i'm a car noob so apologies if this is obvious or i don't explain it well

i have a 2001 sentra that veers very quickly but slightly every know and then. i can feel the wheel move when it happens, but never enough that i can't compenstate immediately. it always seems to happen at this one point in my drive home, where i'm accelerating after a stop sign and it happens around the time it switches gears (it's an automatic). sometimes i think it's just that the road dips a lot in that one area, but it happens all over town, and always around the gear switch.

i have a guy that works on it, so i'll prolly see what he says, but wanted to see if anybody could give a good guess at what's going on. a while back my mechanic said i'd prolly have to get the struts replaced, so it could be related to that, but i don't know what struts do so who knows. thanks much.

5/12/2006 2:23:00 PM

Google "torque steer" and see if that matches what you're talking about. Dunno if a Sentra has enough power to be affected or not.

5/12/2006 2:26:12 PM

http://www.sportcompactcarweb.com/editors/technobabble/9909scc_technobabble/

specifically mentions sentras, so it could be. so there could be nothing wrong with the car, it's just a consequence of parts being somewhat misaligned?

[Edited on May 12, 2006 at 2:33 PM. Reason : thx btw. anybody else?]

5/12/2006 2:32:53 PM

check that the bolts in the front suspension/steering components are tight. i've had a similar thing happen and it was a loose control arm bolt.

[Edited on May 12, 2006 at 2:36 PM. Reason : a friend had a similar experience with a loose ball joint]

5/12/2006 2:35:48 PM

No...not a case of parts being misaligned. It's primarily due to the asymetric drivetrain/suspension setup and the vector product of the torques acting on the drivetrain and wheels (read up on the right hand rule).

[Edited on May 12, 2006 at 2:37 PM. Reason : yuppers]

5/12/2006 2:37:08 PM

so if it's not cus stuff is becoming misaligned, why did it just recently start happening?

5/12/2006 2:38:43 PM

In that case, maybe it is due to something being misaligned or a bad ball joint or something.

5/12/2006 2:44:05 PM