Alignment issues

[MarauderMarc]

I went for an alignment last week. Of course my car was pulling to the right and my outer tires were wearing. I was told to have them aligned so that they are straight, not curved inwards the way the OEM alignment for our cars are. So I tell this mechanic how I want my car aligned and he basically throws me an attitude about not listening to some "joe schmoe's advice" and that Ford has the specifications for a reason. I tell him whatever and ask to have my tires balanced and rotated (from left to right...have OEM tire sizes) Well I get my car back with some computer readout sheet showing my car before and after, with the after shot showing perfect alignment. So i pay, pull out on the street and drive and sure enough, the Fu8%ing car is still pilling to the right. What should I do? Should I go back and demand that my car be aligned to MY specifications or am I just wasting my time??? I need to know because this puilling and shaking at high speeds makes me feel like I am driving a POS.....any thoughts???

[Richy63]

Ford uses a thrust angle alignment..... I am sure the guys and girls will correct me if I am wrong but the MM is closer to a true alignment... However the roads have a crown so water drains off, most alignments compenstate for the crown so the car doesn't pull however with a high crown they will. Try a four lane road and drive in different lanes see what is does. Mine only pulls with a high crown. Be sure they turqued your bolts to specs there are allot of posts relating to that. More wear on the inside right tire but not a serious wear should just be the sign of a thrust angle to overcome the crown of the road... Okay all let me have it I am ready

[RF Overlord]

Since you say you've already swapped the tires side-to-side, we can rule out a bad tire, faulty rim, etc. The only things left are: improper alignment or a dragging caliper. If you take your hand off the wheel on a straight flat road, does the car sort of drift to the right, or does it really "pull", like it wants to go off the road right away?

Find another alignment tech pronto...yah, Ford has specs for a reason, but those reasons are to protect FORD, not to make the car work the best for YOU. Use the specs developed by carfixer or David Morton, not the WRONG specs that your master alignment tech has in his database for a Grand Marquis.... :rolleyes:

[Tallboy]

Take it to Carfixer. It's worth the drive. It'll be perfect the first time.

[Smokie]

Take it to Carfixer. It's worth the drive. It'll be perfect the first time.Do it, he has the adaptors to protect your wheels, he did mine and I have almost 29,000 on my front tires, he did it at about 16,000 miles.:up:

[shakes_26]

only dealer around i know who has the adapters here on the east coast is at Maroone Ford Delray, ask for little Joe. Brian (RoyLpita) cna set you up over there, just PM him. He keeps an iron fist on those guys in service.

M

[David Morton]

There's no good excuse for a pull. Give them a chance to fix the pull and bring it to their attention that the target specs me and carfixer have arrived at are still within factory allowances. Yes, they're at the edge but they aren't out of specs!

You might have better success if you can talk to the alignment guy, let him know it might be a little extra effort to shoot for those exact numbers but you'll tip him $5 if he'll give you what you want. Caster is where the "pull" is adjusted and it may present a problem but any experienced alignment tech should be able to get close to those toe and camber targets that are giving us better wear and fix your pull.

:grad: Alright class, settle down. Today we're going to discuss the "thrust angle".

Richy, simply stated the "thrust angle" is a measurement of the where the rear wheels are pointing, the "thrust" of their total toe towards the front wheel suspensions' center. Our car has a non-adjustable design because of the one-piece axle, making a "4-wheel" alignment unnecessary. The 4-wheel is for independent rear suspensions like that on the T-bird where the "thrust" of the toe can be adjusted to the exact center of the cars front suspension. Thrust angle alignment is a term we used to describe what we do when we use the same equipment we use for 4-wheel alignment on a car that has no adjustment for the rear toe and it's thrust angle. It helps the tech set the steering wheel straight the first time, and in my experience, not very reliably at that!

Before the Hunter 4-wheel alignment equipment became available, we would set the steering wheel, set the front toe (after all the other adjustments were finished) and then drive the car, and with fingers crossed, hope the thrust angle wasn't enough to make the steering wheel be too far off. If the angle was too high, a good tech could straighten it up in 5 minutes by adjusting the tie-rod sleeves the same amount on either side changing the direction of the front toe, but not it's amount, to compensate for the rear thrust angle. This didn't require setting up the equipment again, all it really did was straighten up the steering wheel, but it was still more work. BTW, I used to use a Hunter D111 4-wheel alignment computer that had toe strings, and I would attach them to the rear wheel wells and not set up any rear sensors at all. It gave accurate front toe adjustments but gave no rear thrust angle at all. I found it saved time in the long run even if the thrust angle was high, but nowadays all the computers use lasers and the guys just set them up even though the procedure isn't doing much on a car like ours. I found that even with lasers the steering wheel can still be off 2 or 3 degrees and some customers will come back and say "it goes to the left" or "it goes to the right" because they hold the steering wheel straight and expect the car to go straight. Mostly little old ladies.

