Chad05TL

Would like to see what people think what kind of an adjustment my car needs. I hear the front suspension has caster that cannot be changed by the oem setup. I thought caster was my problem but supposedly, it cannot be changed. I looked in the helms book and it says if the caster is out of specs, then inspect the car for bent or damaged components. My caster is actually within specs, but I cannot tell why it does this:


When driving if the road leans to the left the car wants to veer off to the left. If the road leans to the right, the car wants to veer off to the right. If I approach a stop light and the pole position has a ripple in the pavement or if it is uneven, the steering wheel wants to pull fiercly toward that ripple. And it does not matter if it is left or right.


On smooth roads, the car does not pull too much all, but maybe just slightly to the left, and the steering wheel sits just slightly to the left, but not much at all. This is not a big problem. Mainly the problem is how it hooks any uneven surfaces and wants to veer off toward an uneven ripple. That is the worst part.


The reason I thought it was caster is because the more positive the caster is, then the steering wheel wants to return to normal much stronger than if caster is 0. I think this is why people say their steering wheel feels "heavy", like it has a lot of caster, where the straight on position is really gravitating back to center, like after a turn, you know how the steering wheel spins back to center.. I thought maybe I did not have enough caster so the wheels are going left or right too easily! But as I see now, there is no caster to adjust. Another TL anomaly!

Jesstzn

You sure its not the toe doing it? if its toed out it will hunt. Which it sounds like what its doing ..

Also the rear toe is a + on one side and a - on the other giving a total toe of 0.00 But to me that puts your rear end shifted to one side ( dog tracking ). My preference is 0 on both sides for a total toe of 0

Chad05TL

hunting sounds like what it is doing. It could be the toe. I have both left and right barely turned in. So they are both slightly toed in. I had it that was on my camaro and it provided a stabile feel. So I am not sure. As for the rear, they did not adjust it. I dont know if.the rear is dogged out or not. I have not noticed anything by driving it.

vill0169

iTrader: (4)

it's toe, check tire pressures too

Chad05TL

do you suggest 0 toe on both sides?

thanks-

leasureryan

sounds like toe to me. everything in the rear in spec too?

Chad05TL

the attachment above has all the settings. but yes, u think they are in spec. even the toe is in spec actually..

leasureryan

are you lowered?

leasureryan

and all of your bushing are good on suspension components? could be sloppy bushings

Chad05TL

I have the aspec springs. And I did realize the possibility of a bad component that was allowing for slop in the steering, but it was not like this before the alignment. see, the place I took it.to turned out to be a bad place. I took it back once and there is no going back again. So I would like to try to adjust that toe on both sides since they are set equally. I can turn bith sidss equally. I just hope there is a way to turn the nuts only.half way.at a time. I think turning the who tie rod end 1 full thread would be too much. I have not gotton under the car to inspect it to see how the tie rods are setup. At that time I can also check for.a loose component by trying to turn each front wheel , 1 at a time , to check for play

nfnsquared

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner, me thinks!!!

OP, have you taken a close look at your front compliance bushings?


For those of you who say it's toe, explain? He has slight toe-in on the front which, if anything, should promote straight line driving....

Chad05TL

My car has 71k miles, would it already need bushings? This symptom of "hunting" did not appear until the alignment was done. It was immediately after the alignment so the points me to alignment. You know? I was see was I can find out this weekend.

leasureryan

if it's not adjustable though, then how could they have dicked it up?

Chad05TL

True. That's why I think it must be something they did, rather than bad bushings, but I will check this weekend. And I want to see if I can make the tie rod adjustment without turning 1 full thread.

leasureryan

I would go back and just say look, come clean on anything you did to adjust my front end, reguardless of if it was wrong or right, I'm not asking you to fix it. I won't be back again, I just want my car back the way it was so please no secrets. the damage is done, now help me fix it by being honest. step by step, what was done? Even if I had to pull the tech aside after he got off work. I'd shake em' down lol. Otherwise, if he didn't change anything, then it has to be a bushing somewhere.

I hate cars

My compliance bushings were looking bad at 20k miles. I had them replaced at 40k. Had them done again at 90k.

My car with new compliance bushings and a good alignment will still pull over irregular surfaces and especially when taking off from a dead stop. That's something you live with when you go with wider and stickier rubber and fwd.

About the car pulling to the right when the road is slanted to the right, that's what every car does. No problem there.

Chad05TL

It doesn't look like anyone has even touched it.

