I had a brand new set of 19" Bridgestone Potenza 750's put on my wife,s car. I also had all four rims straightened and refinished. There was a slight pull so I had the car realigned. Now the pull is even greater. The dealership said it is because they are directional tires and the car is set up to be perfectly straight. The place where I had it installed would have to either get me new tires or find the right placement of each tire to keep it from pulling. I don't understand how directional tires could make the car pull so noticeably. After all, isn't the direction of the directional tires suppose to be straight ahead? I put a total of 500 miles on the tires from the time they were installed until the time of the alignment. Before I go get into a battle with the tire installer, it would be good to be armed with some knowledge. Please let me know if you guys have any advice. Thanks.

 

The car should not pull to ANY side. Sounds like they should do a wheel alignment again.

 

Sounds like a bit of a bullshit answer, but it could be. The thread creates a V, are all the Vs pointing to the front of the car?

 

maybe its just the tramlining stage and just needs to be driven more.

 

Alignment needs to be re-checked. Don't forget proper tire pressure for the fronts and rears as well. If none of that helps, then it's possible you have a defective tire. I've only experienced this once on my old '03 Acura CL Type-S where one of the stock Michelin Pilot HX MXM4 tires was pulling the car to the left despite correct pressures and proper alignment. Although the tread was asymmetrical, the tread pattern was molded slightly off-center and was not truly pointing straight. When jacking up the car and spinning the tire freely, you can totally see an irregularity when looking straight at the tread blocks as they're rotating. But once I put on my aftermarket 19" rims, the pull disappeared and the car tracked straight and true. That's what COULD be happening to one (or maybe more) of your new Bridgestone tires.

 

So I went to the tire installer and he showed me that there was still a slight bend in two of the rims and this is what is causing the car to pull. He said it is because the tire will follow the rim and the bend may cause it to pull. Of course the guy who straightened the rims said that a bent rim will not cause the tire to pull. He agreed to send the rim to the lab to get a more accurate rounding of the rim. However, somebody is clearly blowing smoke or misinformed. Can a bent rim cause a car to pull or will the ride just be uncomfortable?

 

If there's just a dent in the just the lip of the rim from a pothole, the tire won't pull assuming there's no loss of air pressure and the rim tracks straight. You'll only get a vibration. However if the OVERALL rim is bent and doesn't track straight, the tire will definitely pull and you'll also get a vibration. That's because once a good tire is mounted on a rim that isn't tracking straight, the tire will only follow the direction the rim is bent.

 

Yes it can, but why don't you tell the tyre shop to swap the front tyres so you could find out whether tyre is the reason or not. Will car pull the opposite way then?
Some tyres have unequal weight, especially the bi-directional tyres with the "outside" sign on them. The directional tyres, with the rotation arrow sign, are absolutely balanced.