Off centre steering?

[jjdsyd]

Really glad to hear that mate. As frustrating as it is to have your brand new car so badly out of whack (I've been there) it is infuriating to have them denying it and treating you like a moron (I've been there).

[Andy_S]

Just to hopefully put an end to this...

I got the car back on Friday with perfect steering at long last.

They seemed reluctant to give me details of exactly what the fix was, but in short the first time it went in for a full alignment, they only did the mechanical stuff, which to be fair made the car feel a lot 'tighter' than it did out of the factory, but did nothing to fix the steering angle.

After messing about try to mask the problem by adjusting the track rod ends, it was finally sent back for another full alignment, nothing needed mechanically adjusting, but this time with some guidance from Audi they reset and re-calibrated all the steering electrics and now all is good!

The car came back with a free full tank of fuel, so it seemed only fair to burn it on some of Yorkshires finest...

The B1257 Stokesley to Helmsley road, more commonly known as the Helmsley TT ...



Followed by the Kirkbymoorside to Castleton, Blakey Ridge road. (http://www.topgear.com/uk/photos/Top-Ge ... ?imageNo=2

[Ian_C]

Car looks good!

[smudge]

Fingers crossed for you Andy. And love that photo. Nice work.

[RIV]

Car looks great!! Silver really goes well with the v spokes, glad it's all sorted

[HYFR]

I do think Prism Silver is the best colour for the B8 lines

[adsgreen]

I have to say, that's the first pictures I've seen that I really really like the b8

[HYFR]

^prism

[Graeme4130]

I do think Prism Silver is the best colour for the B8 lines

I'm inclined to agree. Prism brings the arches out nicely

[blueaudi]

AndyS, has prism lived up to your expectations? I've ordered a prism car with optics, privacy and the new matt black/silver rotors, my only concern is that I haven't seen prism in the flesh. All that said build has now been pushed back 3/4 months so I may have to pull out.

[Andy_S]

Thanks all for the comments, and the help earlier in this thread.

AndyS, has prism lived up to your expectations? I've ordered a prism car with optics, privacy and the new matt black/silver rotors, my only concern is that I haven't seen prism in the flesh. All that said build has now been pushed back 3/4 months so I may have to pull out.

It's a great colour, I had my doubts as well after ordering it because it's a hard colour to catch in a photo, so a lot of photos you see don't do it justice. I'm definitely pleased I ordered it, the crystal paint finish is a nice change to metallic.

There's some more pics here: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=109453&start=120

[Astonished]

great car
sensational photos
and now a great drive to match.

must be a warming feeling

[Macdaddy]

Would never have picked Prism in month of Sundays with the brochure sat in front of me but that looks really nice!

Great pics too!

[nwk00]

Genuinely glad to hear you have the issue sorted out.

[Andy_S]

Sorry to bump this old thread back up. I wanted to post an update and solution for anyone else that ever has the issue with an off centre steering wheel. Hopefully this will save someone the mess about that I’ve had. This fix will only relate to cars that have the Active Steering.

The may turn in to a long post, so apologies in advance.

So, after I posted before that all was fixed it turns out that it really wasn't. After driving the car for a bit I noticed that while the steering wheel was 'kind of' straight, the steering was very unsettled and wanted to wander about all the time, also I had tyre scrubbing in tight corners, and generally rubbish handling. Something was not right!

Soo, I booked the car in with the very helpful folks at Revolution (http://www.revolution247.com), who are of course members on here! Did a full alignment, had a chat, met Graham off of the forum, took some photos...





Anyway, it turns out that Audis helpful way of 'correcting' my steering was to set the ‘rear thrust angle’, and the ‘front steer ahead’ settings right at the right hand limit of the tolerance, and had set camber angles different from one side of the car to the other. So in effect my car was always drifting to the right, and so I would steer left to compensate, and hence centre the steering wheel. Nice theory.



(The observant will notice that Revolution have left the camber settings different from one side to the other at the front. We agreed this between us given the issue that I was having with the steering. Need to book back in with you guys and get it set even next time my Mrs drags me to the Metro Centre. )

Note though that all the settings that the dealer did are green and are within the the tolerance that Audi set. So for anyone who has issues with handling or pulling on an RS4, it seems that very small changes in the alignment make a very big difference to how the car drives. I'd strongly recommend a full Hunter alignment at somewhere like Revolution.

Of course after Revolution set the car up straight, my steering wheel was back off centre how it had always been. But at least now I was sure that alignment wasn't the issue and something else was....

So did some Googling and found this...

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.ph ... ing#Coding

Surely I thought, it couldn't be as simple as re-doing the basic set up for the Active Steering? The dealer would have tried that first, before putting me in various courtesy cars for over 4 weeks, sending my car on a transporter to their body shop for alignment (twice), and sourcing another RS4 to compare mine to, wouldn't they?

It doesn't appear so!

So, for anyone with Active Steering on an A4, A5 etc which has the steering wheel out of centre when driving ahead, all you / your dealer have to do is re-do the basic calibration for the Active Steering....

If you are going to do this yourself you'll obviously need a VCDS cable. (http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/)
Disclaimer: I worked this out by trial and error, and if you use it to fix the steering on your car, don't blame me if you break it!

The instruction on the Ross Tech Wiki says to leave the steering wheel straight while you do the set up. However to correct an off centre steering wheel, you have to do the set up with the wheel in the position it is when driving ahead. So in my case I put the steering wheel to the right slightly before doing the set up.

In VCDS with the engine running…

Go to the ‘Select Control Module’ option…

Step1: Click on the button for the 1B - Active Steering

Step 2: On the next window, click on the button for Security Access, and put the code 61378 in the box that pops up. Click OK.

Step 3: Click on Basic Settings. Then in the next window you need to put 101 in the Group box and click Go.
When you do this you’ll get a clunk from the steering, and faults will flash up on the dash. Don’t panic!
Click the [ON/OFF/Next] button. You’ll get a ‘OK’ in the first box. Then click [Done, Go Back]. Don’t worry about clearing the faults for now. Just click [Close Controller, Go Back - 06].



Now without moving the steering wheel, turn off the engine, and restart the car.

There will be a yellow steering wheel symbol on the dash, and in the DIS. This is because there is a fault registered. ‘Steering end stops not set’.
To set the end stops simply turn the steering all the way to the right, wait for the beep. Then back all the way to the left, and wait for the beep. The yellow warning light should now go out.

You will have registered loads of other faults in everything from the engine to the ABS etc etc. But these are only there because the car lost it’s steering settings. All you need to do is run a full scan, and clear all the DTC’s.

Your steering should now be straight. (I had to do the above 3 or 4 times, before I got my steering centred to my OCD standards, because Audi have a tolerance of +/- 1.5 degrees, and I don’t!

The above would take a dealer 15 minutes maximum to do, but certainly my dealer didn’t know how to do this, and they had lots of input from Audi UK who apparently didn’t know, or didn't tell them either.

So there you have it, a very simple fix which has taken me 4 months to work out.