Hi, sorry if I'm in the wrong place, I have a second set of cheaper Thundermock 3 tires (4) on my 2006 Mini Cooper. The first set put on about 1 1/2 months ago and the car kept pulling to the right. Had it aligned by local mini cooper dealer who said it was the tires. The tire dealer (not associated with Mini Cooper dealer) actually ended up putting 4 new tires on my car after changing some tires around and seeing if it was one tire or all 4, and even with another set of new 4 tires it still pulls to the right. Mini Cooper service spent exhaustive tire testing and inspections, etc. (we are happy with these guys actually), and claims it is the fact that the tires are bad. I am not sure if they would do that on another car, but on mine, it pulls to the right. They said I have 2 options, get new tires and have them put them on for me, or drive it this way. They didn't seem to think that it would actually hurt the car to drive it if it didn't bother me. I only drive the car in town and not on road trips. I hate the thought of buying 4 new tires and taking them over to have them installed and driving it with it pulling to the right doesn't bother me a ton, I'm just wondering what we should do, we are kind of at a loss at to what we really should do. We've already spent a ton of money on this car (after having traded it in in a fit of stupidity in 2018, I tracked it down the following year and bought it back! It's never leaving me again!) but the costs are growing fast and I'm trying to keep $$$ down. I thought getting cheaper tires was a good idea.....appreciate any feedback and suggestions....

If you had two full sets of tires installed and it handled the same, its the alignment.

If they actually put it on the alignment rack, did they give you a print out of the numbers? If not, shame on them. If you have the alignment numbers, post them up, and someone will be able to tell if the alignment is the cause.

Hi Nik, thanks for your reply. I have attached the info from the last 2 visits to our local Mini service. The first time was an alignment which didn't help. That was on the first original set of 4 Thundermock tires that the local tire place installed. The second attachment details their working on the issue again, with the 2nd set of tires. I just find it hard to believe that 2 sets of tires would be the cause of this issue. We've always had great service with the local Mini service and they know their stuff over there, I guess short of buying another set of tires, different brand, that's the only way I'm going to get this fixed. Maybe my car just doesn't like those Thundermocks. My husband didn't know they were directional, and he said I shouldn't have gotten directional. I didn't know there was a difference until now, my bad. Let me know if you have trouble opening the attachments, or anyone else who may have something similar going on. Thanks for your help....

Not to bag on your local dealer, but they failed to perform an alignment both times you went in. I'd be looing for another service location.

In the "3YR UNLIM OC" document, they state they put it on the rack, adjusted the rear, but couldn't adjust the front sue to frozen tie rods.
In the "122211" document, they only tested and confirmed that the car was pulling to the side, with no mention of even checking the alignment?

You can perform a quick tire check. You can swap the tires from left to right sides for a quick pull check. As long as the roads are dry, and you don't leave it that way for too long, should be fine for a functional test. If the pull moves or changes, its the tires. If there is no change, its the alignment.

Regardless, sounds like you need to get the tie rods replaced. That will require a new alignment anyway.

Hmm. I'm not familiar with how good those Hunter machines are at measuring pull due to tires, but I guess I can see where the tech is coming from. It looks like the machine wants him to swap tires to positions where they would be backwards to cure the pull from the tires. Are these Thunderer Mach tires (not that it matters, just curious)? There's nothing inherently wrong with directional tires unless you have this problem. I run directional Yokohamas on my car.

Do you have an actual alignment printout?

I would also fix the failing strut mounts noted in the service writeup.