Steering wander?

I have a 2016 Tacoma with 115,000 miles on it. I have noticed lately that while I'm driving I feel like the truck wanders in the lane. Could it be the LCA's or the rack? I don't see any leaks from the steering but I just want to get any leads on it or see if its normal. I have Toyo open country AT3 tires on it if that helps any. Thank you in advance

 

How do tires look? Start with them, when is last they were rotated. Any abnormal wear?

 

When was the last alignment and what were the numbers?

 

If you have an dedicated alignment/suspension shop around that would be a good place to start - almost always these places are a better choice than chains or places that do general repairs.

 

Start with tire pressure and wear. Some tires tend to get squirmy as tread wears down. Obviously worn components and alignment too.

 

My AT2's with 45,000 miles on them are most definitely squirmy. With the weather dropping to around -40C the pressure obviously drops (35-40psi) plus the crown of the road, they wander for sure, sometimes changing lanes tricks me into thinking I hit ice.

 

Once I get home I’ll send the alignment sheet. The tires have feathering on the outside but not on the inside of the tread. All pressures are at 32 and Toyota is the one who aligned it last

 

These are the alignment numbers as of October 14th. I daily this truck into the city almost nightly

 

It really annoys me that nobody knows how to adjust caster on these trucks. Your camber isn't awful but on these trucks they really need to even out those caster numbers side to side. There is enough adjustment even with stock uca's to get those much closer but being off almost a degree will definitely make the driving experience less than amazing. If they touch those they can even out the camber as well. They did almost nothing in the before and after on the last alignment.

 

Personally I think that cross camber and cross caster should be evened out a bit but it's not a disaster. ​

 

Typical "set the toe and let it go" alignment.

 

Yup. I see it on here all the time.

My shop completely resets everything, pulls the truck off and distresses the suspension, then pulls it back on the rack and double checks. Truck tracks straight ASF.

 

With 115k, check tie rod ends for play.

Check the upper control arm pivot bolts are tight. I had mine loosen twice before changing to nylok nuts.

The alignment sheet shows both front tires have positive camber. That explains the outside feathering. RH front camber being almost +1 deg will cause the truck to pull to the right, made worse with road crown.

 

Thank you guys for the insight I really appreciate it. I was more worried that my bushings on the control arms were going bad. With all the overtime at work I haven’t been able to do the work myself at the shop I used to work at. I’ll see what shops are around that will reset all the numbers

 

Except that the 8/10ths of a degree differential in the caster with the driver's side being lower is going to want to pull to the left probably overpowering any tendency for the camber to pull to the right. What I would want to know is what technician could look at those numbers and think that was okay. Even for those idiots, and there are way too many of them, who just get it in the green, this was obviously way off. If it were me, I'd want about 4/10ths less caster on the left, so maybe 3 degrees positive and about 3.4 or so on the right, which will go a long way to both countering road crown and keeping the truck tracking straight and solid, but also getting at least a little bit - maybe a quarter degree negative on both sides with the camber. That will not cause tire wear but it greatly increases the feel while driving and will actually help counter the tendency to wear the outsides when cornering. But the most important thing is to cross that alignment shop off your list and go to a place that understands not only what you want but why.

Just for a different perspective, here are the basic numbers we've arrived at on my old 911. The factory spec for caster is +6 degrees but we can only get around +5.5, so that's what it is, but the front camber is -1.5 on each side with the rear camber at -2.5 on each side. Drives like it's on rails (especially compared to the Taco) and no appreciable outer where even with those rear camber numbers. But every time you do an alignment on those old 911's, it's always a compromise as to what is actually achievable on your car vs what you might theoretically want so there are always compromises and what you do on the back end affects the front as well, so there's a lot of going back and forth to arrive at the final compromise.

 

I’ll have to look into that, thank you for the information, hopefully I can find someone who can do it right, if not I’ll have to take a day to do it myself