Alignment before and after

[BigCars4Ever]

After just 11000 miles the inside of my front tires were through the steel belts. I orderen some new fronts, cut the tags off the camber bolt offsets and brought it to a Lincoln Mercury dealer. Granted my car is lowered but the tech could not get the caster into spec unless the camber was set out of spec. I opted to go with the caster out. I attached the results. The side with the -1deg the adjuster bolt is maxed out. Any opinions, comments or insight on this please let me know.

[RoyLPita]

Caster does not affect wear. Camber and toe does. Since the upper control arms cannot be adjusted, you'll have to live with this setup with the lowering springs.

[hidperf]

That looks like a bunch of caster compared to what mine ended up and I have the Eibachs as well. How much rake do you have from front to back? If I measure from my peak of the wheel arches I have about 1/4" difference front to back. I'm not sure if that would make a difference but since caster is the angle of the knuckle Fr/Rr, I would think it does. To get the back of my car that low, I had to replace the factory bump stops in the rear with Energy Suspension stops, which gave me the suspension travel I needed without bottoming out constantly.


I finally found a shop in my area that could do my alignment as close to my specs AND not rape me in the process. I dropped it off this morning so I won't have the specs until tonight but they did call and tell me everything came in perfect except the camber, which I expected. I'll put the final results up when I get back on here later.

[Aren Jay]

So what did that cost you.

I paid almost $400 to have my Alignment done with slightly better results.

[larryo340]

So what did that cost you.

I paid almost $400 to have my Alignment done with slightly better results.

$400........Did they detail the car inside and out for that price :shake: or maybe give you a happy ending? :D

[hidperf]

So what did that cost you.

I paid almost $400 to have my Alignment done with slightly better results.

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

I spent 89.00 on mine!

Here's where mine ended up.

Left Right
-1.1 camber -0.8
5.6 caster 5.8
0 toe 0
11.8 included 10.5

[BigCars4Ever]

$79 at the Merc dealer ($10 off special)

[RF Overlord]

$400 for an alignment?!

There's a bridge spanning the Cape Cod Canal that I am looking to sell my shares in...

[Stranger in the Black Sedan]

Does the tech realize that on a newer Hunter rack, which has four floating plates, that you have to re check caster all over again after prying around on the car to set camber? The floating plates let the car slide side to side and front to back. If you so much as push really hard on the car w/ your hand it will disturb the caster #s. You have to go through the machine's steering wheel sweep after getting the toe and camber set to re check caster. I bet he did not do this. Those 7+ degree #s are probably erronous readings. The fact that the before specs are in range and the after are way off are a tell tale sign that the readings are highly suspect. Caster shouldn't move all that much w/ camber change. When I changed from neg 1.25 camber to neg 0.3 the caster only moved barely a few tenths. I don't think it's possible w/ stock suspension to get much over 6 deg caster, I played w/ my caster settings a lot and there is not a lot of wiggle room in the adjustment. Caster is important because cross caster will induce a pull. Leading caster on the front pass side will induce a pull right to left. A few tenths lead on the pass side is fine. With more than 1-2 tenths cross caster my car pulls noticeably w/ stock type BFG's.

My car is setup -0.3 deg caster front, both sides, 5.8 right side front caster, 6.0 pass side front caster, zero toe. It took several re alignments to get the car as perfect as I wanted. I am super picky and will realign each car several times a year if they get driven a lot.

[hidperf]

I will say this, the car hasn't drove this nice since I've owned it. I've had it about 14 months and put 6k miles on it and it drives great now!