There are a lot of contingencies to this issue, so let me start off with the basic issue: the car (1996 850 GLT w/ 112,000 miles) has a very strong pull to the left when highway driving.

Now for the fun:
1. The problem comes and goes. I do a lot of long highway driving (grad school in Syracuse, home in Baltimore) so I get to feel the car for 6 hours at a time. Sometimes my thumb hurts from having to keep rightward pressure on the steering wheel, sometimes the car feels like it's floating on air. I can literally tell how bad it's going to be now as soon as I first drive the car down the residential streets to 81.

2. The alignment has been checked multiple times, and nothing is wrong.

3. The tires are only two years old (with Gislaveds in the winter) and their wear is even.

Other things that may play into this:
I believe it is the right upper strut mount that is making that classic knocking noise from the front end. It doesn't do it when going up/down hills, but just when going over bumps, potholes, etc. Don't know if this would make a difference. Have been meaning to get it fixed, but $ is short, and the car is fine anyway. I have to pick my battles.

Recently, my poor brakes squeal like a stuck pig when first moving. There's also a slight rubbing noise I can hear from something from the front end that I have yet to be able to pin point. The brakes I'm going to take care of, but the rubbing noise has been there since I bought the car two and a half years ago. Then again, so has this pulling problem.

I have been able to live with these little issues really since I noticed them a few months after buying the car at 86,000 miles, and have no intentions whatsoever of getting rid of my vovo. She's yet to have left me stranded, and I intend to keep it that way.

Any thoughts would be great.