So we flew to San Diego to visit our navy son, who bought a new used 22 Sentra. Nice car, 68k clean but had lexani tires and pulled right. After mom and dad loaded him up with a years worth of essentials (he’s 19) I had Sam’s install a set of good year maxlife 2s and took it to Firestone for an alignment. Everything underneath is spotless, no bushing or suspension wear but of course it’s a Cali car, which I’m not used to seeing everything so clean and rust free being from Ohio. I did brakes and rotors at the base shop, which was pretty awesome to be able to use a lift. Also did a double drain and fill of the cvt. Car really does drive like new. Firestone said the left rear camber was maxed out, yet there’s nothing worn. What’s the effects of this being as good as it gets with this alignment? I’m mechanical, but alignments are Greek to me. I generally trust the pros when it comes to squaring everything up.
Help me decipher an alignment please
- Thread starter D1dad
- Start date
Look up 2022 Sentra Rear Camber kit. Some cars have no adjustment from factory. Maybe a curb or other odd occurrence put it there. I personally am no fan of Firestone for anything but you have to go with what's around you. I would probably opt for dealer before Firestone and have the conversation about a camber kit.
My daughters CRV was off on rear camber but it is old. My shop called and said to get it in spec it would need a kit installed. I told them do it. They got everything nice.
That position will wear the inside edge more than the others, tire not riding flat. Rotated around will keep them even but may cause some pulling etc when on front depending how worn it gets.
Also check the Sentra forums they may have better details and possibly settings that are better than "in spec". My shop usually tries for a bit higher caster I believe as it helps keep it a bit more centering for highway straight ahead.
My daughters CRV was off on rear camber but it is old. My shop called and said to get it in spec it would need a kit installed. I told them do it. They got everything nice.
That position will wear the inside edge more than the others, tire not riding flat. Rotated around will keep them even but may cause some pulling etc when on front depending how worn it gets.
Also check the Sentra forums they may have better details and possibly settings that are better than "in spec". My shop usually tries for a bit higher caster I believe as it helps keep it a bit more centering for highway straight ahead.
Thank your son for his service. Our son spent about 8 years in San Diego when he was in the USN.
I look at tire wear, if they're wearing good I leave them alone. Over the years I had a lot of problems with hacks doing wheel alignments and making the car worse. My 08 Liberty now has 113K miles on it, the tires were replaced twice, they wore perfectly. I resisted the urge to have an alignment done, and I'm glad I did, the tires are still wearing perfectly.
I look at tire wear, if they're wearing good I leave them alone. Over the years I had a lot of problems with hacks doing wheel alignments and making the car worse. My 08 Liberty now has 113K miles on it, the tires were replaced twice, they wore perfectly. I resisted the urge to have an alignment done, and I'm glad I did, the tires are still wearing perfectly.
It would have been nice if you knew ahead of time so you could have installed a camber bolt in that left rear strut... Other than that looks good, and I would not worry about the barley out of spec camber there at this point (unless it is causing a problem, but you should know by now if that is the case since the camber was off before). If you are going to get it aligned again for some other reason in the future, yeah install a camber bolt.
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He bought the car with 63k and the lexanis were new, so he’s put around 5k on tires with the camber as is and being out of alignment. When I had the tires off installing new brakes, they were wearing evenly and still newish. But, they were a horrible tire, hummed and every bump rattled your fillings. The car has now been transformed by the Good Years and drives straight as an arrow. He’s going to be moved to Washington here in the next few months. That trip was reason enough for dad to make sure he had a good set of shoes on the car.
Will do and back at you. My local shop is great and has me in and out in a half hour. Firestone had the car up on the rack for almost an hour with 2 guys working on it. So yeah, rookie hour as far as I’m concerned.
Maybe. But unless they replaced a rim, I see no evidence that the cars banged into anything. But the previous owner definitely could have ran something over. The roads here aren’t great, but definitely aren’t Indiana roads either. The carfax showed tons of dealer service but I see no alignment ever performed and no cvt service. OCI were in the 4-6k range and always at Nissan which tells me that the previous owner cared at least a little. Plus an excessive amount of wiper blade replacements which struck me as odd considering it doesn’t rain here.
He’ll do 5k rotations since he’s using restore and protect with lots of short tripping and can use the base shop and lift. I told him do a front to back while swapping the rears left to right at every rotation. That way he’s constantly moving that trouble spot around. Next alignment I’ll tell them to install a camber bolt.