3 ways of setting wheel alignment?

Anonymous · September 4, 2003, 22:31

Having enquired about a 4 wheel alignment with a T dealership I have not tried before, they mentioned that when doing the Mk2 they had 3 settings from Toyota.

1. best handling, high tire wear
2. neutral
3. lowest tire wear, worst handling

However he didn't know about the Mk3 and would look into it and come back to me.

Anyone heard of three such settings for the MK3 as I heard that the Toyota specs have fairly wide margins for each of the alignment elements e.g camber, toe etc?

Anonymous · September 4, 2003, 22:40

Hope you find out cos I'm hoping to fit lowering springs. Would the setting be different with the lowering springs? s:? :? s:?

Anonymous · September 4, 2003, 22:46

I had a 4 wheel laser geometry alignment a few days ago and nothing was mentioned about different settings.

I thought correct alignment ensured that the car does not pull left or right when the steering is at 12 o'clock.

Misalignment can reduce handling and increase tyre wear.

I might be wrong here...

GSB · September 5, 2003, 10:41

As far as I am aware, there is only one set of settings for the mk3. The mk2 had several sets as there were several versions. For instance the suspension had major mods done on later cars, as earlier ones were notoriously tail happy if you lifted off the throttle mid bend. These two had different settings. Then there are the turbo versions of the car, and who knows what other incarnations over the 5 revisions that Toyota produced...

The mk3 has only been around 3 years, and although the suspension has recieved some minor tweaks on the '03 model, the basic settings are still the same. That said, these settings are only Toyots's reccomended settings, and some gains can be had by tweaking them slightly, for instance you could add more negative camber. However, while more negative camber can give you more grip, the trade off is increased tyre wear...

The autocross guys over on SC routinely add more camber to their cars by using crash bolts, and play around with toe settings in order to get the car to handle more to their liking. Ask over there for more details..

Anonymous · September 6, 2003, 11:05

Thanks for the replies. My problem seems to be that the steering wheel is a few degrees to the left when going straight. Straightening it results in drift to the right so I hope it is sorted by the alignment and not a steering rack issue of some sort.

I am going to try Lincolns Tyre Service in Stevenage to do the wheel alignment and got the Toyota data from an earlier post.

However can someone explaining what the following means?

Quote**** Special Note ****

When making adjustments ensure that the Thrust Angle, is set as near to the Nominal "0" as possible.

Anonymous · September 6, 2003, 15:58

I managed to track down an excellent little article on wheel alignment which answers my question above and could be useful to anyone like me who doesn't know what all the setting are.

http://www.familycar.com/alignment.htm

Slacey · September 6, 2003, 20:30

Good find, makes interesting reading for another person who knows nothing at all about this! s:D

s:D

Anonymous · September 20, 2003, 17:33

Just for the record in case anyone searches in future. Here is how my alignment came out.

The alignment was done at Lincolns Tyre in Stevenage at http://www.lincolnstyre.co.uk/index.htm and their machine already had our MR2's data in it. Just make sure they select ZZW30 for our model.

Comer · September 20, 2003, 21:53

L, questions, questions. How much was the alignment from Lincoln? Did you have to book the car in and how long did it take?

Anonymous · September 20, 2003, 22:17

I know nothing about wheel alighnment, so can someone clear something up for me?

Looking at that picture, the left front camber is -0.52 and the right is -0.33 ( and all the other settings) .... why are they not set the same left to right?

Anonymous · September 21, 2003, 00:17

It was £60 for the four wheel alignment. I did book ahead but they were able to do a Saturday whereas MrT could only do weekday. Alignment was done in 1 hour. I had the rear toe done as that was out most and the the front as well so that the thrust angle was zero and I went straight - or thats what they told me s:? :? s:?

As for the difference in figures, the original figures were uneven so I guess the factory tolerances are not that great. Maybe the difference accounts for the effect of the driver sitting in the vehicle ?

They did get some of the figures closer together and the main issue was to get that rear left toe sorted.

They were also able to get me a complete set of Goodyear F1 GSD-2s at 1 hour notice for £317 so I had them stuck on to replace the Yokos for the winter and then the four wheel alignment. The car now steers straight and handles fine whizzing around the roundabouts. However first impressions are of minor steering wheel vibration at motorway speeds s:? :? s:? Could be (I hope) the balancing of the wheel but I will get on the roads tomorrow to see if I can diagnose it better. If there any alignments whizzs who might be able to second guess an alternative reason?

GSB · September 22, 2003, 08:59

Quote from: "krisclarkuk"I know nothing about wheel alighnment, so can someone clear something up for me?

Looking at that picture, the left front camber is -0.52 and the right is -0.33 ( and all the other settings) .... why are they not set the same left to right?

Camber on the front of the MR2 is not adjustable as standard. To adjust it you need to be able to either shorten/lenghten the bar that leads from the bodywork to the hub, or move the top of the strut right or left in relation to the car. This can only be done with use of crashbolts, (bolts with an eccentric shaft that can alter geometry very slightly) or adjustable strut tops, so basically you get what you're given. However I would say that the difference above is tiny, and well within tolerance, so unless you are a pro racer, I wouldn't worry to much about it...

markiii · September 22, 2003, 12:23

almost but you got it in reverse.