*drivers side*

I hate cars

That might explain why the steering wheel is off center. They got lazy and only did one tie rod.

Chad05TL

I went to have another alignment. This time with an $80,000 machine. You should have seen the passenger side tie rod end. The nut was LOOSE!! The lock nut was like 3 threads away from being seated. The guy said with it not being tight, there is play in the teeth. And that is probably why my car was "hunting"!! So, do not go to Driver's Edge in Irving on MacArthur Blvd!!

He said it's really important to adjust the rear too. And he did ajust the toe on the rear. I watched him. I watch his machine while he did it.

The front right toe was way off. I knew the final piece of paper that guy gave me was a lie!! It said the both tires on the front were equal, which I thought was weird. It said both were .01 and.01 degrees. That was a lie. We recorded the before and after measurements today. The toe on the front was -.02 and +.09 and one side was not tight. We set it to -.01 on the left and 0 on the right.

My steering wheel is very straight and it would be hard to get it straighter. My car does not "hunt" now. Or veer left or right.

It handles much more predictable and I noticed when I left the shop and started to on the highway at the On Ramp, that I almost cut into the curb because it was so responsive.

Going around a curve now is much smoother and more predicitable and so far I have not noticed it bouncing "randomly". Meaning, when you hit a bump, having the right read bounce faster or slower the front. I was bad like that. It felt wobblie when one side would bounce different than the other end of the car. I knew my shocks were old, and even for OEM Spec shocks, I thought that was weird because they were new. This car has needed this alignment since the first week I bought it like 5 years ago!! haha

The Attachment:: Check out the before and after.. The red is "out of spec". Btw, the rear camber is in the red. And I am only .5 inches lower with these Aspec springs. So from the factory, I think these cars have much negative camber.

These people that did my aligment also lower cars, and they have a machine that will roll fenders! He should me a pic of a 3rd gen TL with 11" rims on the back and 9.5s on the front.

This is where I saw them:
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/pts/4257572442.html
Their website:
http://www.giotireshop.com/

I hate cars

Wow, that's good to hear and it's a good thing you got it redone, it could have turned dangerous. The shop I go to sometimes has a 2 month waiting list during the racing season but pretty much every other shop is like the first one you went to so it's totally worth it. So I'm going to assume the rear end is better too?

Chad05TL

The only thing I did notice that I do not care for much on the latest settings, is the final result on the Front Left Toe. It is slightly negative. If he couldn't hit 0, then I would have rather it been slightly positive. He said if I didn't like it, then I could come back and he would redo it. But instead I may wait and let him do other work on my car. Maybe. It's such a long drive though. DFW is so big.

Chad05TL

Ya this guy was very detail oriented. The difference in .01 is so small sometimes you have to let the machine settle for a second so it's not bouncing around.

And btw, I was actually enjoying going around curves! I was excellerating to feel it good, whereas before, I would have to take it easy. And ease off the gas. First time in 5 years!!

I learned that "just within specs" is not good enough for good handling. And 90% of the people who do alignments just get it within specs..

Chad05TL

Oh you said "the rear end".. As far as I can tell, it is fine for OEM shocks and springs. I didn't necessarily notice much floaty feeling. But I did drive it for approximately 30 miles at low and high speeds for about 40 minutes. I will need to drive it over more road surfaces so I can properly compare. But again, I did not notice any uneven bouncing if that makes sense.. I think a lot of that floaty feeling can come from a wooblie suspension. And it can "wooble" if one side bounces at a difference rate than the other, like the right rear. I noticed that in the past, like ever since I bought the car. One side would bounce faster than the other, so I got the new aspec spring kit. And it helped but didn't solve it all. I also think a "wooblie" feeling can come from having 4 tires that are not all pointed the same direction! You should have seen the 3D image on the BEFORE measurements. It looked Insane! One tire was out, another was a little straighter and none of them were equal. On the computer, it looked like Chaos driving down the road. haha

But when I drove back, it drove very str8, and it drove very easy, it did not veer even once, in fact, once when I went over a rough spot, it wanted to correct itself properly rather than wanting to go out of control. When I steer the car now, I noticed on the way back it wants to go exactly where I tell it to. But once on the way home just now, I excellerated for the first time, as I started to get on it while I was getting on the On ramp, the ramp is curved, so I excellerated and turned with the curve, but I actually turned it too far! And I was like OOOPS! So, my inital impression was that I didn't have to turn the wheel very far to get it go where I wanted it to go. Especailly the faster I was going.. Up until that point I was under 40mph. It is just so smooth handling and riding now. Amazing. You can tell it "was" a 40,000 dollar car. haha

one other thing I did notice, when he test drove the car, my car looks nice! It looks expensive. Now its even better since my wheels are straight. haha

Chad05TL

This picture is about what the computer was displaying. And this is no exaggeration. Because I spoke to the guy and said this was exaggerated.. and he said no, this is just how the computer see's it.

