Any thoughts on this alignment readout?

[SwampSurvivor]

So I had the alignment checked on the Focus just to tell how bad it was. I am going to be buying camber bolts and the place will align it as close to straight as they can.

I didn't expect the front to be off. Looks like they are toed in pretty badly.

The rear is what I expected. Not terrible, but bad enough.

Sorry for the cell phone pic. I don't own a scanner ... I'll just have to try to take a better picture.

 

[dparm]

That toe will chew up tires. Get it corrected.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: dparm
That toe will chew up tires. Get it corrected.


The surprising thing is, and what confuses me, is the fronts don't wear funny. It eats the rears pretty quick.

Looks to be severely toed in?

 

[OneEyeJack]

Is the camber and toe on your RR the problem?

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
Is the camber and toe on your RR the problem?


In my opinion, yes. It wears the RR tire the worst, the LR tire is a close second.

This is sitting still. Once the car starts rolling with it toed out in the back, it's going to start toe-ing out worse and giving itself much more negative camber. Just the nature of this rear suspension design.

 

[casamagana]

Look at the total toe reading in the middle. One side negative, the other is positive. The wheels are both turned to the left.

Then look at the total toe in the rear. That's the tire muncher.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Your front toe is fine. The relevant number here is "total toe". Total toe is very close to zero, which is just fine. Your left front is "toed out" and your right front is "toed in". I'll bet they didn't have it set up on the alignment rack correctly. If they did, your steering wheel would necessarily not be straight as you drive straight down the road. If your car drives straight with the wheel straight ahead, DON'T MESS WITH IT.

More evidence that your front toe is good: it's not eating the tires.

The rear camber is fine. I would not touch the camber on this car. There is some toe-in on the rear. Again, look at the total toe: it's nearly a half a degree. This could be dialed-back some.

Reply back on the position of your steering wheel. I'll bet it drives straight down the road.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: casamagana
Look at the total toe reading in the middle. One side negative, the other is positive. The wheels are both turned to the left.

Which would explain why the wheel is a bit off center when driving.

Quote:

Then look at the total toe in the rear. That's the tire muncher.


Two of my tires were slashed a few weeks ago. I ran snow tires in the rear for 1.5 weeks wihle I waited on replacement tires.

Obviously, they are going to have a bit accelerated wear in the summer, but it ruined the tire on the right rear. Wore half of the studs down completely, tore out about 1/4 of the studs and wore most of the tread off with sever feathering on the inside.

It's also important to note, that, while this car is within specification on the rear ... these cars are famous for burning through rear tires.

 

[SwampSurvivor]

Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Your front toe is fine. The relevant number here is "total toe". Total toe is very close to zero, which is just fine. Your left front is "toed out" and your right front is "toed in". I'll bet they didn't have it set up on the alignment rack correctly. If they did, your steering wheel would necessarily not be straight as you drive straight down the road. If your car drives straight with the wheel straight ahead, DON'T MESS WITH IT.

More evidence that your front toe is good: it's not eating the tires.

Reply back on the position of your steering wheel. I'll bet it drives straight down the road.


Steering wheel is slightly off center. Not as much as in my lifted Jeep, but it is off center. Has been for a while now.

The front tires don't wear at all. Which is strange ... I have never had a FWD car that didn't seem to wear its front tires.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: Miller88
The front tires don't wear at all. Which is strange ... I have never had a FWD car that didn't seem to wear its front tires.


That's because your total toe is pretty neutral, or very close to zero. They're actually slightly toed-out, which is great for FWD tire wear, but less optimal for fast turn-in response. If you'd toe them in some more, you'd get better turn-in at the expense of tire wear. If they don't produce any funny wear patterns now, you're probably at the optimum setting for tire wear, but your turn-in is mushy *relative to* an alignment setting with a little more toe-in. Simple concept where you can trade one thing for another.

I have my cars' alignments set with some toe-in for crisp turn-in. Yes, they will feather the outside edges some. That's mitigated to some extent with religious 5k mile modified-cross tire rotations (front to back, cross back to front). You can see how wide the allowable range here is, so it's really up to personal preference where in that range you have your car set. Your car will drive vastly different if total toe were 0.04 deg rather than -0.04 deg.

Make sure that your total toe numbers remain close to zero after the alignment for optimal tire wear.