My wife has a 2009 Caliber SXT 2.0 that has started pulling noticeably to the right. It pulls on flat roads as well as crowned highways. The car was aligned about a year ago along with new tires and has driven fine until recently.

Looking for potential issues the ball joint, sway bar end link and tie rod look ok. There is no '12 to 6' or '9 to 3' play in the tire either. I did have to replace the wheel bearing about 25k miles ago but I'm not experiencing any noise with the pulling. Everything appears to look ok.

My wife also swears she hasn't hit any curbs or potholes.

While looking for issues I did notice the boot on the upper strut is dry rotted and just flopping around exposing the rod underneath. This couldn't be a reason for the pulling, right? I attached a pic of the strut.

Other than just paying for a possibility unnecessary alignment does anyone have any thoughts as to what's causing this right pull?

 

a torn boot for the strut won't cause a pull. Most pulls for unibody mac strut suspension systems are from worn parts, bent parts or a tire pull.
Did the pull first occur after a tire rotation?
As you have ruled out the first two....cross rotate the tires... the left side tires to the right. If the vehicle drives straight or now pulls left...the pull is tire related.
a conical tire will cause this but it will not be apparent looking at the tire. a tire with a broken belt can be seen and will also cause a pull.

 

An update... I cross rotated the front two tires and now instead of pulling to the right it now pulls to the left. I know this tells me I have a tire issue but I'm not sure how to rectify it.

The tires are good Firestone's and are about 1.5 yrs old with 20k miles on them. I rotate the tires every 5k miles when I change oil. If this is truly a tire issue does anyone know if I should expect a pro-rated replacement?

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Most tires have anywhere ffrom a 30K to 75K miles warranty on the tire for defects (not including road hazard issues like a nail in the tire, etc). I would go to the where you bought the tires and see if they can help with getting it replaced under warranty.