Alignment Repair Advice

[Target70]

I am on stock suspension. I whacked my rear passenger side body/rim against a concrete divider ~13k miles ago. I hit pretty squarely with the wall. I rotated the scuffed rim/tire to the front. I have not noticed any problems in 3 years (I avg 4k mi/yr), no pulling, shaking, noise, nothing. Now that the tires are getting pretty warn, during maintenance I noticed some scalloping on the inside edge of the tire that I have on the back passenger side, as well as what I think looks like some slight negative camber wear (fairly uniform slant from the outside to the more warn inside) that my other tires do not have. In my understanding, we have no rear camber adjustment, only toe adjustment.

I went to try to get an alignment still on these old tires to determine if there is any damage outside of the limits of correction. I figure If it has bad camber I can buy some SPC LCA's, install them myself then get new tires (plan on going 215/45 MPSS), but the shop said the alignment is based on the tire and If I get the alignment now I will have to get one again when I switch. If I wait till After I get the tires and they can't correct it, I will end up driving around on my new tires with the bad alignment till I can order and install the new parts. That is if I didn't do some other unknown damage to the hub or something. Either way It looks like I will be paying twice for the alignment. So my question is based on the looks of the tire what would be the best option?

[jasonojordan]

Originally Posted by Target70

I am on stock suspension. I whacked my rear passenger side body/rim against a concrete divider ~13k miles ago. I hit pretty squarely with the wall. I rotated the scuffed rim/tire to the front. I have not noticed any problems in 3 years (I avg 4k mi/yr), no pulling, shaking, noise, nothing. Now that the tires are getting pretty warn, during maintenance I noticed some scalloping on the inside edge of the tire that I have on the back passenger side, as well as what I think looks like some slight negative camber wear (fairly uniform slant from the outside to the more warn inside) that my other tires do not have. In my understanding, we have no rear camber adjustment, only toe adjustment.

I went to try to get an alignment still on these old tires to determine if there is any damage outside of the limits of correction. I figure If it has bad camber I can buy some SPC LCA's, install them myself then get new tires (plan on going 215/45 MPSS), but the shop said the alignment is based on the tire and If I get the alignment now I will have to get one again when I switch. If I wait till After I get the tires and they can't correct it, I will end up driving around on my new tires with the bad alignment till I can order and install the new parts. That is if I didn't do some other unknown damage to the hub or something. Either way It looks like I will be paying twice for the alignment. So my question is based on the looks of the tire what would be the best option?

Did I just read that correctly? Your alignment is based off the tires? That is absolutely false. Id find a different alignment shop...

[Target70]

Originally Posted by jasonojordan

Did I just read that correctly? Your alignment is based off the tires? That is absolutely false. Id find a different alignment shop...

that was my initial thought too, "I thought" I had seen other shops bolt the sensors right to the hub with the wheel off. But looking at videos now, I see they hook them to the rim with the tires sitting on blocks on the lift. So it's conceivable that any angled wear on the tire "could" change the sitting geometry, or at least it sounds logical to me. I think I am most concerned with if more experienced folks would say that the tire wear looks like the toe is out of cal, or If I have other problems. Everything I read about scalloping blames balance or suspension wear. But the tire that I put back there never hit anything, doesn't noticeably vibrate or shake, and the car only has 25k miles on it so I doubt the shock is bad. And thinking about it more, we don't even have camber adjustment on the front, without a camber bolt kit. So basically from factory, the only thing that can be adjusted is the toe on our cars? At that point the tire should have absolutely no effect on toe (I think)

[Racecomp Engineering]

Your alignment won't change when you put different tires on the car.

Get tires, get SPC rear lcas, get front camber bolts (just for fun), and go to a different shop.

I highly suggest taking it to a good shop that will be able to check and diagnose your rear suspension arms...the wear is probably not due to a bent linkage but I'd certainly double check and think about replacing the toe arm. Your right rear toe is most likely off by quite a bit as that can happen from the factory or just from looking at the arm wrong (I'm not a fan of the OEM piece). A hit with a curb would easily knock the toe off.

- Andrew

[cjd]

Originally Posted by Target70

So it's conceivable that any angled wear on the tire "could" change the sitting geometry, or at least it sounds logical to me.

Just to confirm: Nope. At least, not enough to matter.

If you've got one brand new tire and the rest very worn, it probably has a measurable difference, but not significant (unless you're corner balancing and going for perfect...) As long as tire pressures are even and tire wear is generally even corner to corner, I doubt you could even measure the influence on alignment.

