Basic front wheel alignment at home for free with the right tools

I do my own alignments at home. Front or back separately. Not all four at the same time. Toe: Board or pipe that will fit between the wheels. Measure distance from Front side of wheels and Rear side of wheels. Compare distances. Caster / camber: magnetic inclinometer. Check caster by sticking it on the struts. Check camber by sticking it on the wheels or hub. Some (most?) cars will not have adjustments for caster and possibly not camber. You may have to slot arms and towers with a grinding tool. If you can't find spots for the magnetic gauge then remove a front wheel and lower the rotor onto a wooden block so that the distance from hub to ground is exactly the same as with wheel on. It may not make for perfect measurements but will get your car in the allowable range.

The tools that you mentioned are nice but expensive. A board with nails or clamps will work for toe. A simple mechanical incline gauge works for C/C. Johnson Level & Tool 700 Magnetic Angle Locator.

The problem is getting UNDER the engine so you need a "U" shape which I was able to fabricate with a board with two swinging arms and a nail in the tip. But the toe plates seem, to me, to be easier.

But my main question was don't you measure toe with the vehicle weighted? The to plates I references seem to go on the calipers which is unsprung???

That looks neat, and it's inexpensive!

Always on the ground or simulated ground level. Weighted would be ideal but getting someone to sit in the driver's seat while you work on the car may be difficult. Placing bags of sand in the driver's seat might work. Remember, there is a specified settings _range_. When I was working at the Ford and Chevy dealerships the alignment specialists would ask one of us to sit in the vehicle for a few min while he did the final check. He was fast.

Oh. My mistake. I understand you thought I meant weighted with a driver, and I'm aware some marquees (like bmw) will ask for a certain amount of weight in the trunk and back seats plus a driver side weight, but that's not what I meant.

I need to look up the right term but "sprung" weight is what I meant. There is curb weight, which I'm calling laden, which is the vehicle w/o occupants in its normal situation where the suspension is compressed to its typical operating point.

And then there's what happens when you remove the wheels, which is NOT that. I think it's called unsprung weight where the vehicle is lifted off the ground, and its suspension is fully extended and bearing no weight from the car's body. This is when the wheels are "up in the air.

There's no way measurements are the same in those two situations, right? The entire suspension geometry changes between those two scenarios.

Any time anyone asks about alignment on this group someone tells them that they should use a 100K dollar Hunter machine, which is designed for getting every car completely aligned in the shortest amount of time possible.

The same weirdness happens when they ask about mounting & balancing, simply because people think that a 100K dollar machine is the only way to do it.

Comparing a 100K machine with $100 home tools is like comparing a fighter jet to a Cessna in terms of they're each designed for completely different things that have almost nothing except the obvious in common.

Home alignment checks should take only basic measuring tools, whether that's string and a bubble level or a tape measure and turn plates, although the hardest part of the job is rolling the vehicle back & forth to settle the suspension after changes to the camber or toe.

Therefore the most important tools are the turn plates, imho.

Oh. Is that why they sell on Amazon these $50 toe alignment plates.

Are you saying the toe is the same whether or not the vehicle is sprung? When you adjust the toe, does that adjustment keep once you weight the car?

Depends on tie rod angle changes. Normal suspension travel should keep toe the same, but no guarantees, think bump steer. Hanging the suspension to full deflection is guaranteed to give you grief in toe adjustment.

Likely not. Use the toe plates Luke!

____ Xeno

Wait. That's a Yes and then a No, but maybe I misunderstood what you said.

The toe "plate" can mean the static thing you bolt to the lugs (with the wheels removed and the vehicle on stands) or it could mean the rotating thing you roll the wheels on top of (with the suspension weighted normally).

Which is the way to do a toe at home because even with the thing that sits on the ground that you put the vehicle on, you still need to measure the distance to the centerpoint under the vehicle.

Can you clarify as I ordered these based on what the others already said.

The latter.

Never used such devices so cannot advise on their efficacy.

Thanks. Both are called toe plates by people so I was confused.

Would you recommend any of these "turn plates" for a home alignment?

I would want to do toe & then +/- 20 degree camber to calculate caster.

I don't think you can measure with laser like accuracy at home. So what good would an alignment check do you if it's inaccurate?