Best Toe In/Out setting for 'go kart' driving + good tire wear?
 

Getting new tires for the X in a couple weeks. I figured, I should get the alignment done too.

When I did the suspension on my Coupe I remember going through a whole discussion about whether I should go exactly with the factory toe setting on the front wheels, or modify it a little to make the car more fun to drive. I really like having a sensitive rapid response 'turn in' on a car. More of a go kart fun feel. Then again, I want to maximize my tire wear and not grind off the outside shoulders. If the inside shoulder gets a little more worn.. ehh...

I can't remember exactly what the final answer was though. Do you guys know; Is it that you can go with a little toe out and that will make the car have better more responsive turn in, but will risk wearing the inside (not visible) inner shoulders a bit? So like.. a little toe out would actually protect the outer shoulders from grinding more? Or, maybe I've got that wrong.

Or, is it too risky for tire wear to mess with toe on an X5 (heavy vehicle) and I should just stick with factory?

Can you set me straight" (alignment pun) :cool:

Thanks

Inside edges are most affected by toe. The closer to neutral then tow out, the greater the wear on the inside edge.

Outside edge is most affected by camber angle.

Toe-in will generally provide a more neutral feel to the handling - greater propensity for the steering to self-centre. The closer you get to neutral then toe-out, the less self-centre effect will be present. The vehicle will be more likely to follow road camber, and generally be less-stable in the straight-ahead position.

The first step in getting "go-kart" response is replacing all the soft rubber suspension & swaybar bushings/ steering rack mounts and subframe mounting points with harder materials.


Powerflex black series is around 80% stiffer then new BMW OE.

Another change to make is lighter wheels/tires (I run 255/285/19s on Ultralight wheels). This has the same effect on handling as stiffer springs, shocks and swaybars. I'm OCD about unsprung weight and also installed drilled & slotted rotors and lighter Cool Carbon hollow ceramic pads.


My next purchase is.........

Don't do it. This isn't a sports car. I have two M3's for sporty handling and I have the alignment at the front set to max negative camber and near zero toe. Rear toe I keep at the factory specs as you don't want the rear to be too nimble on a street driven car. On my former race car I had much less toe in than factory and it would certainly pivot.

BTW: go-kart like handling and minimal tire wear are somewhat mutually exclusive, though you can minimize the X5's tire wear by having less negative camber, especially out back (set to the least negative camber within spec).

I'm not too sure about the near solid giubo, TiAg. Having just fussed with these things, added driveline shock isn't something I'd go for, but I'll be curious to hear your experience with it. Seems like a great way to add NVH to the vehicle...especially vibration.

I also have toe and camber set to minimum specs.

I've been gathering info on the stiffer flex discs from E39 owners who have done it. Only heard from one owner who had vibration issues with the poly unit.

I'm also looking at this, rubber inserts are softer than poly, and less prone to tearing then OE unit......

Minimum camber and straighten toe setting will give you good tire wear.
Why do you want a "go-kart" setting on a SAV? :dunno:

:iagree: BUT get the alignment wrong and the car will have awful handling.
When I got new tires a couple of years ago, I went to a big name chain tire store to get it aligned. The car was pushing horribly afterward (didn't want to change directions) and I'm talking about just normal driving. The alignment specs readout provided were within tolerance, but wasn't dead center on any of them. Mostly just a "good enough" settings :thumbdown

Then I got a yelp coupon from a local race shop and decided to give them a try. These guys were meticulous - every setting was spot on for both sides (They actually spent a bit over an hour fiddling with it to get it just right versus just less than 20 minutes I got from the chain tire store). Had them remove the front strut alignment pins to get as much negative camber up front as it will go (only can get about -0.5* :() and dial out the toe up front to have just a smidge of toe-in so the car won't wander. The rear were in the middle of the OE settings. Wow, what a difference the minor adjustments made to the handling of the car! It's not go-cart like, which the X5 will never be, but at least it's willing to change directions as pointed now :D

Moral of the story is that you need to find a good OCD technician who knows what he's doing, which is miles above a shop advertising state of the art equipment with incompetent technicians!

BTW...the X5's OE settings for the front will always wear on the outside edges of the tires. Dialing out toe to near zero helps, but won't eliminate it. Front camber isn't adjustable - so, even pulling the camber pins will only gained me -0.5*...but every little bit helps with handling and tire wear :thumbup: The rears with OE settings, you have to play with tire pressure to get even tire wear. Too low pressure and you'll wear the inner edges. Too high pressure and you wear the middle (worse if you have wide rears). So, it's a balancing act and something you'll just have to play with if you stray away from OE tires since the recommended tire pressure was intended mostly for the OE tires.

"Moral of the story is that you need to find a good OCD technician who knows what he's doing"

Good advice!

I got the BMW SA to introduce me to the alignment tech, spoke with him about what I wanted and gave him two $20 bills for lunch. Whenever my vehicle goes in I speak with him and buy him lunch. Money well spent!

Alignments and tire mounting/balancing is all I use the dealer for, and I ALWAYS buy the tech lunch.

Thanks for all the posts guys. I'm still slightly confused tho on which front toe setting to go with. But I that is mostly because I don't remember what the BMW recommend spec is. What is the factory spec range? ... slightly toe out, or slightly toe in? iow, I could talk camber and caster all day and follow right along, but I can never remember the 'starting place' for front toe; a little in, or a little out?

What I think I'm hearing is its normally a little toe in, and as long as I can find a good alignment tech that can have a good conversation about it and they can get both sides the same, I should ask them to approach neutral but still slightly in. Is that correct? And that, doing any toe out would not be good, right?