[churchx]

how OP's stock suspension can be corner-balanced? :/

[humfrz]

Oh, I reckon if you have driven that many miles since you whacked the tire, that any suspension (alignment) situations can be corrected by a alignment procedure.

I would suggest you have the alignment done where and when you get the new tires put on. Why? Because they will be more apt to make sure the alignment is correct in order to protect their new tires.


humfrz

[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.

[Target70]

Originally Posted by humfrz

...I would suggest you have the alignment done where and when you get the new tires put on. Why? Because they will be more apt to make sure the alignment is correct in order to protect their new tires.


humfrz

sounds good, the only problem with that is that I would have to buy a warranty for the tires. I know I am cheap, but the place I went to is a local ford dealership so they aren't some sketchy shop.. well besides being a dealership, and they were the lowest price $887 without a warranty, including $90 alignment. I have other quotes up to $985. Most places I've been to before give me a printout of the numbers before and after alignment, so unless they fudge them, or leave the bolts loose, I think I should be safe. It's been an expensive few months, so I was just hoping to save on not buying LCAs if I didn't really need them, or at least not have to pay for an alignment multiple times. Either way from what everyone has said, and thinking about it more, it seems an alignment first is the way to go. Which I have to go do in 6 min.

[Vital]

Originally Posted by Target70

sounds good, the only problem with that is that I would have to buy a warranty for the tires. I know I am cheap, but the place I went to is a local ford dealership so they aren't some sketchy shop.. well besides being a dealership, and they were the lowest price $887 without a warranty, including $90 alignment. I have other quotes up to $985. Most places I've been to before give me a printout of the numbers before and after alignment, so unless they fudge them, or leave the bolts loose, I think I should be safe. It's been an expensive few months, so I was just hoping to save on not buying LCAs if I didn't really need them, or at least not have to pay for an alignment multiple times. Either way from what everyone has said, and thinking about it more, it seems an alignment first is the way to go. Which I have to go do in 6 min.

You know you can buy tires from other places than a dealership that will be much cheaper

[jasonojordan]

Originally Posted by Target70

sounds good, the only problem with that is that I would have to buy a warranty for the tires. I know I am cheap, but the place I went to is a local ford dealership so they aren't some sketchy shop.. well besides being a dealership, and they were the lowest price $887 without a warranty, including $90 alignment. I have other quotes up to $985. Most places I've been to before give me a printout of the numbers before and after alignment, so unless they fudge them, or leave the bolts loose, I think I should be safe. It's been an expensive few months, so I was just hoping to save on not buying LCAs if I didn't really need them, or at least not have to pay for an alignment multiple times. Either way from what everyone has said, and thinking about it more, it seems an alignment first is the way to go. Which I have to go do in 6 min.

What tires are you looking at buying. I've seen plenty of dealer alignments that would not pass as a decent alignment....

[ZDan]

That scalloping doesn't look like anything to worry about, and neither does the *very* minor "camber wear". You might get ONE alignment done at a competent shop either before or after new tires, as mentioned new tires don't affect alignment *at all*.
I think that there is only toe adjustability on these cars. I would go with the least (nearest to zero) positive toe-in at both ends.

[churchx]

Funny, but after dealership botched few things with non-stock alignment i asked, when i visited performance shop, they did everything right and charged half of what dealership charged for alignment.

[Target70]

Originally Posted by Vital

You know you can buy tires from other places than a dealership that will be much cheaper

Originally Posted by jasonojordan

What tires are you looking at buying. I've seen plenty of dealer alignments that would not pass as a decent alignment....

I am looking at the Michelin Pilot Super Sports stock size 215/45-17, and I can't really beat the shop prices. TireRack has them with tax and shipping at $700. Amazon free shipping and no taxes is $660, TiresPlus is $660 before tax, and the place at ford is the same. Raffield TireMaster I have no clue, they didn't itemize the quote which totaled $100 higher than the other two. I'll probably go with Amazon due to no taxes. That's what is pushing TireRack so high.

Originally Posted by churchx

Funny, but after dealership botched few things with non-stock alignment i asked, when i visited performance shop, they did everything right and charged half of what dealership charged for alignment.

We don't really have (that I know of) any performance oriented suspension shops local, but I don't doubt your experience, I haven't had much good experience with dealerships. I tried this one because it comes up with it's own name, but when I got there they were wearing the dealership outfits from beside them.

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?