4 Wheel Alignment

[Purplecty]

The tech did seem a bit sluggish and everytime I went to peek in, he wasnt anywhere to be seen by my car. It looks like he was able to re-adjust right front toe, rear toe and front total toe and within spec. My first alignment up above came back pretty close to having all within spec. The before specs here are different than what it was set to then as well. The shop manager told me he just replaced the plate for the rear left and claims that maybe it is now reading more accurate than the last time I was in. Does anyone know if I need to use the same firestone each time to use my lifetime alignment warranty?

[80stech]

Free alignments are worthless if they are not done properly. If the shop has proper staff and equipment there is no way they can survive doing lifetime alignments unless they make it up by selling you tires which you will need more of if the alignment is not done properly. How many red flags here! If you like DIY maybe look into getting a quick trick like was mentioned before. makes for a good learning tool and you will at least be able to bet your tow set right and steering wheel centred.

[Purplecty]

Originally Posted by 80stech

Free alignments are worthless if they are not done properly. If the shop has proper staff and equipment there is no way they can survive doing lifetime alignments unless they make it up by selling you tires which you will need more of if the alignment is not done properly. How many red flags here! If you like DIY maybe look into getting a quick trick like was mentioned before. makes for a good learning tool and you will at least be able to bet your tow set right and steering wheel centred.

Finding a go to Forestone with competent techs may be something I need to do. I believe the lifetime alignments is allowed at any and all firestones and not necessarily the one you purchased it at...

[Purplefade]

Their lifetime alignment can be used at any Firestone . And I can also confirm that there are guys at Firestone that do know what they’re doing - for sure. Guy at my local, I talked to years ago before he did my first alignment and at first he was butt hurt that I would ask him, “can you align an X5”, he barked for a minute and said if it isn’t perfect when it comes off the rack it’s free - I’ve gone to that Firestone ever since and we get along wonderfully.

They have been slammed before and I’ve had to take it to the other Firestone, wait was over a week, their front slide plate had failed, and Andy called them, talked for a few minutes and my car came out of F2 better than F1 had ever done - and Andy’s awesome - come to find out Aster, guy at F2, was a prior BMW Tech.

Short answer, lifetime is good at any Firestone, even the franchise stores


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[Purplecty]

Im pretty sure the front caster is not adjustable? Is the front camber adjustable? Front right is out of spec...

[oldskewel]

Originally Posted by Purplecty

Im pretty sure the front caster is not adjustable? Is the front camber adjustable? Front right is out of spec...

True on caster not being adjustable, except slightly, as mentioned below.

As mentioned in post #40, front camber is kind of adjustable. I would not expect those guys to know how to do it. You've got enought to worry about there just getting them to do everything else right. For now I'd focus on that. As others have said, there have got to be some competent Firestone techs out there, you just have not found them yet.

Basically on the front camber, looking at the strut mount nuts from the engine bay, you'll see that there is some play (the clearance holes are bigger than they need to be). If you were to loosen the 3x nuts, you could then pry the whole strut assembly left-right and even fore-aft (tiny adjustment of caster, I guess), and then tighten those nuts again to lock it in place. The amount of adjustment, as I recall is only about +/- 0.2 degrees.

What I did, with a similar alignment deal I bought after doing suspension work on my 2001 3.0i was to get it aligned, see which way front camber needed to be adjusted, did my own manual adjustment, then got it realigned again. Close enough, especially since it was the best possible without modifications.

If you have significant remaining issues, it could be due to failed components you have not found yet, or maybe some remaining tweak from collision damage.

In addition to all the other advice you're getting, I'd crack open the Bentley manual or some other source and find for yourself what exactly the alignment specs are, independent of the aspiring techs at Firestone. Hopefully once you find the right place to go (and even then, there may be only one tech there that can do a decent job) the readings you get each time will settle out so it's not a new mystery to solve each time you take it in.

[Purplecty]

Found this information in another post regarding the front camber adjustment...

[Purplecty]

Just picked it up from a local firestone and the shop manger is a german car enthusiast. He got everything within spec and the wheel straight! He said the right tension strut bushing has play in it and that it will need to be replaced which I will DIY and have them check the alignment again after. He said he thinks the other shop used the wrong wheel clamps to do the alignment and if you look at the before specs they are pretty different than the after specs of the last firestone I used yesterday. Here are the current settings that are all within range. Disregard the color as their printer color ink was going out so all are yellow...

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/cop...r-31121096170l

[Purplecty]

I ended up purchasing the control arms for both sides and the ball joints that they connect to as well...

[oldskewel]

Originally Posted by andrewwynn

Re: Visual verification if you take a string and stretch a tight across the centerline of the wheel from the front of the front wheel to the back of the back wheel you should be able to have one 16th to 3/32 of an inch extra space on the front of the fastest part of the tire.

On my 255/55/18 tires the fat part of the tire is almost exactly 24 inches apart and the MathWorks out that a 16th of an inch is 0.15° it’s exactly of the center of the spec.

For the camber it will look bent as hell because the spec is between one and 2° in your brain will see a half a degree is pretty darn crooked. If you’re parked on level ground you can use your phone app to measure how many degrees it’s tilting or you can use a construction square and measure and I believe it’s supposed to be about 5/8 of an inch off of plumb. (From the fattest parts of the tire over 24 inches)

My steering wheel was off center a little so I started doing a string alignment like this today. Got the fronts dialed in perfectly.

One of the rears is fine already, but I need to adjust toe on the left rear. I'm toed out there by about 0.28 degrees. I know it is done via the eccentric bolt on the inside end of the guide link (rear suspension, forward upper control arm, but ...

Unlike front suspension toe adjustment, it does not appear to be easy enough to even try to do it without removing the wheel. I don't have a lift, and all 4 wheels are on the ground still.

I can see the bolt that needs to be adjusted through the spokes in the wheel, but will not be able to get a good visual on it without jacking the car and removing the wheel.

Has anyone been in this situation? Do you somehow get in there with the car on the ground and the wheel and string still in place, or do you calculate the adjustment, remove the wheel, implement, reinstall, and check?

Also, (as I knew) adjusting the guide link will affect camber by about the same amount as it affects toe, since the contact point is at about North West = 10:30 = 135 degrees. Has anyone adjusted camber concurrently with toe back there to offset the coupling?

And completely separately - @AndrewWynn, did you measure to confirm that your front and rear wheels are the same distance apart, or do you just assume that with square wheels it will be equal? I have staggered 19" wheels on mine, so did not assume anything and measured ... and found that the rear wheels (specifically the outside bumps on the tires, as we use for the string alignment) are about 8 mm wider than the fronts. This means that aligning so the string is straight when no shims are used gives 0.10 degrees of toe, front and rear. For me, that's within spec, towards the straight ahead end of the range, and very simple, so I'm just going with no shims.