Ever see a dog walking that had it back legs tracking off a couple of inches to the left? That's a high thrust angle, and a car that has a high thrust angle we say "dog tracks". If you have a good eye you can see lots of cars with some thrust angle on the roads, especially when you're right behind them. Some Fords and some Chevrolets, some Chryslers...

:grad: Class dismissed!

:lol:

[ctrcbob]

Dave or CarFixer,

How about either of you guys posting the correct figures for us again. Thanks.

[ctrcbob]

Shakes,

Almost every dealer will tell you that they have the adapter for our wheels. Don't know how true it is or if they just want us to think they have the adapters. I purchased my 03 MM used from Mullinax Ford-Mercury in New Smyrna Beach, Florida and they told me that they do have the adapters. I tend to believe him because I've put 7000 miles on it now, and the front tires are wearing great. No sign of inside wear. Also the car tracks great.

Both my home dealer, Prestige Ford and also Plaza Lincoln/Mercury told me they have the adapters. Don't know if I should believe them or not, but I trust the new Service Manager of Prestige Ford very much as he has been my "personal" Senior Master Technician, until they promoted him to Service Manager. I have phoned him on his personal Cell Number from Phoenix AZ, from Rochester NY, and from Orangeburg SC, when I had problems with one of my 98 Continentals. Always gave me good advice.

BTW. Do Pontiac dealers have these adapters? Reason I ask is yesterday, I was parked next to a Pontiac Grand Am or Trans Am or something like that, (high powered two door coupe) with a decal that said something like Sunfire, or something like that. Well anyway, it had chrome wheels that like our MM chrome wheels, does not have the little lip on the outer edge where the alignment mirrors are connected. Just wondering.

[RF Overlord]

bob, how can you use the words "Grand Am", "Sunfire", and "high-powered" all in the same sentence? :banned:
:lol:

[jstevens]

Do what I did, take the spec's from here and find an alignment shop that specializes in high performance vehicles.

Cranes in Mt Clemens did mine. They even let me know that it might not handle as well but the tires would wear alot longer.

Drive really smooth now.

[johnfain]

I went for an alignment last week. Of course my car was pulling to the right and my outer tires were wearing. I was told to have them aligned so that they are straight, not curved inwards the way the OEM alignment for our cars are. So I tell this mechanic how I want my car aligned and he basically throws me an attitude about not listening to some "joe schmoe's advice" and that Ford has the specifications for a reason. I tell him whatever and ask to have my tires balanced and rotated (from left to right...have OEM tire sizes) Well I get my car back with some computer readout sheet showing my car before and after, with the after shot showing perfect alignment. So i pay, pull out on the street and drive and sure enough, the Fu8%ing car is still pilling to the right. What should I do? Should I go back and demand that my car be aligned to MY specifications or am I just wasting my time??? I need to know because this puilling and shaking at high speeds makes me feel like I am driving a POS.....any thoughts???

The following was posted by ghost03 a while back. I use this as my alignment bible

03-01-2005, 08:31 PM
ghost03
Member
Member #: 2988
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: FT. Lauderdale
Posts: 91
The inside edge wear of the front tires is caused by 2 things: negative camber and negative toe (toe out). Caster is not a tire wearing angle. The outside edge wear can be caused by excessive toe in and aggressive cornering.

Factory camber spec is -.5 degrees +or- .75 degrees
Factory toe spec is -.15 degrees +or- .20 degrees
(BTW, this info came from their website which is updated periodically and may differ from previously published material, such as cd's and paper manuals)

That means your alignment could have -1.25 degrees of camber and toe out of -.35 degrees and still be in the "green". This will wipe out the inside edges in <20K miles IMO.

All of the MM's I've aligned (about 10) had at least -1.0 degrees of camber and always toe out of -.10 degrees or more from the factory. That's why almost all MM's you see have excessive inside edge tire wear.
For best tire wear, here is what I use on all MM alignments:

Camber: 0 to -.3 degrees.*
Toe: Zero degrees.
Caster: 5-6.5 degrees positive with .3 degree lead on the right side.
*Camber can affect cornering feel. The more negative camber you have, the better it will handle corners. Most drivers will never feel the difference, especially on the street

[David Morton]

Dave or CarFixer,

How about either of you guys posting the correct figures for us again. Thanks.johnfain beat us to it. ghost03s' specs are dead on and as I said earlier...

