My Post Lift Alignment... What's it mean?

What do these numbers mean? How bad am I? Stock UCAs.

 

Your after caster is .97 and 1.67 ?

 

I'm assuming it is actually in the negative? I asked the mechanic if he got everything in spec and he said "it's the best I can do" it was at a dealership that does good work for me.

 

Your camber and caster aren't great... Camber is how your tires sit relative to vertical when looking straight on from the front. They should be I I if the camber is 0. Yours are slightly \ /. This should be 0 but some shops will sacrifice the camber number in order to get some more caster adjustment. When camber is not 0, it can cause your tires to wear unevenly.

Caster is the angle between vertical and the angle the suspension cycles at when looking side-onto the wheel. Depending on if you're lifted or not, you usually want this number fairly high, like around 2 degrees. Having this number higher will give you greater stability at speed but will make it slightly less comfortable in a corner. The thing I don't really like about your alignment is how the caster is so different from side to side... Caster is not a tire wear issue. Caster can be 'out' and will not cause your tires to wear unevenly.

Toe looks pretty good, you want that at 0 also. Toe is how straight the tires face front to back as opposed to pointing in or pointing out.

http://www.familycar.com/Alignment.htm

 

So is this a typical "you have stock UCAs issue"?

 

If you have a lift, then having a low caster number is a typical 'stock UCA' issue. You have 2 issues. The first is you have different numbers side to side, like really different numbers side to side. I would guess the truck wants to pull right? The second is a low caster number which may or may not really be an issue. My caster number is similar (about -1.5ish) and it drives and handles great, but I'm also only lifted about 1.5". If you're up around 3" of lift, you'll want that caster number to be higher.

 

How much lift do you have up front Jeremy?

 

I have about 2.5" lift (OME 885 w/ all pro modular bumper). Truck drives and handles fine actually. It tracks straight. I do notice it a little more "grabby" when evasive driving at 55mph but that's probably because I removed my swaybar. I do want to get this fixed but what are the major issues with driving my truck like this? Tire wear? Etc.?

 

Do I need to return an ask them to get my caster numbers to be more similar (even if that means both -1.76)

 

My front lift is about 2.25 inch up front, my # were 1.4* for caster, 0.8 for camber and 0.05 for toe before replacing my UCA. I'm surprised your # are so different. I can't explain the results. My center hub to fender are 22.5 inches were 20.25 before the lift.

 

Ideally you'd want them both at -1.76 but, with stock control arms, you'll likely settle with them both at the lower negative number.

What happens is, all your adjustment is made through the alignment tabs on the LCA. With a fixed upper, you can only adjust the bottom but so much before you have to sacrifice camber for caster. You might start to notice the outside of your front tires wearing a little more quickly than normal so you'll have to keep you with tire rotations. If it drives and handles nice, I wouldn't worry too much about the caster. I can't explain why it would be off so much side to side but, if it's not pulling, I wouldn't worry about it personally.

 

Some alignment tech make the passenger side caster higher by .25 to .5 due to road arch. May not apply on a 5 lane highway but does apply around here in our great back roads.

 

The guy came out and said their machine has been giving them issues on their left front caster measurement. ---- Note: I saw the guy pull the truck out of the garage and drive down the road then load it back on the rack--- when I just returned he said what he was doing was going for a drive to see if it drove properly since it may have been the machine messing up. Basically... He said the machines caster measurement on that wheel is messed up..... Sound legit? They are a good dealership that has always done my warranty repairs with no issues so I don't want to hassle them.