Tire Wear

[71chevellejohn]

That car is toed out a mile, almost 1/4" acording to your specs. Unfortunately alignment tech doesnt know positive and negatives matter infront of those numbers

All that matters is that the machine says green!

[Grape]

All that matters is that the machine says green!

Lol, ya i forgot

[SC457A]

What? toed out?

A Hunter machine not tell the truth?

I would like to see a Hunter machine reading vs a "Grape" style alignment (No offense Grape!). As a front end tech at a Ford shop I want to know! Have I been doing alignments wrong for years?

[my fear]

so what's the suggestion....buy 2 new front tires and check alignment? If alignment is right then check struts?

that's what i would do. and by the responses we have in this thread go to someone who knows how to align cars lol.

[DeddRekoning]

there's another question...who knows how to align cars lol

[Grape]

Ask any computer alignment machine what wheelbase is from side to side and you will find out they assume a rear axle housing is straight, and in the car square. Ive strung street cars before, if you saw the results you wouldnt drive above 60 in a production car ever again. Cup teams have $15 million budgets with a $1 million 7 post shaker rig for testing, maybe nobody uses a $30k alignment machine because they cant afford them, or they suck, you be the judge.

[Trick Pony]

I understand this sounds counter-intuitive, but the "hella-flush" crowd that runs around with their cars on the bump stops scraping the pavement swears that excessive negative camber doesn't necessarily cause severe premature tire wear providing toe is neutral.

Talking about this shit EDIT - sorry pic was huge, just linked it.

It's not really related, but I'm curious to see how that claim works out.

This depends on how aggressively you normally take corners and how much twisty driving you do. If it's mostly straight line, then excessive negative camber with neutral toe will still wear the insides faster. If you there is a lot of hard cornering going on, then they will tend to wear more evenly because of the cornering forces.

[DeddRekoning]

well I go in there today and have them see if it's out of alignment and they say it's fine

[JSTG11]

looks like a toe issue to me and i wouldnt trust a shop unless you know somebody because when i worked at dealerships i had a whole stack of sheets that were in the green that i would give out if the car drove good after charging for an alignment!!!

[SC457A]

well I go in there today and have them see if it's out of alignment and they say it's fine

Going by my Hunter R811 machine, the specs for a 2004 Mustang is -.50 camber +/- 0.75 (-1.25 would be the low edge of the camber). So the car technically is still in specs for their purposes.

A good tech would tweak the cambers to prevent future wear.
How many miles have you driven on those tires? Keep them balanced well?

Hey Grape PM sent!