Car pulling

heres the story...I had my dad take my car in to get my oil leak fixed while I went back to work for the week using my brother car...I told dad to have them replace the valve stems in my tires cause my tires were leaking air quite rapidly. When I returned my oil leak was fixed but I noticed a knocking noise coming from the front right tire and also that the car pulled to the left dangerously and turned hard. So I took it back and they retightened the lugnuts which fixed the clunking sound and rebalanced the front tires. But now my car is still pulling to the left very badly and is still hard to steer around corners..this problem was not there before I brought it into the garage. My question would be could the problem be that when they rotated the tires that they rotated them improperly..for instance ive heard that rotational tires can only be rotated front to back, and second how do u know if you have rotational tires? If this doesnt sound like my problem then what could be the problem? Thanks in advance for any help.

Tires that are designed to rotate in a single direction only have the directional rotation indicated right on the tire near where the tire meets the rim. It will indicate the proper rotation direction. If that's not the problem, I'd check for proper and equal inflation in all four tires, followed by a rebalancing, and if that's not it, maybe the jackasses where you took your car took it for a joy ride, bent a control arm, or have somehow messed up the canter or cander of your wheels. I know the idea of this sucks, but this is what it sounds like from the symptons that you describe, and I wouldn't put it past the fools they have working at many chains of garages these days.

I personally am a big fan of getting work like this done at the old "mom and pop" type garages where you know the mechanics and can hang out with them while they do the work to keep any possibility if foul play in check. I suggest this for the future. Best of luck and please keep us posted.

Yeah, there are two possibilities. Either one of the front tires isn't working the way it should for some reason, or your alignment is off.

To check if it's the tires or the alignment, just simply switch your front two tires. I'm assuming you have a jack and a torque wrench...it won't take long. If, after doing this, it pulls the opposite way...then the tires are the culprit. Maybe one has air pressure that's off, or maybe the tire is going the wrong way, although to check that you can just check the arrows, or maybe something else...

If you switch the tires, and it still pulls the same way. then its alignment. Most likely (with this clunking and such) something got messed up on the right side that gave the right tire the effect of more negative camber or caster(JD, I'm assuming that's what you meant by "canter and cander" :D). This could be pretty much anything...just get it checked out. Tell them to do an alignment, and that should show the problem. And go to a different mechanic please.

Hope that helps!

I agree, it's probably the alignment, but I can't be sure.

I doubt that you would have that dramatic of a change in the steering unless they did something to the suspension. Even an unbalanced tire or out of round tire would not cause it to pull that hard.

"messed up the canter or cander of your wheels"

do you mean "camber or caster"?

it's not likely the wheels. probably alignment, or suspension issues, as has been pointed out.

In any case, get that thing looked at before you have some serious damage and repairs to pay for!!