Hey guys, I just got my oil changed at 7k miles (second time, mobile 1 5-30 b/c they ran out of 5-20) at my local Walmart. I also wanted to get my tires rotated but they said they couldn't because I had uneven wear (these are my two front tires) and that I need to get an alignment.

I've been meaning to take it to the dealer because I thought something might be wrong. A couple of things I noticed while driving in the past month or so is that my steering wheel seems to be much looser (I heard there was a TSA on certain 05 models... I drive 05), also in December on a one hour drive to Pasadena my car felt unbalanced (the right side seemed higher). I thought I was imagining things because I hadn't been driving long distances for a couple of weeks due to the Winter Break.

Any help or advice would be nice. I plan on calling up the dealership, but not sure if I should. I never ate curb except once when my rear wheel got a tiny bit of curb rash but that was LONG ago, long before I felt any differences in the control of the car.

Again, any help or advice would be nice!

 

Why did you take your car to Wal-Mart?? My best advice is take it to the dealer.

 

I don't like recycled oil.

 

bump please

also... the car is only a year old w/ 7.5k miles on it

 

bumpity bump bump

 

Are you on stock suspension?

Check your tires' air pressure, should be 32psi front, 29 psi rear for stock tires.

Uneven tire wear shouldn't stop you from rotating them. I think Walmart just wanted you to buy more services or new tires from them.

What do you mean by recycled oil? Where'd you hear that from?

 

I'm on stock suspension. Just woke up, I'll go check tire pressure in a minute. I heard dealerships use recycled oil, at least this one BMW dealership did.

 

recycled oil? well then my tC has been running on recycled oil for 19,000 miles!

 

well thanks

 

the tsb for the steering problem is on this link.. scroll down, it's closer to the bottom.. just right click for "save image/picture as" and save to your computer.. easier to print out for you to take to the dealer than try and print the whole thread..

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=105110

it doesn't matter if you hit a curb or anything.. there is a bad batch of steering racks out there and power steering pumps.. you don't have to do anything for it to go bad, it's already bad. Definitely sounds like this is what you have, check the tsb for the VIN number you're probably in the affected group.. this would most definitely affect the wearing of your tires..

 

Thank you!

 

you're most welcome