Alignment Repair Advice

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by churchx

humfrz: are you shure on that? "their new tires", as in ask for alignment to be done at tire shop? heard that they often to half-assed job on that. I'd rather visit competent suspension shop.

Good alignment shops typically mount tires too, ymmv.

Originally Posted by Target70

I'll probably go with Amazon due to no taxes. That's what is pushing TireRack so high.

Costco will do MPSS for your car, mine were under $600 mounted and balanced with California taxes.

We don't really have (that I know of) any performance oriented suspension shops local

They stay pretty low profile, check the regional subforum for shop recommendations if you haven't already, I'd be surprised if there weren't a few good shops within a reasonable distance given that the South knows motorsports, (Road Atlanta, Sebring, can't throw a rock without hitting a NASCAR outfit, etc.)

Can my driving style just be excessively hard on one tire?

Unless you're drifting every left hand turn and none of the right handers I doubt it, based on those numbers the car should have been pulling to one side quite noticeably, was it? It doesn't make sense based on the numbers posted (flip a sign or two and this theory makes sense) but what was likely happening is you were 'dragging' that tire along the pavement causing the odd wear, tire wanted to go one way, car dragged it along the ground in the other direction.

Hopefully the shop did a good job and got those toe links torqued correctly and everything is hunky-dory from here on out.

[churchx]

Originally Posted by Target70

..
Either way, I had it done, and am not sure if I should feel relieved or not. The sheet I got back shows everything in tolerance. that wheel was -1.7 Camber and -0.24 Toe (max tolerance of -0.04 to +0.21) Now +0.1 Toe. But the left rear was +0.27 and the left front was -0.22. I'm starting to understand why Andrew from Racecomp Engineering is not a fan of the factory Toe Arm. So two other tires are out as bad or worse than the one I am worried about, but don't have the same tire wear. Can my driving style just be excessively hard on one tire?

That's one of 'bad' points of stock alignment. Allowed ranges are too broad, and car will pass ok/green even while it may handle very different at extremes of 'still ok'. Especially if those extremes are not even. Especially regarding toe. Slight toe out may make car less stable, having to 'fight with babying throttle', especially in low grip. Slight toe-in may add stability, allowing at least in straight line to floor it with minding less. Uneven toe may make car steer to side on/off throttle. Excessive toe (both toe out & in) is #1 tire wear cause unlike camber.
Hence even if one is not planning to ever track, it's very worth it to get good alignment. Good performance shop should be able to tune alignment camber within +/- 0.05, and toe within +/-0.01 (at least if you have added camber tuning options (our cars stock have only toe adjustment) with eg. adding camberbolts and rear LCA (as there are sometimes limits how much one may adjust with no stock adjustment, only with slack in mounting bolts, and as toe-camber changes are linked)).
For example, this is my printout. Of course, you can ignore excessive overall negative camber, which is dialed to tailor car more for track, but see differences in right/left, for camber and toe. Now compare to 'allowed' +/- for stock:

Front: Camber: 0 +/- 45' (0 +/- 0.75°) (Right/Left Difference: 0°45' (0.75°) or less)
Caster (Reference): 5°54' (5.90°)
Steering Axis Inclination (Reference): 15°31' (15.52°)
Toe (Each Wheel): 0°00' +/- 0°11' (0.00° +/- 0.19°)
Toe (Total): 0 +/- 3.0 mm (0 +/- 0.1181 in.)
Rear: Camber: -1°12' +/- 45' (-1.20° +/- 0.75°) (Right/Left Difference: 45' (0.75°) or less)
Toe (Each Wheel): C + D: 0°10' +/- 0°15' (0.16° +/- 0.24°)
Toe (Total): 2.0 +/- 3.0 mm(0.0787 +/- 0.1181 in.)

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by churchx

humfrz: are you shure on that? "their new tires", as in ask for alignment to be done at tire shop? heard that they often to half-assed job on that. I'd rather visit competent suspension shop.

Well, my experience has been that places that sell tires do a decent job of aligning the wheels on a vehicle used for average driving.

See, I believe in finding a local shop, where I can get to know the people and they get to know me. For example, I've been going to a local tire/auto shop here in Puyallup for about 25 years. I pretty much know what I want to buy and what I want done when I take a car in ....... and they know me well enough that they best do it right.

