Swift Springs // Problem with Alignment

MJB

^Huh? Toe does affect the way the vehicle handles....

This article came from AA1 auto repair and discusses alignment characteristics and why a vehicle may be pulling to the right or left....

" The underlying cause may be rear toe out of specifications, a bent rear axle, chassis misalignment or a stackup of assembly tolerances in the chassis causing rear axle misalignment. Measure and compare the wheelbase on both sides, check for the presence of a thrust angle, and/or measure individual rear toe. Correct by realigning the rear axle or rear toe, or by performing a thrust angle alignment"

If one rear wheel has some "toe in", and the other rear wheel is has some slight "toe out", the car is going to be all over the place. I'm thinking that is probably whats wrong with the OP's alignment. Plus since he said he installed a camber kit, I'm assuming the alignment techs were able to get the camber back to specs, however he didn't say anything about new toe bolts.

Or they could have gotten the correct toe but the camber is way out of specs.... We really need to see the his alignment sheet to see whats going on

XwChriswX

You might want to also just have them check your steering linkage just to make sure when the steering wheel points to 'zero', the front wheels are actually pointing to zero. Something I found out one day that's not encompassed in most alignment checks.

__________________

Bonnie - Stage 2, Audio build coming this fall!
R.I.P. Abby 3/29/10 - 3/30/14

Jmigs81

I will post the alignment sheet here in the next day or so. Thank you for everyone's help.

Jhill

Rear toe does not cause pull. Rear toe is responsible for the thrust angle which then your front wheel toe is adjusted to. In your specific example of one wheel toe in and the other toe out, this will just cause the rear end to be off to the side. There is even a specific name for this called dog tracking because it is just like some dog that walk with their rear end to one side while going in a straight line. Think about it, if you set the LR wheel toe in and the RR toe out and then the front gets adjusted to that (this is why rear toe is adjusted before front toe) so your LF also gets toed in and your RF gets toed out because front toe is set from thrust angle which is determined by rear toe (compared to true vehicle center). Now your vehicle will go in a straight line with the steering wheel being centered all the while you’ll be looking through your side window as your windshield.