Pay an expert. Alignment bliss achieved.

I pretty much drove my new Tacoma a year ago straight from the dealer to Bagge and Sons alignment shop in Culver City. The numbers from the factory weren't even close, so we fixed that. You really need to both understand what your alignment needs are for your vehicle and have a shop that is willing to accommodate those needs. And don't tell them what to do. Ask them "do you think it's possible to get a little more negative camber? Let them be the experts they are and let them help you be happy. Having an older 911 has taught me a lot about how all the different alignment parameters work, and how sometimes certain cars just will not adjust to where you want them to be ever after camber plates and offset ball joints.

Clearwater Bill knows what he's talking about.

 

This. Most alignment techs are actually very ignorant - they just follow the vehicle-specific, step-by-step instructions spoonfed to them from the alignment machine UI. After I installed my 2" lift, the local shop made the alignment worse than my eyeballed settings - there was audible tire scrub even in slow-speed turns, and the upper ball joints hit the coil at full droop:



After talking with the service writer who tried to explain this was "normal", I decided to fix the shop's fuckups myself. Toe is set with fishing line to +/- 0.14 deg, using a ruler with millimeter markings:



Camber is set with a digital level. Easy when SPC UCAs allow for independent camber and caster adjustment.

 

Damn! Even my extended travel shocks don’t have my SPC UCAs hitting the coil like that!

 

It sucks, but it is what it is. Toyota engineers and produces a truck. Hunter, for an example, gets the specs and updates into the hunter programs. Alignment shops align to these numbers that Toyota has called for. Shops and techs aren’t responsible for knowing how to fudge the geometry of whatever random part, which now has different dimensions, that has been attached to the vehicle. An off road performance shop MAY know how to fudge it. But in the end it’s fudging, aka trying to reproduce factory or a suitable alignment with stuff that doesn’t want to fit in the original positions. Often times depending on the situation you’ll end up sacrificing somewhere.

 

The coils hit the upper ball joints because the alignment tech dicked around with the forward LCA cam bolts too much. Moving that cam bolt visibly moves the shock in and out laterally. When the LCA cam bolts are set for max caster (which coinicidentally also gives max tire clearance with the cab mount), the coils don't hit the upper ball joints.

It's basic responsibility to make sure the parts aren't hitting each other as the suspension cycles.

It's also beneficial to know a little bit about what each parameter does to the vehicle behavior rather than just trying to blindly match the "factory" numbers. My truck went in with about 5 deg of caster. My particular tech was trying to reduce caster to 2-3 deg because the software told him so. More caster is actually helpful on our trucks because it provides camber gain in turns, giving the truck more cornering grip.

 

Yuhuh.

 

Before we get our pitchforks out, it's important to note that everything is different. If I was an alignment tech I'd put it in the green and ship it. There's way too many variables, it's honestly on us to provide some new parameters for the techs to work towards. Now, if I give you some parameters and u blatantly disregard em, that's a different story entirely. Another reason why I prefer mom and pop shops. But let's have some humility, no one is perfect.

 

In a perfect world, a persons 60$ can get them a nirvana like alignment, no matter how parts-cannon fucked it is. Sadly, this isn’t that world.

 

In a perfect world, the dolla sign goes in front.

 

And is Canadian

 

I’m sitting at 3.2 degrees caster right now...but I have an actual 4wd shop doing my alignment and my truck drives flawlessly

 

In my case I told the tech not to touch the LCA cams and make all adjustments from the upper ball joints. I also told him to leave caster alone and just get toe and camber close to zero. The tech was too arrogant to listen and did just the opposite, because that's what the UI spoon-fed him. Took him an hour and a half to make the truck drive worse than when it went in, and of course I got billed for $160.

 

Annoying. JBA's?

 

No. Mevotechs, which are SPC arms in rebranded boxes selling for $400 a pair. JBAs don't have adjustable ball joints.

 

It would be helpful to post your printout to show you current readings. Alignments can be a fickle thing that the specs are usually so broad that a dealer can say that your vehicle is in spec, but still have ride issues as well as increased tire wear. For instance your toe can be slightly negative which is bad because you adjust it so that it ideally is zero when driving. On a rear wheel drive vehicle toe will never go positive in motion. You set the toe slightly positive (toed in). Toe is what causes tire wear.

Not really sure what he told you was accurate with caster. You can't adjust for road crown because not all roads are crowned the same. Most two lanes go from a high on the left and lower on the right, but if you get on a 4 lane divided road and are in the left lane, it is reversed. Caster should be set equal or close. You typically won't notice a difference unless you have more than a 1 degree difference left to right. Caster will pull to the lower side. Pull should not be confused with drift. Pull means you have to keep the wheel turned to the right or else you go left. This shouldn't be confused with an off center steering wheel or drift that is caused by lower caster.

The key to a good alignment is being able to ask the right questions and being able to interpret the numbers you are seeing.

I think you have confused camber with caster. Camber is the lean of the tire and has nothing to do with pulling.

 

Camber can pull if its more on one side.

Toe is good.

Toe can be found on drive axles.

 

No it can't. It simply can't. It would violate the laws of physics if it did. Think of it like this. If you lean on the outside edge of your feet, do you walk in circles? No you jut wear out the outside edge of your shoes. Camber is just a measurement of lean.

 

Don’t equate a spinning wheel with a shoe while throwing a physics tantrum. They move in different ways. I align heavy equipment. If you have positive camber on one side and negative on the other, it’s gonna pull.

 

Asymmetric camber can definitely cause pull. A leaning tire moves in a conical motion. However the effect isn't as pronounced as wrong toe setting.

Agree with not adjusting for road crown though.

 

LOL, no it doesn't. You are confused.

Take a look at this pic -


Using your flawed logic, this tractor should either rip the front axle in two to cross itself up. Camber does not cause a pull.


Please humor me and tell me which way camber pulls. I can tell you that a difference of left and right CASTER will cause a pull to the lower side. I can tell you that if I have a fixed axle with no steering axis that putting all the camber you want won't affect the direction. So how is it physically possible that camber could cause a pull?

What? Asymmetric camber and conical motion? I know the internet is full of big words, but throwing them in a sentence does not support your position. I think what you are referring to are asymmetrical control arms and trying to say that because your camber changes as your control arms articulate (which it does slightly) that the oscillation can cause a pull? Uh, the answer is still no. Camber can't cause a pull whether it is static or not. As I stated before, change the weighting on your foot as you walk. Put weight inside and out. See if that changes your direction.

First though before you go any further. The first thing I want you to tell me is the same thing I asked the other person. Which way is camber going to pull. If you can't answer that, stop because your argument is over.