Cliff-
Okay-- you asked for it-- here comes my brain dump on alignments (i've subjected others on the board to this before):
Having been through many alignments (long story), I can safely say that your dealer screwed up. They moved the steering wheel to compensate, which is an imperfect method because the splines don't allow for that fine a "granularity" of adjustment. I think you should probably check that the steering wheel is indeed aligned on its centering mark (which i'm betting its not), and then take it back. Here are some of the reasons why the steering wheel can be off center after an alignment:
The basic cause for the wheel being off center is that the toe angles are not even on each side.
-Sometimes, dealer techs don't even bother to set the toe evenly, they just set the toe so that the "Total toe" is within spec. For example a total toe of .22 (which is in spec) could be achieved by setting one side to .06 and the other to .15. The result would be that the steering is crooked. Check your alignment printout for this.
-The other thing that can go wrong is that they don't bother properly centering the steering wheel and locking it in place before doing the alignment. Obviously, the steering will be off center in this scenario as well. If they set the toe evenly, the steering wheel will have to be in the same off-center position ot go straight
-Another issue is improper calibration or setup of the alignment rack. Most alignment racks need to be calibrated using a certain procedure. Also, when the alignment is done, the car needs to be brought to a specific ride height using weights. BMW writes their specs for a known point in the suspension travel-- if they don't use weights to bring the car into the "normally loaded position", the alignment isn't true.
-A less likely (but possible) problem is that the dealer only does a 2 wheel alignment. If the rear toe is uneven, it creates a "thrust angle" to one side or another. In a full 4 wheel alignment, the rear toe is first set evenly to minimize this thrust angle, and then the front toe is adjusted evenly. IN a "thrust angle" alignemnt, the rear toe is not adjusted, but it is measured and the front toe is set to compensate for the "thrust angle" in the rear-- and if done right, your steering willl be straight. If the alignement sensors are only placed on the front wheels, the rear thrust angle isn't taken into account, so if the rear toe is at all uneven the steering will need to be off center to compensate.
Its always possible to sort of mask the effects of uneven toe by bumping the steering wheel over-- but its really not the "right" or most precise thing to do. And actually you don't even need an alignment rack to correct the problem. You could even adjust the tie rods yourself-- if the steering is off center to the right, that means that there is more toe-in on the right-- so you could adjust it by turning the right tie rod to lengthen it, and turning the left tie rod an equal amount to shorten it. Using trial and error, the steering can be centerd in usually about 3 tries at most. This was the old fashioned way of centering the steering wheel prior to the advent of these computerized racks-- but it seems like it might actually work better than poorly calibrated computers. If your feeling like a "shade tree mechanic", you might give this a shot-- but I don't exactly condone it.
Anyway, you shouldn't need to do that. Correct the steering wheel so that its on its centering mark, and take it back to have the toe adjusted properly-- and that a real 4 wheel alignmetn is done w/ the right weights. You might try requesting that a more senior tech work on it. I've found that often dealers put there most junior people on alignments because its perceived to be an "idiot proof" job since the computer "does all the work". In my case, I ended up going to 3 dealerships and going through about 6 aligments before my steering wheel was straight. You may just want to go to a different dealer-- try to find one with a Beissbarth alignment rack--they're the best and that's what BMW AG uses-- but not many dealers have them. Sorry to scare you with all of this-- its really not that hard and I don't know why so many dealers can't get it right. And don't let them give you the "its tjust he road crown story" either!
