I have had the front end aligned by the dealer twice now. The first time was when I bought the car. Then I ran the inside edges of both front tires to the steel without noticing. I put a new set on after a four wheel alignment. Now the same wear pattern is showing up on the fronts. Heavy wear on the inside edge only. Tire pressures are 29-30. These tires have only been on the car for 6 months/5000 miles.Is this normal for this car? I dont baby it but it is a daily driver and half my commute is interstate.

 

No, it is not normal. What is most likely happening is the dealer is aligning the tires to "within the range" and not specifically to a number. I can't find mine, but you need to have someone here give you the specs for the street settings, and have a competent alignment shop do it. *

*I'm not saying the dealer is not competent, but knowing what your issues were, twice they didn't do the job correctly.

Note: one last thing. just because you get an alignment last week, it doesn't mean it's forever. you could conceivably knock it out with a pothole for one or two wheels the next day, or not have it happen for two years. just keep that in mind.

 

Sounds like something is definitely wrong...I've never had mine aligned and got 15,500 miles out of my front F1 S/C tires with the center tread (overinflation) going first. I was running 32psi... My new Supercars are approaching 2500 miles and they are wearing perfectly across with 28psi.

 

What do you want?

High negative camber to run cones and twisties?

No camber to get the most mileage out of your tires?

C6 camber stock is -.45. For road racing/cones raise the camber to -1.0 or higher
For the most mileage on tires set camber to -0.10 or less. I go to as close to 0.0 as the alignment guy can set. Negative camber tilts the wheels "in" at the top. Negative camber is what will wear the inside edge off your tires. Toe should be -0.01 Too much -/+ toe will wear the tires on the edge in a scalloped pattern. I use stock numbers on caster

I have the same settings for the rear wheels, -0.00 camber, 0.0 toe.


I also agree that an alignment is good only as long as your first pot hole encounter.

Stock numbers have a +/- allowance and you're still considered aligned. Get it set to the exact number or it's only close to an alignment. Camber is +/-.60 so -1.05 to +.15 is considered on the money. Well, it ain't.




Elmer

 

Naturally, have your wheels and tires checked and balanced thoroughly. My local dealership actually has decent, dedicated alignment personnel...that's all they do and they're fairly good at it. If there's any problem with suspension components (and assuming there isn't a decent Corvette performance shop you deal with) your dealership would be best place for that.

FWIW and surprisingly, many of the Corvette racers I run with take their car to the Volvo dealership for alignment work. Our local Volvo dealership has some new, high-tech alignment equipment that's far superior to what anyone else currently uses. It might be worth making a few calls. Also, if you should take your car to Volvo and you want a stock alignment I'd bring the specs with you.

 

My specs are Toe = 0, Camber -.5 spot on setting. Tires have 16k miles of spirited driving, wear is even across the board.

Two to three wheel alignments per year.

a++ Cedric

 

Thanks for all the info. Thanks to the great roads here in the garden state and the fact that I drive it every day year round I am guessing my last alignment is toast. I am going to take the info you guys gave me to the dealer and talk to them before they align it. I'm not looking forward to wasting another 700 bucks on tires.

Jim

 

I have a story for everyone about alignments.

My wife's daily driver is a Lexus IS350. After 37,000 miles the front tires on the inside were really torn up and missing chunks of rubber so I assumed it needed an alignment.

I had new tires delivered from The Tire Rack and had them installed by Discount Tires. The screwed up the install by putting one of the front wheels on the rear even though they knew the rears and fronts were difference sizes.

I drove the car right to the new Brakes Plus near my house for an alignment. They have a new 4 wheel alignment system so I figured they would do a good job.

They said they could not get the right rear toe-in within spec. There was no unusual wear in the rear tires, so I just took their word for it.
The closest they could get it was 1.2 degrees compared to a spec of .04-.15 degrees which translates to huge difference of more than .5 inch toed in. After a week I took it back because you could see that wheel toe-in dramatically out of whacked compared to before.

Yesterday, I set up my own alignment system of jack stands, conduits, and fishing line. Sure enough, I confirmed the right rear was toe-in a ton. I brought it back the 3rd time and this time I showed them my measurements so now they figured something was drastically wrong. One of the other mechanics look at it and immediately spotted the problem right away.

The first mechanic that had did the alignment twice before had the toe adjustment all the way to the limit of toe-in thinking he was going to the toe-out limit Then after the adjustment was moved to the middle of the range and it was back in spec. Idiot!

My no cost fishing line system (+ a level for the camber) is just as accurate if not more accurate than these new laser systems. It just takes me more time to get it done than a shop.

The point is just because a shop has the latest and greatest laser/computer equipment, if the technician is an idiot, the car is not going to get a good alignment.

 

have to be really negative on both sides to get to the steel that quick or toed out. Toe is easy to set so i doubt thats it, usually if the camber is within specs then they let it go. Its very simple to adjust, the car needs raised to compensate the alignment heads and if they dont jounce/bounce the front end to get the ride height back to normal and set the alignment then things could be all out of wack. this can happen and the camber issue your having would be there. (front tires without bouncing the front end would be more positive so the guy would set it more negative the nonce it settled the camber would be really negative. Seen some rookie alignment techs do this before as well. regards, paul

 

What are the numbers on your alignment report?

If they didn't give you one, they probably didn't do an alignment.

