RTH - Pre-collision and ABS codes - now alignment issues

[kcjaz]

Does your hand brake lever feel the same as before? Could be a small change in the adjustment of the star wheel

They sorted it out. Said it was the tin back plate. All good.

On a different note, the squealing I was getting on tight corners seem to get better but was still there. I’m back home now and have washed and climbed under the truck to see what damage there is and I think my toe adjustment is out of whack or at least the insides of the front tires have worn substantially on the single trip (2500 miles).

I don’t think they looked like this before trip. I didn’t notice any squealing on April or June June trips.

 

[clrussell]

They sorted it out. Said it was the tin back plate. All good.

On a different note, the squealing I was getting on tight corners seem to get better but was still there. I’m back home now and have washed and climbed under the truck to see what damage there is and I think my toe adjustment is out of whack or at least the insides of the front tires have worn substantially on the single trip (2500 miles).

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I don’t think they looked like this before trip. I didn’t notice any squealing on April or June June trips.

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Is this alignment after you got home?

 

[bloc]

They sorted it out. Said it was the tin back plate. All good.

On a different note, the squealing I was getting on tight corners seem to get better but was still there. I’m back home now and have washed and climbed under the truck to see what damage there is and I think my toe adjustment is out of whack or at least the insides of the front tires have worn substantially on the single trip (2500 miles).

View attachment 4188605
View attachment 4188606
I don’t think they looked like this before trip. I didn’t notice any squealing on April or June June trips.

View attachment 4188607

You can get a reasonable idea of how your toe is doing by looking closely along the sidewall of a front tire and seeing where the plane made by the front and rear edge of it hit the rear tire. Do this on both sides.

The track width of a stock 200 is about .25” different front to rear. This means with toe close to 0 your front and rear sidewalls will be very close to alignment. Your lift will narrow the front slightly. But to get wear like that and it be a toe issue yours will likely be pretty far out.

Was your fuel mileage worse this trip than in the past?

 

[GrouchyTech]

They sorted it out. Said it was the tin back plate. All good.

On a different note, the squealing I was getting on tight corners seem to get better but was still there. I’m back home now and have washed and climbed under the truck to see what damage there is and I think my toe adjustment is out of whack or at least the insides of the front tires have worn substantially on the single trip (2500 miles).

View attachment 4188605
View attachment 4188606
I don’t think they looked like this before trip. I didn’t notice any squealing on April or June June trips.

Park that thing or you’re gonna cook those tires. You have toe-out on that right front, which is probably you having to compensate for whatever the hell is going on with the left tire. It’s kind of hard to tell what’s going on with the left tire but that right front is scrubbing from inside-out. Those tires will be gone in no time, park it until you can get it to the alignment shop.

 

[kcjaz]

Is this alignment after you got home?

No. It’s the alignment a couple days before I left.

 

[kcjaz]

You can get a reasonable idea of how your toe is doing by looking closely along the sidewall of a front tire and seeing where the plane made by the front and rear edge of it hit the rear tire. Do this on both sides.

The track width of a stock 200 is about .25” different front to rear. This means with toe close to 0 your front and rear sidewalls will be very close to alignment. Your lift will narrow the front slightly. But to get wear like that and it be a toe issue yours will likely be pretty far out.

Was your fuel mileage worse this trip than in the past?

I didn’t really track mileage. Hard to do when a lot of it is wheeling and overlanding. I should probably track the highway mpg but I didn’t.

 

[kcjaz]

Park that thing or you’re gonna cook those tires. You have toe-out on that right front, which is probably you having to compensate for whatever the hell is going on with the left tire. It’s kind of hard to tell what’s going on with the left tire but that right front is scrubbing from inside-out. Those tires will be gone in no time, park it until you can get it to the alignment shop.

Appointment is Thursday. Going to be interesting. They aligned it then 2500 miles my tires look like this. To be fair the suspension was just installed the day before the alignment and I’m sure it settled during the trip. Hard wheeling too could have moved something though I noticed the tire squeal before the hard wheeling.

 

[GrouchyTech]

Appointment is Thursday. Going to be interesting. They aligned it then 2500 miles my tires look like this. To be fair the suspension was just installed the day before the alignment and I’m sure it settled during the trip. Hard wheeling too could have moved something though I noticed the tire squeal before the hard wheeling.

They may not have tightened the cam bolts enough. But those tires look awful!

 

[kcjaz]

They may not have tightened the cam bolts enough. But those tires look awful!

