Alignment Question: *UPDATE*

And a few generic questions I have for the gang.

First, my good ole' alignment shop nailed the problem. No bearings or bent axles - just a left rear to they said was "waaaaaay out". Specifically, it was -0.68 deg. Spec is .10 to .20 degrees on both rear wheels. According to the tech, a negative value means the left rear wheel was pointing in - in this case, way in, causing the rear end to dog tail right, pushing the nose of the car left, thereby forcing me to keep the steering wheel over hard right to maintain course. Thanks for all your tips in the sister post! And most of that "roar" is gone.

Now for the questions:

Does a negative value for toe mean the same thing for the left wheels as for the right? IOW - does negative mean toe in for the lefts and for the rights, or does negative toe mean toe OUT for the RIGHTs?

Second question - The toe spec for the '05 Malibu, indicated above is .10-.20 deg. If positive values mean "toed out", why would the rear end of a frontwheel drive car have the wheels toed out? ?

Regards and happy headscratching,

-ChrisCoaster

Reply to
ChrisCoaster
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First, my good ole' alignment shop nailed the problem. No bearings or bent axles - just a left rear to(that's TOE sorry my bad) they said was "waaaaaay out".

Reply to
ChrisCoaster

First, my good ole' alignment shop nailed the problem. No bearings or bent axles - just a left rear to(that's TOE sorry my bad) they said was "waaaaaay out".

Reply to
ChrisCoaster

Each side has it's own direction for toe in or toe out.

The 'best' is likely just slightly toed in on both to make it track straightest down the road. A slight bit out may be ok, but toe out too much will start a pull, vs a crab walk or steering to the side when toed in, down the road. It will change as it pulls, making the vehicle wander, the crab walk gets stable as far as I can figure it. Or maybe better said, one way you have to fight it, the other way just has the steering wheel crooked.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >
Reply to
Mike Romain

Reply to
Shep

______________ Shep:

Here's the problem, and I think you nailed it in your opening sentence regarding negative toe readings: THERE IS NO WEBSITE THAT EXPLAINS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "POSITIVE" AND "NEGATIVE" TOE VALUES!!(I'm not yelling at you Shep, but I hope someone sees this).

Sure, there are plenty of good websites out there on the subject, and they do an outstanding job of explaining each alignment parameter(Caster, toe, camber...) but none of them explains positive VS negative TOE values.

And I would still like to know if neg. and pos. toe value mean the same thing for both sides of the car.

-CC

Reply to
ChrisCoaster

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