find a better shop that does more than "set the toe and let her go"

toe is only part of the alignment. you may have a cross caster problem causing your car to follow the road crown. camber and caster adjustments can help this. caster isn't adjustable on our gen4's though. camber is adjustable though.

 

I would recommend taking it for a real alignment. Only way to get it done correctly.

But I will say I have adjusted my own sometimes. I have used a tape measure, and measured the front sidewall of the tires between each other, and the rear of the tires between each other, and make it equally straight with maybe 1/8 inch of toe in on the front. Once this is done, you can straighten the steering wheel by adjusting the tie rod ends in and out equally on both sides.

Basically like this crude drawing below from looking above the car.

 

Yes, with careful measurements you can do an adequate wheel alignment yourself. There are several popular methods which are easily found and explained on various sites. I just did an alignment on my 99 Avalon after installing new inner and outer tie rod ends on the right side. I used a carpenter's level (after checking its accuracy with a plumb bob) and shims to check camber and used the parallel line to check/set toe. You can also determine caster by measuring camber with wheel turned 20 degrees one way than 20 degrees the other and doing a calculation. The parallel line method for toe requires you to know your front and rear track widths. This info is in your Owners Manual. You can use whatever method you like but simply adjusting the tie rods trial and error will likely be a huge waste of time. Incorrect toe will cause tire wear but should not make the car pull - that sounds like a camber issue. Are you sure your car is pulling or is your steering wheel just off center?

 

No, the car is most definitely pulling to the right - worse on some roads than others. the drivers side tire is worn on the inside edge and the passenger tire is wearing normally.

 

I would start by measuring camber. Very easy to do and most likely a big part of your problem. Hopefully your problem is due to an adjustable alignment issue and not a failing rack.

 

tire swap and road test

oh i forgot about this trick. swap your two front tires and test drive. (driver front to passenger front and pass front to driver front)

after swapping the front two tires and on your test drive: your car stops pulling or pulls the opposite direction, it's a tire issue causing the pull. in general, the car will pull in the direction of the bad tire. :thumbsup:

 

No, I highly doubt a failing rack - either the original owner had that replaced or whatever - but the whole assembly looks new -ish and clean as a whistle. Perhaps that doesn't speak for everything - but I doubt the rack is the problem.

I did swap the tires - still pulls to the right - now this pull is not near as bad as some cars I've driven - but since this car is in such amazing shape for 14 years old - I want perefection or as near as i can get.



Sooo - i've saved big bucks on repairs so far - i'll just have the mechanic do the alignment.

:cigar-smoker:

 

Sooo - i've saved big bucks on repairs so far - i'll just have the mechanic do the alignment. :cigar-smoker:

I would still measure the camber myself so I could compare it with the shop's numbers. That way you will know if they are trustworthy.

 

I'm curious as to what the mechanic will say.

 

Find a shop with a good calibrated Hunter alignment machine. The quality of the tech matters too, and unfortunately that's harder to tell than the "Hunter" name on the machine.

As Artbuc mentioned, you can use a level to determine the camber. There are also cheap digital levels at Harbor Freight supposedly good to 0.1 degree. IIRC, if the driver side wears on the inside, then it's got negative camber, and the car will pull towards the right (the side with the more positive camber). If the cambers are fine then look at the toe. Toe supposed only cause the steering wheel to point to one side. Not knowing enough about these things I'd say to check it anyway, at least make sure the wheels are parallel to each other.

With an assistant and a measuring tape, you should be able to get the tires close to parallel to each other. Measure higher up because near the contact patch there's distortion. At least you can see if they're off by more than 1/32". If your problem is toe, then I think you may see much more than 1/32" difference when you measure the front edge and rear edge of the tires.

Then there's the Firestone lifetime alignment that some TN members use. Pay one time, and then head back as many times as you want, even if you replaced suspension parts. Now that's a good deal. Tech's quality is another things however.

 

+1 on a good tech. I've had 3 alignments done on 3 car's in the last year. I tried 3 places and I will be sticking with the last place I used from now on.

The first place just tossed it up, checked it and adjusted it.

