Alignment, rear toe, fix or leave it?

[actionstan]

Hi all, This weekend I had 4 new tires put on our Kia Forte, Cooper CS3s, liking them already. My Tire shop does a complimentary alignment with a set of tires. I had a feeling that the alignment may be off on one of the rear wheels.. and sure enough it was,I say this because the tires on the rear from the OEM set wore slightly faster on the outside edge SLIGHTLY, they were also probably only rotated 3-4 times in their life and made it to 40k almost.) The alignment page which I have posted below shows that the to on the rear driver side wheel is right on the edge of being in the green, but ever so slightly in the red. The Rear suspension on this car is factory non-adjustable. So I ask, is this worth shimming, OR should I leave it alone for now, I believe this is "Toe in" so maybe as time goes, and things wear out it will correct itself? If this is bad enough to shim, will this throw off other things on that tire, or my entire alignment? like the caster/camber for that tire? or the steer ahead for the whole alignment? I can say the car does drive good and strait. I am not sure they make shims small enough to correct this without going over in the other direction, and if it is shimmed, does this mean the caliper assembly will also require shimming to match up? Overall I am happy with the alignment, but let me know your thoughts!

 

[Kiwi_ME]

You have nothing to worry about, you're splitting hairs. And chances are if you had it measured again you would get slightly different numbers again

 

[eljefino]

Complimentary alignment or complimentary check? The former they get in and do stuff, the latter they try and convince you to pay up.

 

[actionstan]

Complimentary alignment, Tire Discounters.

 

[artificialist]

I suggest leaving the rear toe alone unless the total toe is out of spec. If you want to have a shim installed, you can have it oriented so that both toe and camber are moved closer to the center of the specification. Typically when a shim is installed, it relocates the brake caliper at the same time.

 

[wokeupdead]

I would probably leave that one alone. That being said, the front keys off the rear, and can cause significant changes to the front when the rear is adjusted. The camber numbers at the lower end of specification would cause more tire wear. Both on the right side look especially low. If you were to do one side, should do both. Cross camber could go out of specification. Also getting the front closer may also bring the caster cross to a more favorable number if you drive on crowned to the right roads. The rears , if they are disk may require shimming the caliper brackets. When I set a Prius it is required, when they have disk brakes. Drums do not require it.

 

[jorton]

I fixed it on my Ford Focus because rapid tire wear produced noisy ride, and loss of grip on wet roads.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: jorton

I fixed it on my Ford Focus because rapid tire wear produced noisy ride, and loss of grip on wet roads.

Mine chewed up an 80K set of tires in 30K miles with the factory alignment! All of the wear was on the rear, too.

 

[Zaedock]

I would leave it be for now and monitor the tires for wear. The rear shim will not change the caliper mount, however, there will be enough movement in the floating caliper to compensate for the change.