Alignment & weight issues

General question:

With a typical FWD vehicle, slight toe to the fronts, would sitting in the vehicle (your weight) cause it to track a little left since your weight is on that side (as opposed to a little left) ?

Logic tells me yes, but I am wondering if there is something else in a FWD setup that would change this. I recall from observing race suspension setup that they sometimes threw a bag of sand into the driver's seat to simulate a driver in place during alignment... but that was RWD and I don't really know what problem they were preventing by doing that.

Thanks,

Reply to
Jimmy
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|General question: | |With a typical FWD vehicle, slight toe to the fronts, would |sitting in the vehicle (your weight) cause it to track a little |left since your weight is on that side (as opposed to a little |left) ? | |Logic tells me yes, but I am wondering if there is something |else in a FWD setup that would change this. I recall from |observing race suspension setup that they sometimes threw a |bag of sand into the driver's seat to simulate a driver in |place during alignment... but that was RWD and I don't really |know what problem they were preventing by doing that.

That's always good practice. An alignment tech who really wants an accurate job rather than just looking for things to sell you, will want you in the drivers seat when the alignment is made. Also, if you typically carry a load - salesmns samples, golf clubs etc - those should also be in place. As for what they are preventing, IIRC most FWD cars go toe-out on compression, so if one side is compressed more than the other, it would tend to pull to that side. If you want to take the time to bump-steer the car, it works as well on street cars as on ace cars. Few modern cars seem to have problems with bump-steer unless they have been altered. Also, some shops still allow for road crown by setting the left different than the right. I always specify not to. Rex in Fort Worth

Reply to
Rex B

Reply to
Dave J and Lynne J Shepherd

I understand camber, what's the "cross camber difference" ?

Reply to
Jimmy

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