how the rear end would shift like that? My tire wear has not been bad either...take it to another shop? Any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

what kind of alignment? Center line? Thrust angle? did they set it up as a 4 wheel? (even though the rear isn't adjustable the best alignment is where the front references from the back. Did they give a printout? When I was an alignment guy, the place I worked at, the owners insisted on it and that everything was "dead nuts" center of range, that was a brag sheet to "how good we were"... most people had no idea what the numbers meant. I have had to have 3 of my vehicles aligned recently, they seem to want to hide that sheet if they even print one, don't want to give it out even when asked.... but to someone that knows what they mean can tell a lot from that. Did it show a thrust angle? If it wasn't 0.00 then yeah something is out of kilter... bent frame, broken center bolt in rear leaf springs, bad bushings in spring eyes, something. now it would depend on how "bad" that thrust angle was before I'd get all bothered by it.... could be they just didn't get the steering wheel centered right. that sometimes took a few tries.
if you let go of the wheel, does it go straight regardless of where the wheel sits? Different road surfaces can change that as can the wind. even if not obvious, there could be an issue with one or more of the tires. tires play a bigger part in "alignment" and how a vehicle rides and handles than most realize. Even with new tires,, there can be an issue. sometimes swapping front tires side for side can change things. Air pressure right? Ive proven that when a customer's car was in and I had another car with rims that would fit in another bay... "borrow" the rims and tires from this other car and go back out for a ride.
front end height the same side to side? If 4wd this is adjustable and should have been the 1st thing checked and set. To change front end height now will throw the adjustments made when they aligned it, way off.
my bigger Q is about the crooked wheel initially. did something happen "all of a sudden" (like hit a pothole, or change a part in the front end) when the wheel position changed back when you first noticed it 3-4 years ago? How had the front tires been wearing even with a crooked wheel? If it was a "sudden" change when it went crooked that bothers me more because there could be a bent/broken part, bad bushing which the "rest" of the bushing fell out of the sleeve, something...… I wasn't there when the alignment was done, so I can't say for sure why things were how they were or why they are how they are now.

I can tell you this/ since I am no longer an alignment guy I am having a tough time finding a "good" alignment shop. Having to go back and have them redo, having to go elsewhere and pay again, seem to be the rule today. I have a 99 Dakota club cab in addition to my Durango, and a 96 Dakota 4wd club cab.
I bought the 99 just on June 1. It only had 105K miles on it when I got it. The one thing the seller told me on the phone was that "it needed an alignment, it pulls right". well he11 yeah it did. the people I got it from had it 3 months and about 500 miles. They didn't know about the stash of receipts from the guy before them who had owned it since 2002 when it had 52k miles. I discovered them when we test drove it, I switched spots with my wife so she could get a feel for it and see what she thought before we bought it. THAT guy was real loyal to a shop who was great at just "taking his money".... I'd have been down their throats HARD if I had been the customer. They took advantage of the old guy, who was family friends with the people that I got it from. I won't get into everything but this part pertains here. there were receipts from 3 years before, a month apart, for 2 alignments. a month apart. Less than 500 miles apart back then. only 2000 miles before I bought the truck. These idiots took his money TWICE for an alignment in a month!!! The first thing I did when I got it home (I bought it 2 hours away) was to jack up the front end and check the condition of the parts. well guess what? The ball joints were totally WASTED on this thing!!!! WASTED! Dangerously so! so the 2nd day I had it I replaced them. and then took it for alignment. The readings "before" when I took it in, were off the screen!!! This truck had barely 2000 miles on it from when the PO had it aligned 3 years before. he was a retired guy in his 80s, who the family had taken the keys away from 3 months before and the people that I bought it from, had gotten this truck. well guess what? To only go 2000 miles in 3 years that truck had sat a lot. Those ball joints didn't go from "good" to "wasted" in 2000 miles!!! They didn't go bad in all of the sitting that truck did between those 2000 miles. They would have HAD to have been sloppy then, too. Had that shop have replaced the ball joints on the 1st alignment, there may not have had to be a 2nd or a 3rd alignment which was the one that I had done on it. You CANNOT align "slop" out of loose parts!!!! When I had the alignment done after I replaced the parts, the guy just said "yeah it was way out" He had the "sheet" from it and I had to look quick as he stuffed it in a file with a copy of my receipt/work order that I think he may still have.

 

Thanks for your reply Volaredon, the tires are pretty new...maybe have around 8 or 9 thousand miles on them. It's a 2wd...looking at the truck from a distance, front and back..everything looks level. Front end height...side to side...rear looks even. They give me the alignment sheet, every time I go there they have no problems with that, I don't have to ask for it, they automatically staple it to my receipt and hand it to me.

In the before measurements...the thrust angle was -.38..and it was showing green, as if within spec. After the alignment, the front end all aligned pretty well. But the thrust angle went to -.40 and showing red for out of spec. And my steering wheel is still off. They said it appears that the rear end has shifted somehow. Again, truck has never been hit. As far as I can tell when I let go of the wheel it stays pretty straight...This was a 4 wheel alignment...I went outside and looked at the truck in the bay, they had alignment machines on all four wheels.

Also, on the driver's side..the rear camber was -0.3 and the toe 0.30, But on the passenger side, the camber is -1.9 and the toe 1.10!! So apparently that is the side with the problem? Maybe like you said spring bushings...broken center bolt...I mean I don't see how it would be the frame when the truck has never been in an accident? So what do you think? Again, your knowledge would be very helpful! Thank you so much.

 

Something is really screwy with the rear readings that you posted. Usually with a solid rear axle camber will be really close to equal on both sides of the truck, and toe will be the same, just+ on one side and - on the other. Bent housing?
one way that we REALLY got some screwed up readings was when there was a problem with the alignment rack itself. When the cables would stretch and it wouldn't lift square, and when we set it down on the safety locks and one corner didn't lock in like the other 3 yeah, we'd get some really screwy readings. Or when the machine went out of calibration. We had 2 racks, and whenever there was a question we would move a vehicle over to the other rack and compare readings. When we find out that one of our machines was out of whack by way of a customer that went somewhere else and had another shop align their car and came back with the results, the owners would get real PO'd, and the factory repair guy was on the phone before that customer left.

 

Ok well I might just take it somewhere else and let them put it on the rack and check it. A good number of places around will not charge just to put it on the rack and check it. I'll try to do that sometime soon when I get a chance. Thanks for the input!

 

make sure they shake down the front end and check parts. If their machine comes up with different readings I'd take their readings back to the 1st shop and let them know..... yours may not be the only vehicle recently that hasn't come out right.

 

Update! Took the truck in Monday to get the front wheel bearings done, and I told them to check out the rear end. I figured there had to be a broken Spring shackle bolt or a center bolt or something bent or broken. Well they ended up finding a bent U-bolt. Once they replaced that and did the alignment again, everything squared up nicely. And now my steering wheel is straight and the truck drives soooo much better! Glad to have that outa the way! Now to replace those worn lift-gate shocks!