...within factory specs!

Your alignment shop should have no excuses now.

[RVT04]

johnfain beat us to it. ghost03s' specs are dead on and as I said earlier...

...within factory specs!

Your alignment shop should have no excuses now.
had severe inside edge wear at 3000 miles factory chamber was way neg. toe was also way out
did a good algnment at john eagle with the lasers and stopped the wear 16000 miles later had a good day at the road coarse and prtty much finished off the front tires they went in the trunks as spares and put the new rubber on the ground and went back to john eagle for the real deal
we had a north texas mm with 34 k and no tire wear so they " blueprinted that car" and now set every body's mm to those specs and yep its zero camber and zero toe this does make the car track to the road crown but is straight and true on a flat surface and 5k later i am showing no tire wear differential from center to outside edges using a micrometer depth gauge
i did 6 laps at TMS the day after the alignment and i could go around the bowl without touching the steering wheel that is how true it tracks the road

[mtnh]

One thing that I noticed after aligning to carfixer's specs, with worn out inside treads on the front tires, was that the car had a pretty bad pull, until I replaced the tires with new ones. If the tires are badly worn to the factory alignment specs, it may not track peoprely until the tires get replaced. Of course, if the alignment is "perfect" to factory specs (toed out, large negative camber) then the next set of tires is going to get smoked, too. If you get the aligment set to carfixer specs, the wear should stop on the inside edges and begin to be balanced across the entire tread footprint.

Best of luck.

[RVT04]

One thing that I noticed after aligning to carfixer's specs, with worn out inside treads on the front tires, was that the car had a pretty bad pull, until I replaced the tires with new ones. If the tires are badly worn to the factory alignment specs, it may not track peoprely until the tires get replaced. Of course, if the alignment is "perfect" to factory specs (toed out, large negative camber) then the next set of tires is going to get smoked, too. If you get the aligment set to carfixer specs, the wear should stop on the inside edges and begin to be balanced across the entire tread footprint.

Best of luck.
yes you are perfectly right with that observation
once the front tires have "taken a set" from bad alignment and i mean enuff to wear the tread out unevenly a correct alignment will not feel right until you put new rubber on the ground. that is why i waited to get the zero aligment until i had new rubber up front. the first realignment at a few thousand miles stopped the uneven wear and i just drove it that way for about 15 months until i blistered the tires badly out at motor sport ranch
power drifting 4100 lbs at 75-85 mph is way cool but hard on the tires LOL
now if i can just get a new set on the rear before the winter rains hit
come on BFG make em for us

[Warpath]

...Ever see a dog walking that had it back legs tracking off a couple of inches to the left? That's a high thrust angle, and a car that has a high thrust angle we say "dog tracks". If you have a good eye you can see lots of cars with some thrust angle on the roads, especially when you're right behind them. Some Fords and some Chevrolets, some Chryslers...

High crown roads will make a vehicle dog track as well.

Additional lesson: Tires have what is called Residual Self Aligning Torque or Plysteer Residual self Aligning Torque. Basically, as the tire rolls, it will want to turn about an axis perpendicular to the ground. It will make a vehicle pull/drift. It comes from tire contruction (I can't explain any more than that). Usually, manufacturers set it so that it will cause the vehicle to drift slightly to the left to compensate for road crown. MM tires may not have enough PRAT to compensate for road crown. In that case, caster is usually set higher on one side as stated above. Setting caster about 0.2 - 0.3 higher on the right will cause the vehicle to drift left.

BTW, alignment specs are set as a compromise of ride, handling, and tire wear. Its not to protect the OE. I'm not even sure what that means.

You're paying for the alignment. Have them set it to what you want or tell them you'll take your business elsewhere.

[RF Overlord]

BTW, alignment specs are set as a compromise of ride, handling, and tire wear. Its not to protect the OE. I'm not even sure what that means.I guess I didn't state my meaning very well...what I meant was exactly what you said above; the factory sets the alignment as a compromise, but I believe they err on the side of caution in their favour, not ours, to limit nuisance adjustments/repairs under warranty. IMHO. Maybe not. Maybe I'm just way too jaded and cynical... :P
You're paying for the alignment. Have them set it to what you want or tell them you'll take your business elsewhere.Well said.

