Suspension Alignment

**99WS6MAN** · 03-18-2011, 12:11 PM

Is the lifetime really worth it? how often does everyone Align their cars? My stays parked most of the time and I want to try to save some cash if we don't need to align our cars to often.

**KMdef9** · 03-19-2011, 05:09 AM

How good are your roads? How often are you hitting potholes/ bumps?

An alignment is regular maintenance, should be checked when you rotate your tires.

I wouldn't go too long without getting on if your insure if your aligned or not, it can really increase the wear on your tires.

**99WS6MAN** · 03-19-2011, 07:30 AM

thanks KM! I went opt'd for the lifetime since I plan on keeping the car

**c5z28** · 03-19-2011, 08:01 AM

Ask for a computer printout for the before and afters if you already haven't. Familiar with the phrase "set the toe and let it go"?

**99WS6MAN** · 03-19-2011, 10:25 AM

nope and I'm not very advanced when it comes to our cars and the specs so any help is appreciated!

**c5z28** · 03-20-2011, 12:08 AM

Originally Posted by 99WS6MAN

nope and I'm not very advanced when it comes to our cars and the specs so any help is appreciated!

Some shops a while back got in trouble for things like this. Setting the toe w/o correcting camber/caster, and telling people they needed new joints when they didn't.
Toe is the direction the tires are pointing, just look at your feet and the sweep from left to right is toe. Technically speaking on a rear wheel drive vehicle you want a little bit of negative toe as they are pushed outward when moving forward. With most front wheel drive you want the positive toe. The powertrain causes them to want to shoot inward.

Basic video
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHPq6nF4EX4[/ame]

When they show the part of the vid where the car wants to pull do to caster it could also be the the tire wear, where swapping the left and right tires might cause it to pull in another direction.

Alignments are fast money asking for before and afters keeps some people honest.