got my car aligned today and caster in both front wheels were off by about 4.7-5.6 degrees. they noted i need specialized shims to correct it.

anyone know about this or where i can get one? i cant find anything on ebay and dont want to pay the shop prices for parts.

 

I had this problem also. They told me that I needed to add or take away shims in order to fix the problem, but they wouldn't know which to do until they tried one way and checked it. There is already one shim in there. I had removed the shim that was on the problem side and it brought it closer to spec. You could try that and bring it back to the alignment shop to see what the outcome is.

 

what did you smack the wheels against?

go to a better alignment shop that knows what they are doing

I never heard of our cars needing anything for caster adjustment-
out of spec = out of wnack!
camber yes on lowered cars but requires special parts installed to adjust,
and toe adjust on all cars

 

did the shop offer the correct shims? or just tell you it needed them

 

it is firestone which is a large corporation. they did say they will try to find parts and prices and call me back...but still they overcharge.

the subframe was bent from what they tell me and it misaligned the shims.

does caster affect tire wear a lot?

 

drive the car don't worry about it.

the spread is what is important not the amount of caster each has.

Camber and toe ware out the tires not caster, caster will have a slight rounding effect on the edges of the tread, remember caster is the angle when the tire is turned, so unless your driving in circles all of the time it's not an issue.

 

Caster can be corrected with radius rod shims up to 1 degree I think.

But like rcb2000 said, cross-caster is what's important...TouringLow, what's left minus right caster?

 

from what i've read. off spec caster isnt a problem, unless both sides are significantly off..which in this case is i believe.

left is 4.7 and right is 5.6

the car oddly doesnt have pull on the LEFT until high speeds over 65+ MPH

 

so bent subframe is the real problem and not going to be fixed--correct?

firestone has corporate minimums on upsell and daily sales they have to meet-
its amazing what they come up with sometimes,,and they are not the only ones--
any branded shop like that has same policy
thats one reason I direct people to the phone book and private owned small shops

Sure if you need a straight align with no issues- firestone can set the toe
-without special modded parts, you cant adjust anything else!
Note that when they sell full- we adjust everything `thats adjustable` for only 99.95
and only the toe gets done on a TL~

caster is an imaginary vertical line thru the tire which indicates for/aft position
over an imaginary point in space and time

camber is the angle the width of the tire contacts the ground--it goes negative when car is lowered

toe is angle relative to forward travel--
toe in is tires pointing inward to each other
toe out happens on lowered cars, tires are pointed outwards- trying to split the car in half~ not great for gas mileage either
get it aligned after lowering or living with constant potholed roads

 

i would also check for worn radius arm bushings. I had a similar problem and found a worn bushing on one side. Caster is important in an alignment process, but usually should not exceed .5 degrees from side to side. With the +.5 always on the RF to compensate for road crown.

 

.75 degree actually is a better spread .5 is exceptable but not ideal.

shim the left side or see if the bushing needs replaced it's not off that far so I doubt the subframe is bent.