Alignment following level

[Meisterbk]

2013 ECSB Z71 2" level

 

After installing a 2" level (bottom-mount) I took my truck in to the dealer for an alignment. I am no expert so looking for opinions. The truck seems fine, and did before alignment, but I would like opinions. Sometimes it feels like it pulls to the right but that could be wind or lane drainage. Given I am about to put on new wheels and tires I wanted opinions on the attached alignment sheet. My main concern is caster. While total tolerance is ok, barely, it seems like a wide swing from side to did. Looking for thoughts. Thanks!

 

[RyanbabZ71]

It should pull slightly right for safety reasons. If something happens your vehicle will not go into oncoming traffic

 

 

Ryan

[Meisterbk]

It should pull slightly right for safety reasons. If something happens your vehicle will not go into oncoming traffic

 

 

Ryan

Thanks Ryan, I just don't want to chew through tires.

[Doug_Scott]

Maybe I am reading it wrong, but, does it not say left caster is +4.6? And that spec says 2.1 to 4.1? Right side caster is 1 degree less than the left side. Caster will pull to the most negative or least positive. By the numbers you have, truck will drift right, and sometimes will drift harder to the right due to road crown.

I used to set alignments to be minor bit less caster on left side to account for road crown. Roads are built to drain water from middle of road to the ditch on right side. With alignment numbers equal, car will drift right due to that. To counter that, it was the norm to use caster, and drop caster half to three quarters on left wheel. Used caster because it is not a tire wearing angle(officially).

Never heard that vehicles are setup to pull right to avoid drifting into oncoming traffic. Seems kind of odd to me. If something happened to the vehicle, why can I not just decide to not drive into traffic? If something on the truck made the truck not steerable, it would not matter what the alignment numbers were. They already tilted the road to the right, why add more reason to pull right? The caster was fine before alignment.

 

The toe was your real issue, too positive (toe in), near as I can tell after trying to convert degrees to inches (toe was only ever measured in inches back when I did alignments), before alignment, total toe was about 13/64 inch and 1/32 total after the alignment. Toe on each wheel when driving down the road will be equal side to side normally. The toe you had would have been tough on outside of tire tread.

 

After reading up on some of the reasons why they use degrees now just don't make sense. It is like everyone forgot how toe is supposed to calculated. Measure outside edge of tread to the same point on opposite side, then measure 180 degrees from the first spot to the same spot of other side, then take the difference as being total toe.

[Meisterbk]

So I guess my question is, do the numbers on the sheet warrant a taking it in to the dealer for a re-do? It felt good on lesser crowned urban roads this morning compared to the rural highway yesterday. The negative caster on the left has me thinking I need it re-done. Especially considering it was fine prior. Could they not have just adjusted the toe since it was the only thing out and all of the other numbers were pretty good (neutral)?

[MikeNH]

The guy who did it probably didn't touch anything but toe because that's the easy one to change. I'd bring it back and demand it be green across the board.

[Meisterbk]

The guy who did it probably didn't touch anything but toe because that's the easy one to change. I'd bring it back and demand it be green across the board.

Thanks! I'm taking it in over the lunch hour. Much appreciated.

[Doug_Scott]

So I guess my question is, do the numbers on the sheet warrant a taking it in to the dealer for a re-do? It felt good on lesser crowned urban roads this morning compared to the rural highway yesterday. The negative caster on the left has me thinking I need it re-done. Especially considering it was fine prior. Could they not have just adjusted the toe since it was the only thing out and all of the other numbers were pretty good (neutral)?

 

Your caster is not set to be negative, both sides are positive caster readings. Caster and camber were good initially. Only the toe was outside specs and even then it was not far off. It was a hell of a lot closer to being good when compared to the corrected caster number for the left front.

When they adjusted the caster, I am beginning to think that the technician did not know 'caster pulls negative'. Negative in relation to other sides setting.

 

By the way, too little caster will start to make the vehicle just float/wander around while driving. Too high a caster reading will cause vehicle to be twitchy, and in extreme instances cause both front wheels to 'shimmy'. Ever have a shopping cart with the wobbly front wheels? Positive caster at its best. Caster is also why when you back up, the steering wheel will quickly go full steering lock, while backing up. Ever notice when a car slips from park to reverse with engine running at fast idle due to cold engine, that the car will just go in circles

[Meisterbk]

Thanks all. I had it re-done and all numbers, individual and cumulative, are in specs. The truck drives great.