Alignment on 2007 Toyota Corolla

[Knox]

Figured this would be the place to post this.

Front end has no factory adjustment, loosened the subframe and slid it over but there wasn't much to be gained. The added caster at the RF, did help make the car neutral.

Rear has a dummy axle. The last person that had done an alignment had stripped a bolt out, at the RR tire and just placed a metal shim in one corner to adjust the alignment. Just that it was the wrong type of shim and the wrong corner.

This is an alignment that i did while at work, just wanted to post to hear any comments or constructive criticism.

FYI: Car had one different brand, newer tire on it (RR corner).

 

[yonyon]

So the right rear went into a curb and bent up some stuff? If there's insurance ready to pay, maybe you could get some nice shiny new parts and make it fully right? If not, well, it's probably good enough for most drivers. If it's fome someone you know personally, and they're the sort who wants things tip top, and they have to pay, then a good long look at things and you'll be able to make things work out better.

Um...
This stripped out bolt, is this going to allow anything to move or be weak enough to break the next time the right rear hits a curb?

 

[Knox]

Sorry, should've explained, the head was rounded. Tried "Irwin Bolt Extractors" and i couldn't get to it with a pipe wrench, doubt there will be an issue down the road though.

The customer had been there for 3 hours, the alignment wasn't the only thing being done. So, i stopped at that point (already after hours) and called it good enough.

In the end the car was neutral. Just a slight drift to the right.

 

[yonyon]

If your printout matches reality your drift should be a slight tire pull. If you spent that much time on it though, well, sometimes a target/head shifts slightly or whatever. More work means more vibration. I would put it solidly into the "good enough" category myself if the drift were a confirmed tire pull.

Still, if your alignment machine can comp quickly...well...with those alignments that run late... In that situation I prefer to make a printout then do the compensation again and be sure. If you did that you'd have that extra piece of mind.

One way or another it really doesn't look too bad at all. Nothing to worry about unless it comes back, and if it does you know what you're looking at beforehand and can arrange for the customer to drop it off instead of being bored and frustrated. What bolt was rounded?

 

[Knox]

I don't have a pic, but it was one of four bolts holding the wheel bearing hub in place. The back end doesn't offer any adjustment from the factory either. There is however, a round shim that has to be cut to shape and placed behind the hub, requiring all four bolts to be removed.

 

[yonyon]

Those plastic "full contact shim" things they sell at the auto parts store? Have you used them before? Do you like them? I can't stand them myself. I think it's better to either fix the real problem or if that's too expensive, then just bend something. There's something about the concept that screams "must be made of metal!" to me. If this would have been your first go with one and might use one in the future remember that the torque on the hub mounting bolts is very important. Don't just gun them down or crank them tight with a ratchet.

 

[Knox]

I didn't use one this time. I was about to until i found the mangled metal shim and rounded bolt. I removed the shim and re-compensated, i decided it was close enough and moved on to the front end.

There horrible, i would rather just get (thin) round washers that i could stack to set the alignment. If only they made some for this type of application.

I wouldn't have to worry about braking them in half trying to cut them to shape. The torque sequence and torquing hard to get to areas, wouldn't be as much of an issue. The insane chart and cut out pattern. There way more complicated then they should have to be. Nothing wrong with complex, but this is a bad idea in general.

 

[CapriRacer]

My thoughts:

1) The front toe (after) is borderline. If you get the opportunity, get it closer to zero.

2) The spec for rear camber is too high. My experience is that anything over 1 degree tends to cause irregular wear tires.

3) You need to fix what is going on in the right rear. After you do, set the toe to the middle of the range.

 

[Knox]

Originally Posted By: CapriRacer
My thoughts:

1) The front toe (after) is borderline. If you get the opportunity, get it closer to zero.

2) The spec for rear camber is too high. My experience is that anything over 1 degree tends to cause irregular wear tires.

3) You need to fix what is going on in the right rear. After you do, set the toe to the middle of the range.


1. Good point, i was more or less just trying to line the two sides up. I've generally had good results with that toe.

2. I generally agree, but i "have to have" the readings in the green. There's no factory way to adjust it either, leading to point 3.

3. Middle of the range in the rear would be about +13 on each side with a high total toe. Although you could argue that the rear is being pulled along and the toe might "open up" at speed.

