Alignment advice; Need a second opinion

I recently got an alignment done and these were the final numbers. The truck has a slight pull to the right, probably mostly due to the crown in the road, however now I have to constantly correct the steering to accommodate for this, whereas before I didn't have to. I took it back to the shop today and after the owner drove it, he said there wasn't anything wrong with it, and that the adjustment was maxed out. Now, I get that after the 2" lift and larger tires (265/70/17) and stock UCA's, that the adjustment window is drastically reduced, but how come the numbers seem more out of whack following the adjustment? Overall, the truck handles better, probably due to the toe being brought into spec, but now I have this damn pull to the right, and I'm think the caster should be less on the left side than the right. Am I being unreasonable here, or should I take it to another shop? I really can't afford to get new UCA's right now, but that might be what my end result is. Thanks for any help or suggestions.

 

My understanding is that a slightly higher caster on your right side will help with the crown in the road. I just got home from having an alignment from a specialty shop where they explained this (I'm 4.4 left caster and 4.6 on the right with SPC UCAs). You seem to have gone from +.1 right over left to -.2 right under left. It seems like that might be your experience of more road crown pull (this is me parroting something I heard so take my full 24 hours of experience for what it is worth)

I wasted $100 yesterday at a quick and easy local place where they swore they did it right while saying no amount of alignment work would fix the rub I was getting and that I should chop for 265/70r17s on a -12offset. I bucked up and made the drive to the specialty shop this morning and for $125 the truck now drives like a dream with no rub. Apparently being cheap is expensive.

No idea on the qualifications of the shop you used but finding a shop that specializes in lifted vehicles and alignments may be what you need. I doubt you'll ever convince your current shop to do anything other than what they've done.

 

Ok thanks. That's probably what I will do is find a specialty shop, because I can't keep wasting $100 on shops that can't do it right.

 

your toe setting is off.. it should be even L & R. take it back and have them correct it to 0.05 both sides. so, correct the left.

if you have UCAs already, i suggest getting 3° or higher caster on as well. you'll like how it drives.

 

Thanks. I'm not taking it back there. I'm going to go somewhere else because they clearly don't want to mess with it any further. But what I was wanting to do was get advice from y'all on how the numbers "should' look. My caster is way low because i don't have UCAs right now, but I want to optimize what Im running for now. Common sense tells me that even though certain numbers are "within spec", they should still be even right to left.

 

sorry, i saw uca's in your post but can't really read well enough right now without my glasses. i thought you already had them.

lots of opinions, and you should define your use case since there is no universal "should be like this.." as it depends on your application. i do a lot of highway driving and mainly tarmac so i setup my truck for that. if you're interested, my numbers are exactly:
caster 4.6° both sides
camber 0.0 both sides
toe-in 0.02 both sides, 0.04 total
getting this all dead even was a ton of work and not a single alignment but that's just in my case.

 

Awesome, thanks. I'm willing to pay extra for a custom alignment and leave my truck all day if I can get it done right. I'd love to get new UCAs right now but my wife might divorce me if I do. Lol

 

They set the toe and rolled it off the rack. With just 2” of lift and factory ucas they can get better caster than that. Take it to a better shop.

 

Thanks. They had difficulty with one of the adjusters being seized up, and I think they got it close enough to factory and were done with it. I explained that I was wanting more caster and to get the number better evened out and they said it's in the green, it's good to go. They came recommended to me but I won't be going back.

 

If you have some alignment cams seized or getting there I’d recommend ordering a replacement set and go ahead and replace them all to insure the alignment can be done properly.

 

Ok. I think I'll order them and then go to another shop and see if they can get me dialed in better.

 

As mentioned before get under your truck and see if the bolts are seized. I fought for years with shit shops on stock uca and just under 2" lift. Sometime before I gave up and bought SPC UCA a shop finally told me my bolts were seized. Who knows how many of those bad alignments were because of that. Bolts were stripped and everything from shops fighting them.

Can't recommend the spc uca enough. I almost pulled them of my 2nd Gen before selling. But got a new set in order whole I wait for the third Gen lol. That 4-5degree caster drives itself on the hwy

 

Ok thanks for advice. I need to find somewhere that will align it to where it should be based on the lift and tires, and not just to "factory specs". The last shop I went to that's all they would say, it's within factory specs. Well maybe all but one is in the green, but that doesn't mean it's even. I'm looking at close to $800 to buy and get installed a set of JBA UCA's, and I just don't have that money laying around right now. Well I do, but I can't use it for that.

 

I installed some SPCs along with a lift today and have an alignment scheduled for this coming Tuesday. I called a local shop that that's done some good work in the past. They said they've done a handful of SPCs before and it shouldn't be a problem. Is there anything in particular I should give them a heads up about?

 

If they're good they'll know which numbers to go higher on for road crown and all that but you could mention caster above 4degrees. That's outside Tacoma specifications so they might not know.