[Warpath]

One of my work responsibilities is alignment. So, from my experience, the only err on the side of caution, if any, would be for handling (evasive manuvers). What is most important is that the vehicle is safe to drive. Everything else comes second. The effort we make is to get every vehicle to behave the same. So, we don't put anything on the edge of a something where people may complain. That would indirectly limit nuisance adjustments.

[dlginnc]

High crown roads will make a vehicle dog track as well.

Additional lesson: Tires have what is called Residual Self Aligning Torque or Plysteer Residual self Aligning Torque. Basically, as the tire rolls, it will want to turn about an axis perpendicular to the ground. It will make a vehicle pull/drift. It comes from tire contruction (I can't explain any more than that). Usually, manufacturers set it so that it will cause the vehicle to drift slightly to the left to compensate for road crown. MM tires may not have enough PRAT to compensate for road crown. In that case, caster is usually set higher on one side as stated above. Setting caster about 0.2 - 0.3 higher on the right will cause the vehicle to drift left.

BTW, alignment specs are set as a compromise of ride, handling, and tire wear. Its not to protect the OE. I'm not even sure what that means.

You're paying for the alignment. Have them set it to what you want or tell them you'll take your business elsewhere.
So, is PRAT a feature of directional tires only? If not then how would you know which side of the tire to mount on the outside?

[RVT04]

So, is PRAT a feature of directional tires only? If not then how would you know which side of the tire to mount on the outside?
VERY GOOD ?
AND ARE NOT OUR TIRES DIRECTIONAL ? DON' T THEY HAVE THIS SIDE OUT ON THEM
AND IF YOU ARE TURNING THEM AROUND AND RUNNING THEM BACKWARDS BY SWITCHING THEM FROM SIDE TO SIDE (WHICH I DON'T DO) (OLD SCHOOL) THEN ARE YOU COMPROMISING THE PRAT THEY HAVE BUILT INTO THEM OR THE SET THEY HAVE ATTAINED BY ROTATIONAL DIRECTION?
HOLY COW THIS IS GETTING WEIRD

oops , damn post traumatic cap lock syndrome
lol

[Warpath]

All tires - directional or not - have PRAT. I know very little about it. I believe it always pulls the vehicle in the same direction regardless of whether they are rotated. I don't know enough about it to say for certain or explain why. I think one influence on it is how the cords are wrapped. That influence may not changed if the tire is rotated 180 deg. In other words, draw a line at an angle across a piece of paper. Now, rotate that piece of paper 180 deg and the line is still at the same angle. I'm kinda guessing. Sorry to confuse without further explaination.

[David Morton]

PRAT is one of the factors that can cause pull. Generally, it isn't much of a factor because what a tire on the left side is doing is cancelled out by the tire on the right, provided the angles are the same. It's the force we used to compensate for road crown when we added camber to the left tire or removed some on the right tire on those FWD vehicles that had no caster adjustment. A large camber variation, 1+ degrees can make a car pull and PRAT is why. Try replacing only one tire on the front with the inside of the other worn out and see if it doesn't pull like mad. Of course that's also because of PRICK, as in somebody's being one.

PRAT is also why these new specs we're using causes the car to dive toward those raised lines on the road. The high negative camber and toe negates much of this effect and, IMO is why the factory specs are so negative. Car manufacturers don't do anything without a cause-and-effect study and a run past the legal-eagle bean counters first. Everybody knows wide tires have handling characteristics that grampaw probably isn't expecting like this propensity to dive at the lines, so my guess is Mercury probably came up with these because they knew there'd be more than a few old farts that thought they were just getting a fancy GM with the "big engine".

RVT04, YOU are a steely-eyed car man and certified gear-head to make that observation. Yes my friend, our tires say "this side out"! This and being two different sizes front and back makes them non-rotateable, given the convention most manufacturers of high-performance tires susbscribe to, specifically not changing the direction of roll.

[Warpath]

...PRAT is also why these new specs we're using causes the car to dive toward those raised lines on the road. The high negative camber and toe negates much of this effect and, IMO is why the factory specs are so negative. Car manufacturers don't do anything without a cause-and-effect study and a run past the legal-eagle bean counters first.

The specs are so negative for camber because Ford lowered the front for looks and didn't change anything else. GMs, CVs, and TCs all still have the flag on the camber cam bolt in place as does the MM. Ford probably said it was good enough as it is and wasn't worth the cost to change it. BTW, we normally use our own good judgement and hardly ever deal with the legal dept.