Now, that's not to say, that if had a car that I tracked, I might be tempted to take it into a specialty shop for suspension and wheel work.




humfrz

[churchx]

humfrz: i live in very small country. There are not many shops around, thus my observations might be wrong/too pessimistic, and experience non objective. But so far it's been like:
Dealerships imho most commonly do well only with stock stuff / stock parts / stock maintenance procedures and often botch things when one wishes something outside those bounds. They often also charge too much.
Tire shops and alikes .. if alignment is something like freebie or extra thrown in/offered alongside their main business, they have less motivation/less devoted time to do it pedantically right. They often also sell (tires) in big numbers to high customer counts, and have incentive to deal with customers quicker and care less if small count of them is left dissatisfied or if most don't care. They can reel more customers via main business, selling tires, by eg. slight price drops, then with offered high quality alignment job.
Performance shops, where customers turn to with those specific wishes to get wanted performance/handling change, specialize more on that. They also are more motivated to quality job to turn smaller count of customers to regular ones and gain free personal-advertising of them to customers' friends/relatives/acquaintances. Also they can advise/suggest/reason more performance oriented configurations according to their expertise of improving performance of client vehicles and according to what client wishes to get.
Of course, there can be exceptions to any of these type of places offering to check/tune alignment. Hence probably best bet would be browsing local forums and find shops/places that do quality job according to experiences of others and try few of them from gathered list, and if one is happy with service and prices, just stick with that place/those techs.

[Target70]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

..Costco will do MPSS for your car, mine were under $600 mounted and balanced with California taxes.

They stay pretty low profile, check the regional subforum for shop recommendations if you haven't already, I'd be surprised if there weren't a few good shops within a reasonable distance given that the South knows motorsports, (Road Atlanta, Sebring, can't throw a rock without hitting a NASCAR outfit, etc.)

Unless you're drifting every left hand turn and none of the right handers I doubt it, based on those numbers the car should have been pulling to one side quite noticeably, was it?

Hopefully the shop did a good job and got those toe links torqued correctly and everything is hunky-dory from here on out.

That sounds like a great price, but the closest Costco is in Atlanta over 100 miles away, I just looked it up, didn't even know we had them in Ga. I've never actually seen one. While we don't exactly live in a small town, we don't have any tracks near us except a drag strip 30 mi away.

No drifting and no pulling. The car tracked straight as an arrow, I could take my hands off the wheel without issue.

Thank You, I hope this handles it .

Originally Posted by churchx

That's one of 'bad' points of stock alignment. Allowed ranges are too broad, and car will pass ok/green even while it may handle very different at extremes of 'still ok'. Especially if those extremes are not even. Especially regarding toe. Slight toe out may make car less stable, having to 'fight with babying throttle', especially in low grip. Slight toe-in may add stability, allowing at least in straight line to floor it with minding less. Uneven toe may make car steer to side on/off throttle. Excessive toe (both toe out & in) is #1 tire wear cause unlike camber.
Hence even if one is not planning to ever track, it's very worth it to get good alignment. Good performance shop should be able to tune alignment camber within +/- 0.05, and toe within +/-0.01 (at least if you have added camber tuning options (our cars stock have only toe adjustment) with eg. adding camberbolts and rear LCA (as there are sometimes limits how much one may adjust with no stock adjustment, only with slack in mounting bolts, and as toe-camber changes are linked)).
For example, this is my printout. Of course, you can ignore excessive overall negative camber, which is dialed to tailor car more for track, but see differences in right/left, for camber and toe. Now compare to 'allowed' +/- for stock:

I see what you are talking about. Your printout tolerance ranges are about half of what my printout/stock ranges are. I see your rear total toe is pretty much zero, the factory range seems geared toward a total positive setting, Is yours set like that for track reasons?

I wonder though, if the factory toe arms suck at holding in place, is that the fault of the eccentric bolts in general, or just the ones the factory used? Also assuming they do, why would the SPC LCAs with the eccentric bolts stay in place when the stock toe arm's don't?
I found the SPC adjustable toe arms over at speedfactory at a reasonable price assuming I had to replace mine if one was bent. I don't see any instructions, but if the video on the LCAs are any indication they will use the factory mounting hardware, which means the stock eccentric bolts that won't stay in place. Does that mean I would also need to buy the SPL eccentric lockout kit?

[jasonojordan]

Have you checked with discount tire? They are running a sale on the currently. If you purchase using their discount tire card you get a total of $120 back in rebates. If you choose to not use their card you still get back $70 in rebates.

https://www.discounttiredirect.com/b...-sport/p/35430

Originally Posted by Target70

That sounds like a great price, but the closest Costco is in Atlanta over 100 miles away, I just looked it up, didn't even know we had them in Ga. I've never actually seen one. While we don't exactly live in a small town, we don't have any tracks near us except a drag strip 30 mi away.

No drifting and no pulling. The car tracked straight as an arrow, I could take my hands off the wheel without issue.

Thank You, I hope this handles it .



I see what you are talking about. Your printout tolerance ranges are about half of what my printout/stock ranges are. I see your rear total toe is pretty much zero, the factory range seems geared toward a total positive setting, Is yours set like that for track reasons?