The 2nd place did the same, except they never checked the rear even though it was adjustable and I asked for 4 wheel.

The 3rd place, actually did it right, even though they had an older machine (still computer though). They jacked it up, checked for loose parts with a pry bar, adjusted it, all 4 wheels and when they found it was only a tiny bit out on the toe and that wouldn't cause the pull I had, they swapped tires side to side and took if for another trip to confirm that the pull changed.

Not pertinent to the OP's (he said he tried it) but, up until that day I did not know a tire could do that. I mean I could see it if different sizes, or even just different brands, or maybe if one was worn out on one edge and new on the other edge... but I had 4 exact matching tires with 50% tread and perfect wear (though, I bought it like that) Sure enough though, I put that tire on the rear and no more pull.

 

On second thought screw it -- I'm gonna get a 19mm and a 14mm wrench and try 'pulling in' that drivers side tie rod myxelf. I'll be back with a report..

 

Good idea! I suggest you get a die and roll it to determine how many turns to make. I would also make similar toe adjustments to the other three wheels as well. Add some extra air too. Do NOT use a tire pressure gage - just add air until the tires look right.

 

Maybe I'm 100% mistaken, but I assumed if toe was all that was out, they would attempt to center themselves and as such the only thing that would be wrong is the steering wheel would be off center?

All I know is, I set up strings, with levels and plumb bobs and measure tapes and straight edges and tried to set the caster, camber, and toe on a 1965 Mustang I'm working on... no pull, steering wheel centered, but won't return to center. And I did not accomplish anything. Still drives the same. So I tried adding a degree of caster, and if that didn't work, I tried a negative degree (from factory), and when that didn't work, I went back to "factory", then tried the toe, then the camber, all trying adding and taking away from factory to see if the problem got better or worse.

And then I replaced every single steering component on the car, and even after that, the issue is the same, even though I did not do the caster/camber/toe after that, I just eye-balled the new parts to the old ones.

Now, the car still isn't road worthy enough to drive to an alignment shop, so I haven't had it done by the pros, but I spent lots of time trying to do it *right* without the *right* tools and did nothing but waste time.

 

Toe being way out of whack will do al sorts of stuff to steering, including not returning to center.

Check the column on your Mustang and all the linkages.

 

Sorry for stealing your thread a little here, but i just have a quick front alignment question as well.
This is how my car was after alignment was done (took pic right before they took off the alignment tools). Everything's within specs exept one thing.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/09f3gj4z4hjv7m9/2013-08-21 15.53.52.jpg

The front right wheel is tilted inwards on the top.
The alignment shop said this is a none-adjustable thing on this car.
It's also, even if it's out of specs, such a small amount that it will not affect stearing at all, and only micriscopic, if any, extra tire wear.

But if this is a none-adjustable thing, as well as everything felt nice and tight, what's causing this - and what parts needs to be replaced to fix it?

 

Jan, you can adjust camber on the front. You have to loosen the two bolts which secure the strut tower to the steering knuckle. If there is not enough play to get within spec, you can either buy a set of special cam bolts or you can simply grind a little off of one (or both) bolts to allow the camber adjustment you need.

 

Jeez - I hope I'm not 'steering' anybody off course here with this thread.

nd no - do NOT inflate your tires to seventy pounds and DO use a tire gauge. I keep mine @ 30 lbs. front and 31 lbs. rear.

I had the car down at the end of the driveway today while i was cutting the grass and with the car on a perfectly flat level, and the steering wheel centered, both front tires look straight from top to bottom. but both are 'toed outwards' when looking straight on at the front end from about twenty feet away. The drivers side a bit more than the passenger side. The wear on the inside driver's tire is worse than the passenger side also. No picture of what appears to be the toe out problem - but here are pictures of the tire wear:

Driver's side



Passenger side


Mr. Toyota needs a bath!

 

Well - scratch that DIY, for now. I can't loosen the 'jam nut' for nothin'. I need a torch!! But this is all about money - if i can avoid spending a plugged nickel - I will LOL. So until I get a new pair of tires (the rears are like new at 10k) I'll haave my mech loosen the nuts and play around with the tie rods myself. Drives me nuts lol.