This is as best as I can draw it.

Chad05TL

Actually, the before - right rear is positive. I drew it right but labeled it as negative.

cokorote

iTrader: (1)

How you get the toe in number? Mine say OIN, I will never know if is 0.0 or negative or positive.

I got feathering/cupped on my rear tires and the car is not stable at all. My alignment guy say they the alignment spec look good and its the tires design or rear shock going out that cause feathering/cupped on my rear tires.

I'm confused looking at OP's alignment pictures.

wilztlxs

iTrader: (8)

The OIN is actually 0in as in 0 inches, so the toe is 0

cokorote

iTrader: (1)

So what cause feathering/cupped on my rear tires? bad shock? My car is 88K miles and it seem too early to for the shock going out.

Chad05TL

The odds of having 0 toe-in on both left and right, is like a 1,000,000:1

I bet you the rear toe-in measurement is wrong. Excessive toe-in will cause that feathering on the edge.

I just had trouble with the first guy that did my alignment. I should get a refund for the kind of work he did, if you can even call it work.. and for the way I was treated.

Anyway...

Chad05TL

btw, your camber is not too bad for a TL. And it's better than mine, but my car only has the aspec springs which is only about half an inch drop. And you know, the lower you go, the more negative camber you get. So, why mine is so negative, I have no idea! But, some negative camber is good for handling. I wouldn't try to make it zero. But you would have to get a special kit for that. You can't change the rear camber without a kit. And castor is not possible to change on any of the 4 corners.

And by the way, if you want to try to salvage your tire, if it a directional tire, then you have to pull it off the rim and move it to the other side of the car.



.

Chad05TL

by the way, the difference between .01 and .09 (or basically .1) is .01 is 10 times closer to 0 than .1. And yes it matters. That is if you want to have a really good handling car. And the guy that did mine adjusted all 4 tires in probably 30 minutes. No more than 45minutes for sure. So it doesn't really take that much time or effort if you have the right tools and know how to use them.

4drviper

That's normal.... just saying. (except steering not centered)

Chad05TL

No, the problem was fixed. I said it above.

People give the worst advice on this website.

Take with grain of salt.

cokorote

iTrader: (1)

So that mean Oin is not actually 0? I have Aspec spring too and you think I would take to another alignment shop? It fucked up my Michelin Super Sport tires and those are expensive tires and I don't want to repeat that again.

Chad05TL

I would have the rear rechecked. I am surprised to see inches as a unit of measurement. But if you are wearing out rear tires, and the last guy did not change anything, then yes, I would have it rechecked. But yes, 0in or 0 inches is 0 degrees or 0 mm. But its very odd to see both sides straight up zero. You need more of a finer unit of measure.. not inches. I bet they screwed up.

But to vdriper's point, i drove my car again yesterday over a few ripples, and even though my problem of hunting is gone, if I let go the steering wheel, it still does very slightly turn as if it follows that bump but its not like jerking the steering wheel out of my hand like it was doing. Lately I also swapped out the steering fluid reservoir with new fluid and it steers much lighter. So, that to might make the car sort of easy to turn and maybe even hunt a little easier since its so easy to turn. But the way it isnow, its not a problem. I had a loose nut and the alighnment was off on 1 side. So, its not grabbing the wheel out of my hands now. But still, maybe some veering is normal. But not to the extent I was having.

Chad05TL

I have no idea what this old thread was about, but each tire individually need to be set to zero toe . This is a must have. And the front should be set up the same. zero toe. But slight toe-in is better than slight toe-out (on the front). And the best way to set the toe, is use a Laser level like the one below. And since the rear tires an the front tires have the same distance between them, then use the rear tire as a guide for the front. And use the front tires as a guide for the rear. Use the laser to shine toward the other tire , observe the line on the concrete and note the distance it is from the tire. It should be about an inch or so away from the tire, but not hitting the tire.

https://www.harborfreight.com/hand-t...der-93884.html