I'm confused... Did dealership tamper with my airbag?

WaikikiJason

Three weeks ago I brought my 09 370z in to the Nissan dealership for a seatbelt warranty repair. Very straight forward fix, seatbelts are covered for 10 years. Fast forward 12 hours till later that night... I'm driving down the freeway when I realize my steering wheel is no longer aligned with the front wheels. I'm driving in a straight line, but my steering wheel is off several degrees to the right.
How could this happen? What could possibly cause this other than someone removing my steering wheel and replacing it off one spline? I haven't hit any curbs...
Why would the dealership remove my steering wheel to fix a seatbelt? Why would the dealership remove my steering wheel without telling me?
I do have one ugly suspicion... I just thought I should take general concensus on this forum before I go into the dealership Monday morning.

Kaldaien

Ouch, in my Nismo, there's a red line in the center of the wheel...

It drives me nuts that the red line is never 100% centered when driving straight (it's an OCD thing, no amount of re-alignment would really satisfy me) but it is nowhere near as bad as you have described.

By the way, why/how are the seatbelts covered for 10 years? The mfgr. warranty is 3 years, and then if I recall the longest extended warranty Nissan offers only goes up to 8 yr / 120K mi.

ElwoodBlues

Did you check the tires (sidewalls) and rims for any damage? possibly hit a curb or something when they were "road testing" the seat belt fix

brancky3

Could be a federally mandated warranty, like the warranty on emission equipment even outside factory warranty.

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BehindSpace

Sounds like your alignments off.
Did you write down how many miles were on your car before you brought it to the dealer?
You say you haven't hit any curbs or potholes or speedbumps but what about your dealership employees if they decided to drive it around?

Oh and one other annoying thing Ive noticed at dealerships, Seen multiple employees turn the steering wheel without the car moving for no reason other than to just get the radio controls upright or to straighten the wheels after parking which can play havoc on the front tires and cause wear spots

Spooler

You can remove the airbag without removing the steering wheel on most cars. I doubt that was the issue. I haven't looked real close at the 370z but I would suspect it would be the same. All you need is the correct Torx bit with the hole in the middle.

WaikikiJason

I did check tires and rims for damage right away. I'm running 20" Work Gnosis w/30 series stretched rubber... There's no way they could have curbed my rim and hid the damage. My car drives straight as an arrow on flat highway .