alignment

[Berkeley and Bill Conner]

"John A. Heer" wrote:

> I drove on the interstate today in the rain with the new Kumhos.  Very unsettling.  The car was very skittish and the steering was somewhat numb.  I think the alignment helped the turn-in, but at the expense of stability on high-speed straights.  Are the alignment settings I have going to ruin my tires prematurely?

> They were:
> Front camber = -.6 degree left, -.5 degree right
> front toe = -1.5 degrees left, -1.45 degrees right

> rear camber = -.6 degree left, -1.0 degree right
> rear toe = -.15 degree left, -.10 degree right.

Check out my thinking here, list members, I could well have missed something or just be plane wrong.

The steering characteristics that John described sound like a toe out situation -- which is what he asked the shop for.  Usually the alignment print out says "Toe In" and then lists a positive number (say 1 degree).  This means that the wheel is aimed in toward the center line of the car by 1 degree (the tires are closer
together at the front edges than the rear edges).  If the "Toe In" spec is a negative number, it means that the wheel is actually toed out.  This is confusing because "negative toe" usually refers to a toe in condition and when one sees a negative toe spec, it usually means the wheel is toed in.  But in print outs I've seen,
it's often the other way around.  So, the shop may have set the toe "out" even though the spec sheet reports a negative number.  If this is correct, then John may have 1.5 degrees toe out on each of your front wheels for a total of 3 degrees toe out between the two.

The FSM specs the front wheel toe in at  (0.04-0.12 inches) or (6-18 minutes) as a total for both wheels.  I'm guessing there are 60 minutes in a degree so, 0.12 inches would equal 18/60 degrees or about a third of a degree.  If  I'm on track so far, then the 3 degree total toe out spec that John reported would be about 9
times more toe out than the FSM specs for toe in, or a little over an inch total.

That's a lot of toe out even for competition and will probably eat up your tires pretty quickly.  It doesn't sound like it's close to the 1/16th inch toe out that John requested.

Bill Conner