Rear toe off

on my 19 trd pro my rear toe is off only with 3k miles not sure how this happens as i have babied it so far. should i take it to the dealer? i would think they will tell me its adjustable and to pound salt. i do work at Firestone so my tech said we can do it with a kit.

here is align specs i did myself i was a tech for 15 years
i have confirmed that the left rear is 1/4 in lower than right side.

it would be called a thrust plate alignment on rear axle

 

......wait what? The rear is a solid axle with no knuckles the toe cannot be adjusted.

 

Truth. It’s actually nearly impossible to have your rear toe off without the wheels violently wobbling or the axles tearing themselves out of their axle tubes.

OP. Please explain.

 

How do the (by definition, arrow straight) stub axles rotate in a bent axle tube?

 

Hope it isn’t bent...solid axle. Maybe maligned somehow??

 

Tube is larger than the axle shaft. Kind of like the old "hot dog down a hallway" analogy.

 

truck needs the bushing spacer because input angle from the driveshaft to the 3rd member is no longer centered and creates an eccentric input angle. The bushing spacer helps line them back up. having rear toe out of wack wouldn’t be an axle improperly “shimmed”. That’s like a bent wheel, damaged hub or something. But it can’t be out of toe without also driving like complete ass. He would barely make it down the street.

 

OP, how do you know the rear toe is off? Did you have an alignment check done? Have those measurements been confirmed by a different alignment rack/knowledgeable technician?

Serious question, not being snarky.

 

I’m genuinely interested in learning here. There is no U-Joint in the rear axle (please explain how I’m wrong in calling it a stub-axle). Are you saying the diff spiders don’t need to be perfectly aligned for the system to survive?

I always thought these things were mated to .003 inches of lash or something.

Again.....I’m not arguing your point, genuinely curious.

 

I’m just saying there is no conceivable way the rear toe is off and the truck is still driveable. If the front was off the steering rack would take of the slack and you would feel the truck dragging or having some abnormal steering characteristics but the rear has very little play and at 3k miles I don’t see anything causing that while the truck can still roll down the road. The gears on the axle halves would probably give within a few hundred feet maybe a mile or two

 

Ok. So the axle “cuts the corner”, but doesn’t rub the side. I get it. Thank you for that.

 

Axle should have almost no play in the axle tube though. Axles bearings in the hub assembly will hold it damn near perfect inside the tube

 

Yes, but what was being said is the tube could be slightly bent, but the bearing and axles could be in alignment, with the (perfectly straight) axle slightly closer to the inside wall of the tube on the inside of the bend, and the bearing slight offset in their races.

I’m not saying this is the case, but understand how that might work.

 

This. And when we have a bent axle, we heat and remove the spindle, mount a machine to cut, the weld a new spindle on. On a Toyota, if something was that bent, probably just replace the whole thing.

 

All rotating components have tolerances. Add several tolerances together, you get tolerance stacking. A few thousandths here, a few more there, some slop over there...You get the idea.

Now, with alignments you have to keep in mind that ONE degree out of spec, on toe, caster,or camber can cause serious tire wear or drive-ability issues. If you consider an analog clock, ONE minute on that clock is actually SIX degrees of angle. What we are dealing with here on alignments are some very slight adjustments or tweaked components (or poorly manufactured), can easily cause an angle to be severely out of spec.

 

It can be out a bit, you have to be forgiving with the numbers. There is no set spec for it, so if you're just doing a quick alignment check at firestone, you may just be causing a worry for no reason.

 

Yeah. It does matter who’s doing the checking and how much you trust them.

 

NOW with 90% moar MS Paint!



Obviously this is an exaggerated example, but something like this would allow for excessive toe out, but would still allow the axle, diff and gears to function normally. At least for a while.

 

Yes. Thank you.

Except in the drawing the tire would need to be perpendicular to the axle, or all hell truly would break loose.

 

Thats a bird's eye view perspective.