Thanks for the advice though. I do agree that a more ideal camber, would generally be abound -.25 to -.50 (maybe not for this). Much more than +/-.7 causes noticeable tire wear to the observant tech.

 

[yonyon]

It's a Corolla. Unless it carries weight in the trunk the back end is very light and it would take rather a lot of camber to make the rear tires wear badly.

Now, if this thing has the usual issue of inadequate damping in the back then you could well have a bounce problem. My left pinky toe tells me that having the camber a little on the negative side could be a good thing from a safety perspective. No need to have the car turn around backwards just because someone didn't recognize that bad shocks feel and took a curve a little fast on a rough road.

A combination of light weight, a tendency to lose damping, and a little toe out which you've got there and you could end up with some scalloped rear tires. It depends a lot on the tire too. If the tires get rotated regularly it shouldn't really be an issue though.

 

[mechtech2]

Knox -

How does sliding the subframe over affect caster?
[It is a handy trick for helping equalize camber.]

 

[Knox]

You can effect caster and camber to some degree. Basically picture moving the lower balljoints. In this case i moved the frame on the passenger side forward to gain more caster and moved the frame on the drivers side back. There wasn't much adjustment, but it was effective. In some cases you have more or less room to move it. For example the subframe was already all the way too the passengers side, so i wasn't able to effect the camber much.

You should jounce and re-compensate/calibrate after moving the sub-frame.

If you could understand how it works then you understand that cross camber will not change, if at all.

Hears a sketch so that you can get a better idea. Imagine that you are looking up at the car from underneath.

 

[ChrisW]

I've always been under the impression that toe is the biggest contributor of irregular tire wear on a tire. You can have -2 camber and 0 toe, and the tire should wear quite well. That's not to say that excessive negative camber doesn't add to tire wear, but toe becomes much more aggressive [in regards to tire wear] at greater negative camber levels.

On my now retired civic with aftermarket suspension, I had about -1.5 in the rear and -2.25 in the front, 0 toe all the way around, and great tire wear; no feathering on the inside tire edges. Once my bushings started to deflect too much not keeping the toe in check, I noticed some additional wear.

 

[CapriRacer]

Originally Posted By: ChrisW
I've always been under the impression that toe is the biggest contributor of irregular tire wear on a tire. You can have -2 camber and 0 toe, and the tire should wear quite well. That's not to say that excessive negative camber doesn't add to tire wear, but toe becomes much more aggressive [in regards to tire wear] at greater negative camber levels.

On my now retired civic with aftermarket suspension, I had about -1.5 in the rear and -2.25 in the front, 0 toe all the way around, and great tire wear; no feathering on the inside tire edges. Once my bushings started to deflect too much not keeping the toe in check, I noticed some additional wear.


Perhaps this story will help.

Many years ago, a major vehicle manufacturer was having an issue will irregular wear on the rear of their very popular FWD sedan. They wanted to know what they could do about it - so the launched in investigation and the convntional wisdom said to look at toe, camber, inflation pressure and make of tire.

They took the alignment specs and created a matrix of test with 2 levels of each of those 4 parameters.

For toe: Spec and maximum. For camber, spec and max. For infation pressure: Spec and 10 psi below spec, and for tires: 2 different brands that had met their specs.

This last item is important in that tire characteristicvs can vary wildly in the replacement market, but to sort out what affect tires would have on THEIR vehicle, they needed to look at tires that were comparable.

They ran the tires on a lab machine that simulates wear. They laser scanned the tires before and after the test, and rated them based on the change.

Result: Toe was the biggest contributor.

Inflation pressure was the next largest contributor - and it had a strong interaction with toe.

Next was camber and it had a strong interaction with both toe and inflation pressure.

And the most surprising result was that the differences in tires was last and had little interaction with the other 3 parameters.

What shouldd you take from this? That while many folks complain about the brand of tire, they should really be looking at their alignment.

 

[ChrisW]

Thanks for that info! I wish it weren't engrained into people's heads that camber kits are [absolutely] necessary; I came from the Honda scene [I'm done with Hondas, not forever, but they're just boring to me now] and everyone on the boards/forums said you needed a camber kit. Toe! That's where its at. But yes I agree that a proper alignment is key to tire wear and handling. Honestly I never worry about camber so much as I do toe when I get my vehicles aligned (all things considered that camber is relatively even and pretty close to each other on each side).