The front is adjustable the rear isn't.

GSB · September 22, 2003, 12:29

Quote from: "markiii"almost but you got it in reverse.

The front is adjustable the rear isn't.

Oops, Monday again... s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

GSB · September 22, 2003, 12:50

Quote from: "markiii"almost but you got it in reverse.

The front is adjustable the rear isn't.

Hang on, minor confusion here, although I'm sure I could quite easily sort this out for myself if I had my car with me at work...

If the front is adjustable, how is it adjusted? From memory there is an A frame lower arm and a non-movable strut top, I dont recall seeing any adjustment for camber there.

Also, Lusaka's printout above shows an unchanged front camber but the near side rear wheel's camber has been corrected...

EDIT: Forget that, the readouts are in degrees and minutes, Not decimals, the camber has hardly moved.

I hate mondays, my brain refuses to compute even the most simple tasks...

dancarbon · September 22, 2003, 12:57

Quote from: "Lusaka"It was £60 for the four wheel alignment.

Is this the price I should expect to pay for the alignment? I think I need it doing but haven't got around to sorting it out yet.

Anonymous · September 22, 2003, 17:50

About £60 was what I was quoted by a Toyota dealer but I went local instead as I could get it and the new tyres all under one roof.

I got my vibration in the steering wheel sorted - it was the wheel balance on one of the front wheels.

I should have guessed because when I checked the car at home, one front wheel had 2 large weights whilst the other had 1 small one. The guy at Lincolns took the tyre off, rotated it on the alloy, rebalanced and bingo -it went from requiring 70g to 35g and the vibration appears to be gone (albeit on a short test drive). The other wheel is on 20g.

Always worth checking to see if there is such a large discrepancy.

Comer · October 12, 2003, 09:55

I took my car yesterday morning for an alignment at Lincoln Tyres after reading Lusaka's post.

The before results found that the front toe was too negative and slightly uneven after changing to the Eibach springs. I never noticed a problem whilst driving but the car did 'twitch' when I took corners a bit too fast but I blamed this on my Yokos as they've done 11k. My rear camber was found to be fine after SteveJ's excellent fine tuning when the springs were fitted s:wink: :wink: s:wink:

Anyway I went to Lincoln's and 1 hour and £59.87 later the alignment was complete and they also evened up the slightly uneven rear toe as well even though it was within the set tolerance. I definitely recommend Lincoln for alignment for anyone who doesn't mind a trip to Stevenage.

And the car does feel much better on cornering.

Anonymous · January 22, 2004, 09:15

Back in September '03 I had done a 4 wheel laser alignment; yesterday I noticed that the steering wheel was misaligned again - very similar to 5 months ago.

Any idea how common this is? Has anyone else had this problem appearing again in such a sort period of time?

markiii · January 22, 2004, 09:39

yep

Anonymous · January 22, 2004, 09:44

Why DOES this happen? Especially as the wheels don't get knocked, banged or detrimentally driven? I thought that all the nuts and screws should be tightened a best as possible?

Doesn't make sense and never has to me.......... s:? :? s:?

Anonymous · January 22, 2004, 13:00

Quote from: "markiii"yep

markiii, did you have it re-aligned under warranty? I paid 5 months ago because I thought it was my fault but this time is definitely out of the blue...

John, do you have the same problem as well?

markiii · January 22, 2004, 13:25

I paid last time and went to lincoln. They are good, but and it's a big but. when Toyota quote you a price it's for the job.

Lincolns £59 is assuming at most 2 changes need to be made. Every additional change is £15 plus VAT.

bearing in mind they fiddled with mine foe 2 hours this went up to £160

not so good.

We compromised on £100 in then end as I was being a fussy git, and they hadn't been as clear as they should have been.

At least with Toyota it's a price period. Bearing in mind how much of a ball ache our car can be to setup the price isn't that bad.

Ref warranty.

I had the first one done with Toyota a year or so back done free since I'd had the problem since new.

One thing I have noticed is that there is always a slight pull to the left due to the lightness of our wheels and the camber of teh road.

One positive apect when I swopped to 17" wheels was that tis went away. Get steve to explain about teh gyroscope effect as this seems to be the reason.

Anonymous · February 7, 2004, 10:24

Thanks for the info markiii.

I am seriously considering selling the MR2 due to the incapability of my local dealer to do a decent job and all the sh*t I have to put up with. The latest and greatest excuse is that my Eagle F1s cause the misalignment!!!

To top it all, I asked for a print-out of the result of the alignment. Their response was that I couldn't have one because their printer has no paper!!!

In previous occasions, they left the interior dirty, scratched the inside door trim (thank God it's only a small scratch) and wanted to dismantle the engine cover because of a rattle inside the cabin.

Anyway sorry about my moaning, my car is in the garage as we speak having the wheels laser aligned and the hubs and disks changed (rust). I prey there will be no problems...

markiii · February 7, 2004, 11:09

I do beleive we are going to need a rate your dealer poll soon :-) :-) :-)

Worth finding a decent dealer even if it's a little better.

I usually end up waiting for mine, as I don't trust any body with mine.