I wonder though, if the factory toe arms suck at holding in place, is that the fault of the eccentric bolts in general, or just the ones the factory used? Also assuming they do, why would the SPC LCAs with the eccentric bolts stay in place when the stock toe arm's don't?
I found the SPC adjustable toe arms over at speedfactory at a reasonable price assuming I had to replace mine if one was bent. I don't see any instructions, but if the video on the LCAs are any indication they will use the factory mounting hardware, which means the stock eccentric bolts that won't stay in place. Does that mean I would also need to buy the SPL eccentric lockout kit?

[Target70]

Originally Posted by jasonojordan

Have you checked with discount tire? They are running a sale on the currently. If you purchase using their discount tire card you get a total of $120 back in rebates. If you choose to not use their card you still get back $70 in rebates.

https://www.discounttiredirect.com/b...-sport/p/35430

I hadn't before because when I first went in my local one, I was told they didn't do alignments, only mount and balance, though that was years ago and I never went back. But thanks for the heads up on the price. I'll check them out.

[jasonojordan]

Originally Posted by Target70

I hadn't before because when I first went in my local one, I was told they didn't do alignments, only mount and balance, though that was years ago and I never went back. But thanks for the heads up on the price. I'll check them out.

Discount does not do alignments. That said I would never get an alignment done at any wheel/tire shop without having an in depth conversation with the person performing the alignment.

I think you are way to hung up on this needing to be done at one place.

[Target70]

Originally Posted by jasonojordan

Discount does not do alignments. That said I would never get an alignment done at any wheel/tire shop without having an in depth conversation with the person performing the alignment.

I think you are way to hung up on this needing to be done at one place.

It's not that I'm hung up about it, it's that I don't know of a lot of options. I've got 3 "reputable" places, that actually do alignments, 2 if ignore the one that told me that his 30 years of experience say he will have to realign it after I get new tires. These are not the kind of places you even get to talk to the mechanic. you drop your key off at the desk and the car vanishes, you see it when they are done. I have previously pissed off the guys at the dealership by walking around the back and watching through a roll-up. Hell if I could I would be in there helping them, or doing it myself.

[jasonojordan]

Originally Posted by Target70

It's not that I'm hung up about it, it's that I don't know of a lot of options. I've got 3 "reputable" places, that actually do alignments, 2 if ignore the one that told me that his 30 years of experience say he will have to realign it after I get new tires. These are not the kind of places you even get to talk to the mechanic. you drop your key off at the desk and the car vanishes, you see it when they are done. I pissed off the guys at the dealership by walking around the back and watching through a roll-up. Hell if I could I would be in there helping them, or doing it myself.

If thats your only options for alignment I weep for you. I would check with local forums to see if there is any better options with a short drive. Guess I spoiled by having one of the best alignment guys in the state if not the county in my back yard.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Definitely check your local region on here and on nasioc.com.

- Andrew

[Target70]

Originally Posted by Racecomp Engineering

Definitely check your local region on here and on nasioc.com.

- Andrew

thanks, but either I don't know how to search or I am in a dead zone .

https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=21

but my local Toyota/Scion dealership made the "Dealerships to AVOID in the SE" thread, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

[jasonojordan]

Originally Posted by Target70

thanks, but either I don't know how to search or I am in a dead zone .

https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=21

but my local Toyota/Scion dealership made the "Dealerships to AVOID in the SE" thread, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

Have you ever considered moving....lol I kid.

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by churchx

humfrz: i live in very small country. There are not many shops around, thus my observations might be wrong/too pessimistic, and experience non objective. But so far it's been like:
Dealerships imho most commonly do well only with stock stuff / stock parts / stock maintenance procedures and often botch things when one wishes something outside those bounds. They often also charge too much.
Tire shops and alikes .. if alignment is something like freebie or extra thrown in/offered alongside their main business, they have less motivation/less devoted time to do it pedantically right. They often also sell (tires) in big numbers to high customer counts, and have incentive to deal with customers quicker and care less if small count of them is left dissatisfied or if most don't care. They can reel more customers via main business, selling tires, by eg. slight price drops, then with offered high quality alignment job.
Performance shops, where customers turn to with those specific wishes to get wanted performance/handling change, specialize more on that. They also are more motivated to quality job to turn smaller count of customers to regular ones and gain free personal-advertising of them to customers' friends/relatives/acquaintances. Also they can advise/suggest/reason more performance oriented configurations according to their expertise of improving performance of client vehicles and according to what client wishes to get.
Of course, there can be exceptions to any of these type of places offering to check/tune alignment. Hence probably best bet would be browsing local forums and find shops/places that do quality job according to experiences of others and try few of them from gathered list, and if one is happy with service and prices, just stick with that place/those techs.

I think we are on the same page ......


humfrz