2002 Camry Pulls Right

This is reticules, I am looking at a 2002 Camry shop manual, there are = more then three pages on aligning the front end and one page on aligning = the rear end. Take this car to a shop that specialized in aligning = Toyota cars and let them fix this problem.

Jack.

He DID take the car to an alignment shop. While camber and caster are not adjustable on those cars, toe is adjustable both from and rear. When front and rear are not aligned correctly, the car will 'dog track' down the road and pull to one side. Seemingly small differences in tire ACTUAL diameter will result in the steering pulling to one side. Sometimes the well intentioned act of rotating your tires will bring on a steering pull.

Excuse me for mentioning this unpleasant prospect, but have you slid under the front of the car with a flash light to look for any signs of frame damage or straightening? Or if you just drive up to a body shop, the techs can usually spot (even good) body work (indicating prior accident damage) at a glance. The suspension components on the Camry are basically fixed. The toe in is adjustable front and rear, but the struts form an integral part of the suspension, and while their mounting points could possibly be wiggled very slightly, essentially there is no factory adjustment for caster or camber -- if the struts, control arms, bushings, and strut mounts are in good condition, the alignment should be right. If you've already switched tires side to side, I'd be checking for frame or body damage next, especially with a recently purchased used car. With unitized or "monocoque" construction, any significant impact could tweak the frame/ body to cause your drifting problem.

So when one replaces the struts it isn't necessary to have the car aligned? All instructions I've read state that you do -- but replaceing struts doesn't affect toe.

This brings up another interesting question with 'strut cartridges' too. I recently replaced all 4 shocks on my wife's 93 XLE camry which had the replaceable cartridges. When I put in the new cartridges (Tokico), I noticed there is a little bit of play between the cartridge and strut wall. Ie. the fit tolerance is not supertight, so when you put the retainer nut onto the strut again, the shock arm may not be perfectly centered with respect to the strut. The retainer ring nut that came with the new cartridges has a wider hole than the strut arm since the actual shock seal now is part of the cartridge itself rather than being integrated into the retaining nut like the original strut. This has got to affect alignment. I did not pay real close attention to this. I did notice after finishing and test driving the camry, there was a noticeable pull to the right. I hope I don't have to pull all 4 struts again to fix this. :( I am replacing all

4 tires and will be getting a 4 wheel alignment this week. So I guess I'll have to wait and see how the car responds after that.

davemac

OK, so assuming they find one position for all tires that produce a minimum pull can he ever rotate tires without having to live with more pull? Is there a possible fix? What should he have done when he bought the tires?

This means that there IS camber adjustment on the 2001 Camry.

So is there camber adjustment on the 2002-2004 Camry?

Wilhelm

Not from the factory. In the event that camber is actually slightly beyond limits, there are aftermarket bolts with reliefs that permit the strut to be shifted slightly on the steering knuckle. The thing is .... toe, caster, and tire deflection have the most effect on making the car go straight.

Are you sure it wasnt in an accident, Ive seen many a car DOG track on a road without their owners knowing it , [ Front wheels dont follow rear ] and I know a mechanic whos truck does it , [ I aint got the nerve to tell him ]

The question I asked and that got side tracked, no pun intended, is assuming they find one position for all tires that produce a minimum pull can he ever rotate tires without having to live with more pull? Is there a possible fix? What should he have done when he bought the tires?