I purchased a second hand 29er Cube e-mtb hardtail off eBay for the mrs. The bloke sent it via courier and it arrived today all safely packed and no obvious signs of damage.

However when I put the bars on and front wheel the bike pulls badly to the right. If I am sat on the bike and push the bars to the right just a few cm they then swing right round, its almost like a pivot motion, you hit the spot and then it goes!
The front wheel was a pain to fit and as you can see on the pic below its a tight fit, I had to lightly push the fork lowers outwards to got the wheel in which makes me think they have been bent inwards?

I took the wheel off my Reign and installed that, although its a 27.5 boost it fit better in the forks/axle and the swinging motion was reduced a lot, to the point where its rideable.

Any ideas on this guys?
Are the forks bent or could it be the wheel build, I checked them visually and they look OK. There is some spokes which appear looser than other but nothing drastic.

The forks are Suntour XCM34 and wheels just standard Cube ones.

Thanks in advance

EDIT: Pic now loaded above

I’m finding it hard to visualise what you mean?

Do you mean when you brake? Or just riding along slowly and the steering pulls to the right?

Is there any notchiness in the headset or anything?

Headset seems fine, nothing noticeable anyway.

We haven’t even had the bike out to use properly yet, just garage testing!
So basically when I am sat on the bike with the wheel pointing forwards its OK, if you lightly turn the bars to the left there fine, with normal resistance from being sat on a bike. If you turn them to the right a little bit its as if there is a weight on them and they swing round to the right on their own accord?

are the tyres seated properly?

Just checked the tyres and they were inflated to the max by the feel of it so I deflated them and set them to a normal PSI but still no luck. The thing what has me thinking its the forks is that you have to force the wheel in and pull a lower leg back a bit for it to fit in.

Trying to upload a video now so you all have a better idea of the problem.

Here is a video link. Hopefully you can see what I mean in regards to the bars swinging to the right when turned slightly that way.

http://sendvid.com/8h7rhrz6

Thats odd. Is one fork leg bent backwards? Maybe some pics from the side

When you turn left you have the resistance of all the outer cables, so it will flop easier one way than the other.

Are you uk or euro? As the front brake lever is on the left.

In my experience, misaligned frames and forks are not that unusual. I’ve proabably owned 15 bikes in my life. Three have had misaligned rear triangles (a decent Raleigh, Trek and Diamond back) and one has had wonky forks (2017 Marin pine mountain), all from new.

Ok, that is bloody weird.

With wheel out it all feels normal from lock to lock?

I’d recon that’s the cables

Brakes are EU set up. The guy I purchased it from bought it from Germany while travelling, the bike is a Cube Access.

Without the wheel on it feels ok, its not pulling to the right. As soon as the wheel is on then it does this.

I installed my carbon Giant wheels (can be seen in the pic) which is a standard 27.5 with 2.3 tyre and it was the same but a lot better. Once the chunky 29er wheels are on it does this.

I dont want to get a partial refund and replace the forks for the problem to continue.

Just noticed this, when looking over the bars directly down the right fork leg looks like its been pushed back slightly, probably just a few mm but this could be the cause and I presume with that side being bent back it would cause it to swing to the right once past a certain point?

They look bent. Without the wheel in, if the axle doesn’t slide straight in they are bent or out of tolerance. Even if they track ok they’ll have terrible stiction I imagine.

I will check tomorrow. They function ok and no nasty noises coming from them, can they be pulled back inline or are they for the bin?

Hard to tell from the pic but I guess you might get new lowers assuming that’s the bent bit. I’d not try to straighten them myself.