Why does my car pull to the right under acceleration?

It goes straight when not accelerating, but if you hit the gas from a stop, it pulls to the right pretty hard, it has 92k miles, ford windstar, aligned at 77k miles… What could be the problem?

You drive a ford.

You need a wheel alignment.

Sticky brake caliper that loosens up after you've been moving for a bit, or bad tire.

Sounds like a bad motor mount, it will allow the motor to shift in the engine bay causing it to pull in the direction of the motor

No No No NO

Bad tie rod ends
Bad ball joints
Bad control arm bushings
Bad belt in a tire

Torque steer is a common thing with front wheel drive vehicles.

Your old lady grabs the wheel when she sees garage sales…

Get a wheel allignment

The first check you need to make is to ensure that the tyre pressures all round are correct and that the tyres are the correct sizes and in good condition, checks should be made with the tyres still cold and that means no more than about ten minutes driving at typical urban slow speeds if you don't own a pump and pressure gauge. If you've recently had a new or used tyre fitted on the side the car is pulling towards then that's also a suspect and swapping it to the opposite side of the car is an easy way to check if that's the cause.

If the problem remains after that then the problem could well be that the last alignment was done 15k miles ago. That's plenty of mileage in which one of more potholes of curb strikes could have knocked the alignment out.

Other possibilities include a seized brake on the side that the car is pulling towards, but that will often cause a pull even when not accelerating and often a pull when braking. If you have brake discs (US=rotors) then one visual indication of a seized piston in a brake caliper is if the disc has a blued metal appearance. Also very few Americans ever use the hand brake (also known as the parking brake/emergency brake). On many used cars I've worked on as fresh imports from the USA to the UK the parking brake mechanism has seized solid due to lack of use and that can mean that one of the rear brakes (I say rears because I've never found an American car where it operates on the front brakes like some older Saabs and older Citroens) is permanently slightly on after someone has operated the parking brake for the first time in what could be years. The final most common possibility is that there's a faulty wheel bearing on the same side the car pulls towards, but that's usually making a horrible noise if it's that bad.

In short, check the two most obvious and common causes first before looking into stuff like brakes and bearings.

Most likely the control arm rubber is degraded or the support strut rubber. I've been fighting this on my 2 windstars. My '95 was fine until I replaced the ball joints/control arm assys, then the pulling started. Was never there even with bad ball joints. Tie rod ends tight. All tight now but still pulls but there's still one wheel bearing worn causing some looseness. That could be it. Engine mounts good too, but I don't see how that would affect torque to wheels since you have axles with you joints. My other Windstar '03 is also pulling and I don't know why. Have not replaced u joints and arms but they are tight. Maybe rubber is weak.

Steering pull, especially to the right, on acceleration, and on a front wheel drive new vehicle, is extremely likely normal and is referred to as "torque steer." The heavier you have your foot into the accelerator the harder the torque steer exhibits itself. If the vehicle was "used" and had several K miles on it, I would have first checked the CV joints, then other stuff. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. > Get some other opinions from mechanics that work every day in the auto business and not arm chair mechanics.

2014 explorer and it pulls to the right when i step on the gas.