I had the forward bushing replaced last year, but with factory (with the three cutouts and spokes through the middle of the bushing) and now I've got a note to myself to go with solid next time. Mostly because the hollowed out ones contribute to front end shudder during braking. I don't think I'd replace all the other bushings with solid though... probly too harsh of a ride I'd think. Although I totally get what it would do for handling.

Already have the slotted drilled rotors. And I pay attention to tire weight when buying tires (the more weight at the 'outside' of a spinning object, the more damaging to handling and acceleration. Centrifical weight not good)

Thanks

Front total toe; 18', +/- 10'
" camber; -12', +/- 20'

Rear total toe; 18', +/- 10'
" camber; -1. degree 50', +/- 20'

Ahh, excellent! Thanks TiAg.

Toe in. Front and rear. More in the rear.

Um...toe-in in the rear will kill any directional responsiveness the car has, and will also start to chew the inside edges of the tyres.

Are those the factory specs ?

No, toe-out in the rear is what chews the inside edges of the tyres. Toe-in actually helps even out the wear of the inside edges of the "tyres".

These are factory specs.

As I mentioned prior, I set to MINIMUM factory specs....

My front and rear total toe is around 10' (1/6th of 1 degree TOTAL, 1/12 of a degree on each side)

F camber (-12', +/- 20' spec) has a tolerance that allows for positive camber. I don't like positive camber, and set to around -10' (1/6th of 1 degree).

I actually mounted a dial indicator and adjusted the rear camber adjusters to the minimum camber. It checked around -1 degree 20' (1.33 degrees) during alignment.

Camber with minimum toe will not wear the inner edge of the tires.

Camber and excessive toe eats the inner tire edge.

Yep.

ants-oz: Try toe out in the rear once, take a spirited drive and report back on how your car handles. Expert tip: Pay your car and health insurance first. :thumbup:

Why on earth would I want to setup my vehicle so that it wants to swap directions with the least provocation?

Understand that I don't agree with go-cart handling on a street vehicle also.

My posts in this thread were strictly "the first step" in setting up a vehicle for improved response/reduced deflection/reduced tire wear (less tire scrub for improved hwy mpg). My alignment settings are strictly street specs.

My X will see it's first track days during the Sebring 12 hrs speed week.

B/C you said


This way you won't chew up your tires and you'll have that directional responsiveness you're looking for. :stickpoke

In all seriousness, if you want more responsiveness, add negative camber and set the toe in to minimum specs all around.

Um, no I didn't - I'd LOVE for you to show me where you allege I did. I would NEVER recommend toe out on a road vehicle.

I have minimum tow all around, but still within BMW alignment spec.

Even with 255-285 19 tires, the hwy "on center" feel is light, steering is very responsive.

I'm not a typical SUV type driver, been to Barber & Bondurant driving schools and have over 100k DD miles in a 680 hp Viper (in rains every summer day FL, daily slides were expected).

For alignments, I now do dealer only. I also talk to the tech that is going to do it and give specific instructions.
- Front toe and camber to the minimum spec
- Rear camber to minimum spec
- Rear toe set to toe in as little as possible. This will be out of spec. He gets it. My tires now wear evenly. :)

Even wear here too.

I should mention, the wife really liked the old alignment hwy dynamics of the X (she would regularly do 90+MPH and not be aware of the speed).

With the minimum toe setting, she tells me the hwy "on center" feel is too light and demands more attention at 70 then it used to at 90+.

If you have an operator who likes to check their phone while driving or drive distracted, I would NOT recommend min toe setting.

Good tire wear or better handling---pick one.

I like to maximize handling of anything I drive--it's just more fun. Here's what I did to improve handling and still have a reasonable ride on the street:

Dinan camber plates
H&R lowering kit
Ibach front and rear swaybars
Velocity 17mm spacer front and rear
Powerflex subframe bushings
Style 87 wheels-staggered
Dinan strut tower brace
struts and airbags are stock
front and rear bushings are stock
Continental contact extreme contact tires

Alignment specs are alway specific to the individual suspension setup and associated HP/TQ.

In general--Toe out is just less of where it becomes jittery in a straight line
Caster is within spec
Negative camber is slightly more than max spec.

Tires wear on the inside. With sticky tires I was getting 8-10 thousand on the rear and 12-15 thousand on the front. I expect to get significantly more with the Continental tires. Rollover did increase some but not that much. It still understeers but it is very predictive and manageable.

Hey, I wanted to get back to you guys on my results. Got the new tires put on Friday, plus the 4-wheel alignment.

We set the front Toe at .11 both sides. The fronts were at .15. They said factory spec range was .08 to .22. I had 'em head more towards neutral and went for .11.
We left the rears where they were, at .15.
There was also a camber issue on the driver's front; It was actually positive by quite a bit, and, has probably been that way since I bought the car, doh! They put in a camber bolt and pulled it back to -.08 I believe, which then matched the right side. The right rear camber was a tad bit too negative, so they brought that up to match the rear left.

The car handles fantastic. I love it. The steering is super light feeling. Like.. more that what you'd notice with new tires anyways. The initial turn-in is quicker, which is what I wanted (ala go kart), but its not so far as to be twitchy at all. At freeway speeds, it simply goes where you point it, and is eager to turn.. if you decide to turn. That's it. No wandering. Even my wife loves it. She just did a 90 minute trip up I-5 on Saturday.

Thanks for all the advice. I'm really glad I inquired, cuz it was totally worth tweaking it!

Oh, and I love these Goodyear Eagle F1 Asym All-Seasons. Highly recommend.

Good to hear.

I'm going to find out how the alignment feels on the racetrack next week, before the Sebring 12 hr race.

Also the first road trip with new settings (almost 2500 miles round trip).