[BarryJI]

Originally Posted by albertw

This is a fairly common problem after an alignment. Some techs aren't quite as concerned about getting the steering wheel positioned exactly right as some drivers are about it.

I haven't had a look at my M240i, but on every car I've owned this was an easy fix. The front wheels are turned by rods that come out of the steering rack. There is an obvious way to adjust the length of those rods. If you make exactly the same adjustment on both sides (shorten one the same number of turns as you lengthen the other), you don't affect the alignment at all. The only thing you change is where the steering wheel is turned for a given position of the wheels.

The easiest way to think of this is that when your steering wheel is set for perfectly straight ahead the wheels are actually turned a bit to the left. You adjust the length of the rods to turn both wheels slightly to the right. For the discrepancy you see, a couple flats (1/3 of a turn) would be a good place to start. Look carefully at the threads to make sure you know which way to turn to get the length change you want. Use how hard it was to loosen the lock nuts as a guide to how hard to tighten them. It would be a good idea to mark the orientation of the rods before loosening the lock nuts in case you turn a rod at the same time, and also to let you check that you turned each one in the correct direction and turned both the same amount.

(My understanding is that the steering is assisted by an electric motor, but the connection to the wheels is still mechanical. Only one of the Infinities has a fully electric steering system. If I'm wrong about this ignore what I wrote.)

Many thanks for this.