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I recently had my alignment done at the dealership. Can someone who is knowledgeable in this subject give me your thoughts please? The tech said this was best for street use. But according to some of the posts I have seen this is still off.
My left rear Toe was 0.88 and he said he was unable to change it.
My understanding is that the factory rear toe link is not adjustable. Based on the alignment sheet above, either your guy misread or miscommunicated the toe reading or you have something bent/damaged. I think I'd get a second opinion. If you still have a problem, you need to have someone who knows Corvette suspensions take a look and see if a repair/replacement is needed. In my experience when we had issues like that it was typically a tweaked toe link, but it could be something else and you need to understand what it is from a safety perspective. There are adjustable rear toe links available in the after-market.
This is what I had done to make it a bit more fun to drive around the street and highways. This is somewhere between an semi-aggressive track setup and a spirited street setup.
2017 Z06 with Z07 Package, Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires
IMPORTANT: My understanding is that to be able to do a proper alignment you need to have the following, and there are some dealers that either don't have it or don't know about it:
My understanding is that the factory rear toe link is not adjustable. Based on the alignment sheet above, either your guy misread or miscommunicated the toe reading or you have something bent/damaged. I think I'd get a second opinion. If you still have a problem, you need to have someone who knows Corvette suspensions take a look and see if a repair/replacement is needed. In my experience when we had issues like that it was typically a tweaked toe link, but it could be something else and you need to understand what it is from a safety perspective. There are adjustable rear toe links available in the after-market.
The rear toe link is adjustable through a certain range. For a street setup with 0.0 degree rear caster settings the stock toe rods have plenty of adjustment range. It is only when using settings such as the DSC track settings where the person is shooting for -1.7 degrees of rear camber and + 0.7 degrees of rear caster that you run out of adjustment range. When that happens the toe adjustment bottoms out at about -0.01 and isn't able to reach toe in only that amount of toe out and more. Shoot for the same rear camber and 0.0 degrees of rear caster and there is plenty of rear toe adjustability with the stock toe rods. Aftermarket rods are only necessary if you are using lots of rear camber and near the max positive rear caster.
I notice that rear caster is only hand written on one of the before/after sheets shown in the thread. It requires separate tools to measure and alignment machines can't print out the result so has to be written by hand. If not written in hand it probably wasn't checked or adjusted.
The Corvette tech at our dealership has GS/Z06 owners sometimes come in and ask for an alignment that gives best tire life. I'm not sure why they bought a widebody if tire life is their big goal, but anyway...
The is apparently some variation from one car to another. Some of them he can't get the rear camber down to 0 without getting unwanted toe. His procedure is to get both rear camber as close to 0 as possible while keeping toe also at 0. If he still has a slight amount of negative camber in the rear, he sets the front to the same number with 0 toe.
He keeps the rear caster at 0 per the GM spec, and has the tools to measure/adjust it.
My understanding is that the factory rear toe link is not adjustable. Based on the alignment sheet above, either your guy misread or miscommunicated the toe reading or you have something bent/damaged. I think I'd get a second opinion. If you still have a problem, you need to have someone who knows Corvette suspensions take a look and see if a repair/replacement is needed. In my experience when we had issues like that it was typically a tweaked toe link, but it could be something else and you need to understand what it is from a safety perspective. There are adjustable rear toe links available in the after-market.
So, if my left rear Toe is 0.88 you think I need a new Tow link? The guy at the dealership is a Certified Corvette Tech.
This is my current alignment settings.
Last edited by Matthewstorm; Apr 23, 2020 at 05:04 PM.
So, if my left rear Toe is 0.88 you think I need a new Tow link? The guy at the dealership is a Certified Corvette Tech.
In my experience that doesn't mean anything when it comes to doing a quality alignment. If I were you, I'd take it to an indy shop that can get the rear caster done also. My Chevy dealer has a "certified corvette tech" also and he couldn't get the car aligned how I wanted, similar issue to you but my toe wasn't so out of whack. I took it to a shop that works on a lot of weekend racers and exotics who want special alignment settings for the weekend and then come Monday he sets them back to a street spec alignment. He spent 15 minutes with me to understand how I planned to use the car, then spent an hour aligning it exactly how I wanted. Same hunter alignment rack as my Chevy dealer so it isn't a gear issue. He machined his own caster alignment too for his other Z06/ZR1 customers. For alignments, you really have to find someone who does a ton of them and isn't just trying to get it into GM's specs. By the way, he only charged me $150 and the dealer wanted $350 since they did the rear caster - for a junk alignment no less. Those certified corvette techs know a lot about other things on the car but not usually alignments imho.
So, if my left rear Toe is 0.88 you think I need a new Tow link? The guy at the dealership is a Certified Corvette Tech.
I would be interested to know if having all your total toe-in just on one side of the car only, will have an effect on the handling, that's what I'd be worried about. IMO, this is lazy, and shows the tech didn't want to even/balance out the two sides, at least to a certain extent.
Well, he tried multiple times and said he couldn't get it any better. I don't hold too much faith in him as he's misdiagnosed things in the past.
Find a good independent shop that knows Corvette alignments and let them have a look. If you can't find one on your own, I checked on the Super Chevy site when I was on vacation and was able to find a great shop in Denver. Might find something on that site if you need it. (Actually I found a really good mechanic on Super Chevy who told me where he sends all his Corvettes to be aligned.)
Find a good independent shop that knows Corvette alignments and let them have a look. If you can't find one on your own, I checked on the Super Chevy site when I was on vacation and was able to find a great shop in Denver. Might find something on that site if you need it.
Great advice, you might find something like I found, a big Chevy Dealer with a specialized Corvette mechanic, that handles all corvettes that come through there, and then some.
Sequentially if you happen to know Jeff Creech at Carolina Auto Master in Burlington (where r u in nc), they are a huge LS shop, and align by hand to your specifications, no laser equipment for them, all Imperial system, email for custom quote!
So, if my left rear Toe is 0.88 you think I need a new Tow link? The guy at the dealership is a Certified Corvette Tech.
This is my current alignment settings.
No you don't need a new toe link. Unless somebody that didn't know anything about how to lift the car damaged it trying to lift the car.
The toe link is just a straight rod with a pin sitting in a bushing on one end and with a cam in a bushing on the other end. The cam is turned to adjust the toe. You have a lot of toe in on the driver's rear causing a fairly severe thrust angle. You need to take it back and have rear toe adjusted to the correct value which would be the same number as the right side toe is set to. If you had a few simple tools you could adjust it in your garage at home. It isn't hard since alignments aren't hard they just take time.
I imagine the car is dog walking down the road with that kind of a thrust angle. When you hit the throttle does it feel like the rear end of the car wants to move right and when you let off the throttle does it feel like the rear wants to move back toward the left?
So, if my left rear Toe is 0.88 you think I need a new Tow link? The guy at the dealership is a Certified Corvette Tech.
This is my current alignment settings.
This is a mess.
Tell them to do it right or get your money back.
Alignment thoughts
