Wheel Alignment Advice

[jhjones]

Hey, just got a wheel alignment on my car and the rear left toe seems a bit out. Is there rear toe adjustment on my car? Something bent? Is it ok to drive like this? The car has coilovers and a non hicas subframe.

[GTSBoy]

How can you or they call it an "alignment" when they didn't try to fix what needs to be fixed?

And yes, there is rear toe adjustment available.

[jhjones]

That one?

[jhjones]

Took it back this morning and got to .17 degrees before we ran out of adjustment so we put .17 on the other side till I fix this.

[boostn0199]

prob bent tie rod mount on the rear knuckle.

[jhjones]

So it's not those bushes?

[GTSBoy]

What bushes?

[jhjones]

These? Think that's what the wheel alignment guy said.

[GTSBoy]

OK. Those urethane bushes you have in there are probably not adjustable. There is some eccentric adjustment available at the inner end but not a lot, as you've found already. The arm itself may well have been bent. You'll need to try to work out if the toe angle in your report means that the arm is longer than it needs to be or shorter than it needs to be. Longer would be a problem, because it would be difficult to bend the arm to make it longer.....it would be far more likely to become shorter than it needed to be from being hit against a kerb.

The tie rod mount on the knuckle, mentioned above by boostn, is the cast bit visible to the left of your arm in the photo. These are cast, so tend not to bend before the flimsy bent metal stuff attached to them (or normal HICAS tie rods in the case of HICAS rear ends) bends. But it is possible. Many people hit these things against kerbs, replace the obviously bent stuff and leave the hub carrying damage that they couldn't/didn't see.

[darksky34]

Thanks GTSBoy. Great post above me. So i guess it's a good idea to tell the mechanic to check the HICAS tie rods for bends, assuming the rims themselves have been hit on the kerb by previous owners!?

[GTSBoy]

It's not the HICAS tie rod ends...because you don't have HICAS you don't even have the tie rods. That arm you show in your photo is the "toe control arm" - serves the same function as the HICAS tie rod. It connects to the same hole on the hub (just with the HICAS ball joint pressed out and a normal bush in there instead).

It might be difficult to see if the cast part there is bent in any way. It's hard to see a few mm of deflection when you don't have a bent one and a straight one on the bench side by side.

As to the straightness of the toe control arm itself, you might have to take it off and sit it on the bench next to the one from the other side, and see if you can notice any difference between them. It would also be good if you can get the wheel aligners to tell you what that toe measurement is in millimetres, rather than the degrees they quoted. Most people think of toe measurements in mm, rather than angle. The magnitude of the "problem" may be better understood if it were in units we expect.

[jhjones]

According to this I have 1.1mm toe in.

ww.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/topic/355913-toe-adjustment/

I will check the ride heights on each side first then have a good look around there when I get the chance.

If I take the toe arms off will I have to get another alignment? What if I chuck on some aftermarket toe arms?