Yes they do. I put paint marks on the cams before I left. They don’t look like they have moved any. I also put a lever on the rims and the wheels are perfectly level up/down. Something ate the tires and it wasn’t rocks.

 

[GrouchyTech]

Yes they do. I put paint marks on the cams before I left. They don’t look like they have moved any. I also put a lever on the rims and the wheels are perfectly level up/down. Something ate the tires and it wasn’t rocks.

The road ate yo tars, boy!

I’m not saying this is what happened, but looking at the before numbers on your alignment… this is similar to the tire wear you may get if it wasn’t changed.

 

[clrussell]

Tires show toe wear due to being toed out.

Your original before specs are what I expect when you go back Thursday.

Something moved drastically. Or they did had a mistake on the alignment.. Speaking from first hand experience as an Indy shop that does up to 8 alignments a day.

 

[GrouchyTech]

Tires show toe wear due to being toed out.

Your original before specs are what I expect when you go back Thursday.

Something moved drastically. Or they did had a mistake on the alignment.. Speaking from first hand experience as an Indy shop that does up to 8 alignments a day.

I agree with this, as well.

I’ll show this to our alignment guy tomorrow and see what he says. 20 years of up to 10 per day…. he has a fairly good eye by now.

 

[clrussell]

I agree with this, as well.

I’ll show this to our alignment guy tomorrow and see what he says. 20 years of up to 10 per day…. he has a fairly good eye by now.

I bet he agrees as well

 

[GrouchyTech]

I was in a suspension class in Dallas a while back and one of the techs from the area told a story about a guy who had a bunch of Hunter alignment sheets saved as PDF for a various of years and models of Toyota/Lexus/Scion… he’d drive the vehicle just up the road and back, if it drove reasonably OK he would print a sheet for that vehicle and pull it around. Something like 8 moths of this.

He was fired.
He SHOULD be in jail.

 

[kcjaz]

Took it to the alignment shop this morning. As expected the toe was out again.

Given the off roading I did on the trip, it seems at lease possible it got knocked out during the trip sometime. I don’t really understand how properly tightened tie rods move to come out of adjustment but I suppose doing things like full send over The Wall could knock things out somehow. Or maybe the freshly installed suspension settled some during the trip and contributed to the toe going out.

I also now think that much of the tire wear was due to the original toe being -2.62 out and that I just had not looked hard at the inside of the tires to notice. Need to be better about that. Now I’m hunting for a pair of new K02s…

On a side note, I was looking into how to check alignment at home and stumbled on this:

Gyraline 4 Wheel Alignment Kit

Use your phone to align your car's wheels with Gyraline and the Gyraliner tool kit!

gyraline.com

Looks interesting if it works and is reasonably accurate.

 

[kcjaz]

Got new tires mounted today. The tire shop checked the alignment and the toe is out of spec again. In 278 miles (no off road), it went from this:

To this:

The shop can’t explain why I loose the toe adjustment so quickly. I’ll let them have it for a day next week and hopefully they can figure it out. The tire techs said eveything seems tight. Anyone have any ideas?

The only thing I can think of to keep an eye on it is to count the threads on the tie-rods. The ball joints seem OK but my that all I mean is I don’t feel any movement when I try to wiggle or shake the tie rod. Don’t feel any slop or movement st the steering rack end either. Not sure that just grabbing it by hand is really a good test though.

 

[bloc]

It’s not a big camber change but that did change too, suggesting your LCA bolts may not have been tight, or the bushings need attention.

 

[GrouchyTech]

Sooo the rear is pretty puzzling…. what is going on with all the large numbers there?

 

[kcjaz]

Sooo the rear is pretty puzzling…. what is going on with all the large numbers there?

Assume you mean the toe numbers? I’m not sure what “big” is and assume toe on the rear should be very close to zero. The thing that puzzles me is why is the rear changing?

I know the suspension settled some during the 2000 mile Colorado trip which would affect things some but it’s hard to believe I got settlement in the last 250 miles. Part of me wonders if it’s just different facilities and technicians. The two sheets above are different shops in different people next Tuesday. I’m taking it back to the original shop.

 

[kcjaz]

It’s not a big camber change but that did change too, suggesting your LCA bolts may not have been tight, or the bushings need attention.

I saw that too. I put painted match marks on all the cams immediately after the last alignment. The front cam has not moved but the rear front passenger cam has moved slightly. The bushings seem OK. I did replace the bolts.