 

Its at the dealer now. I asked them to put the camber closer to neutral and I that I wanted the alignment report when they were done.
After the last alignment the car was a bit twitchy on turn in. I'm guessing the tech either did the toe only or set it heavy on negative camber. Since I did not receive the alignment report from the last time I have no idea where it is set. He did tell me at that time that it was so far out when he installed the tools that he couldn't read it until he made adjustments front and rear.
I checked the service record and the last alignment was done 2500 miles ago. Not good.

 

well, after this attempt, if they don't get it right, I'd say you definitely need to find a good alignment shop. and it may not be close to you. good luck; I hope they get it right.

 

BTW, the alignment report isn't 100%, you can print them while the numbers are all perfect BEFORE tightening everything down. That falls in with the old "set the toe and let it go" crowd.

Man, when I read threads like this I'm grateful to have access to equipment to do it myself.

 

If its twitchy, and the alignment is at the factory spec, it may be something else in the suspension system.

When I had my 1996 Corvette (with the LT4), I spent a lot of time experimenting with wheel alignment. When I set the rear alignment at or near zero toe total (right+left), it became extremely sensitive to ruts making it difficult to keep in its lane. I made small adjustments until the rear toe-in was something like 3/32nd of an inch (measured at the rim not the tread) at which point it eliminated almost all of the problem. Not sure what that means in degrees but I recall its pretty close to the factory specs. The fronts seems good at 1/8th inch total toe (right+left).

The alignment needs to have some toe-in, so when the car gets up to speed, the rolling resistance loads the control arm rubber bushings and the final toe ends up close to zero. If the alignment is set too close to zero, the wheels go toe-out at speed and it will end up twitchy as each wheel tries to pull the car right or left. You want to have each wheel pushing slightly to the center.

Wide tires exaggerate heavily rutted roads. Here in Austin, the roads are very good so ruts are not much of a problem.

 

Rolling resistance is spinning the tire, not loading the control arm bushings.

I've had my car set to zero toe on both ends for months and thousands of miles...I don't find it twitchy at all.

 

Sorry if my terminology was not exactly how some would express it. Here is what another expert says:

Toe

Like camber, toe will change depending on vehicle speed. As aerodynamic forces change the riding height, the toe setting may change due to the geometry of the steering linkage in relation to the geometry of the suspension. Because of this, specifications are determined for a vehicle that is not moving based on the toe being at zero when the vehicle is at highway speed. In the early days prior to radial tires, extra toe-in was added to compensate for tire drag at highway speed.

 

toe will change with ride height I'll buy...although I doubt it's changing enough at highway speeds to matter

as for toe changing due to tire drag, if you have non-zero toe, you are creating the drag by having a force applied slightly out of line with the way the tire wants to rotate...so yes, in that case I can see a force being generated that would add toe-out. However, if you start with zero toe, the force of the road on the tire is perpendicular to the axis of rotation...there is no "drag" in that case

 

Mez is correct on this and it's why rear wheel drive cars always have toe-in and front wheel drive cars have toe-out. You're forgetting about the rolling resistance of the tire (from sidewall flex) and brake drag adding to the force created by toe-in. How do you suppose these forces are resolved??? They get transferred to the suspension which causes the bushings to compress enough to affect toe therefore the toe-in on rear wheel drive cars. On front wheel drive cars, the forces required to "pull" the car down the road are transferred to the suspension causing the bushings to compress again but this time in the opposite direction therefore toe-out is used. Expand your idea of what constitutes "drag" and you'll be able see the whole picture.

 

I have had terrible luck with alignments on vehicles. The kid getting 10$ a hour to do it doesnt care.

I did a 6" lift on my duramax, the camber after these kits is huge, like +1-2* so much so you can see it. I take it to "the best place in town" to adjust it out (tons of room to adjust) and when I pick it up, after paying 300$ I can still see the fawking front tires looking like this from the front \ /

I had it, I fought with them, they said "the machine says its in spec" I checked all the bolts and nuts on the a-arms.... non had been touched.

I went out and bought my own manual tools (can I post links to stuff online here? don't see why not...) and since then have been doing them myself. No problems after 50K and one set of tires on the diesel, The corvette will get the same treatment

http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/p..._Camber_Gauges

 

Good for you.

It is really not very difficult if you think about it. I constructed my own toe-in jig using 4 jack stands, 2 lengths of conduit, and fishing line.

I set the conduit on jack stands in the front and rear of the car. Try to get it about 15" off the ground or about the centerline of the axle.

Its important to get the front and rear conduit parallel by making sure they are the same distance from their respective wheel. For example, I set the rear conduit 50 inches behind the center line of both the right and left rear wheels.

Stretch the finishing line front to back on both sides of the car. I made a very small cut on each conduit with a hack saw exactly 60 inches apart so the fishing line stays put exactly there. Actually, I clamped the two conduit together and made the cuts on both so I knew they were exactly 60.00inches.

The next step is very important....adjust the conduit to the right or left to get the fishing line the same distance from the rear of each rim on the right and left side and front to back. Both sides of the fishing line will parallel. Use a machinest ruler with increments of 1/10th of an inch to measure from the fishing line to the rear rim. For example, on my Lexus I was able to get the fishing line exactly .81" away from the right and left side in the rear and .75 on the front. The idea is to get the fishing line the same distance from the rim on each side. This is the "real-world" toe-in regardless of the centerline of the vehicle.

Once all the measurements are the same to rear of the rim, measure to the front of the rim to determine the actual toe-in. All 4 wheels should be roughly the same especially right to left on the same axle. If any of the measurements are more than .1 inch different, it may need to be adjusted and especially look for toe-out (unless you doing a race car).

This took me less time to do than driving to the shop.