Good alignment or terrible?

[ice445]

Atleast both your cambers are even and matching lol. I wonder why my caster is in the red ? I haven't seen anyone else on here with out of spec casters with stock suspension since it's not adjustable.

Subframe has to be shifted to the side with less caster to balance it out I believe. Pretty much no shop will do that unless they specialize in these cars.

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[GrabberBargeCaptain]

89 buckaroos for this alignment.

Around here you got what you paid for. Your locale may vary.

 

[Muhnopoly]

Subframe has to be shifted to the side with less caster to balance it out I believe. Pretty much no shop will do that unless they specialize in these cars.

Sounds like too much of a hassle/money for something miniscule for a DD. Atleast for me since I don't feel anything wrong while driving

 

[GrabberBargeCaptain]

Sounds like too much of a hassle/money for something miniscule for a DD. Atleast for me since I don't feel anything wrong while driving

I agree. You won't feel .3degrees of cross-caster.

 

[GrabberBargeCaptain]

I really don't even know if it's worth going back and potentially starting crap with this shop if this is how they do their initial alignment on a sports car, with no garuntee theyll even make it better then it is right now. Go and be macho man tomorrow and insist they be more accurate? Or suck it up and go to a more detailed shop

For 89$ i'd leave it be. Drive it for a while and see if you need it to be more precise. Chances are you dont.

 

[ice445]

Sounds like too much of a hassle/money for something miniscule for a DD. Atleast for me since I don't feel anything wrong while driving

I agree. My car drives great, so my desire to get it perfect is very subdued. If you're in the same boat imo let it ride.

 

[K4fxd]

I agree with the current sentiment. For 89 bucks you got an ok street alignment. It should drive OK and it shouldn't wear tires.

When you decide to go canyon carving or HPDE then you will want the splits closer.

 

[GTP]

I've read TONS of threads about alignment and from my understanding there's no front caster adjustment on a stock s550.

Had some new sve r357 19x10 installed today and had an alignment done as well. All I specifically told him was I want 0 toe in the front because my last front tires got destroyed on the inner portion.

I didn't know about the non adjustable casters till now but at the time I asked him why wasn't that touched and he said you don't want it perfect because the roads aren't flat, their slightly domed for rain/water etc.

Is this a good alignment for a DD?

I think you have a perfectly good street alignment.
Turn your steering wheel ever so slightly, and the front toe matches exactly.
The slightly higher left side cambers works well with many side streets that have a bit of crown for drainage.

Find a level, smooth, slightly downhill section of freeway for a test drive. Turn off LKA, and see if the car goes perfectly straight hands-free for a few blocks.

 

[Muhnopoly]

I think you have a perfectly good street alignment.
Turn your steering wheel ever so slightly, and the front toe matches exactly.
The slightly higher left side cambers works well with many side streets that have a bit of crown for drainage.

Find a level, smooth, slightly downhill section of freeway for a test drive. Turn off LKA, and see if the car goes perfectly straight hands-free for a few blocks.

I'll try that on my way to work today. After a somewhat good/bad google review last night, the shop contacted me this morning to make things right and would like me to come back in to fine tune to my liking to satisfy me.

 

[GTP]

I'll try that on my way to work today. After a somewhat good/bad google review last night, the shop contacted me this morning to make things right and would like me to come back in to fine tune to my liking to satisfy me.

That's fine, but I think we all tend to obsess over numbers, and yet we don't know exactly what truly is the ideal number, when in fact even the ideal is a compromise of many factors. Imagine lifting a 12" ruler on a flat table by inserting a finger nail under one end. That's about 0.1 degree angle.

Until you attempt your own alignment, I think it is also hard to appreciate just how difficult it is to minimize all the outside influences leading to small errors. They could achieve a "perfect" set of numbers, then you could drive off and then right back on their rack and the numbers will all be a little different. Or you could drive over to a different shop to check the first shop's numbers, and still not have matching numbers.

Right now, I am working on my rear camber over and over again, because the system design is just not that amenable to adjustment control. Alternatively, controlling toe during a string alignment is not that bad.

Perfect is the enemy of Good. I really think what you have is Perfect Enough.

 

[NightmareMoon]

Subframe has to be shifted to the side with less caster to balance it out I believe. Pretty much no shop will do that unless they specialize in these cars.

nah, the steering wheel just wasnt straight. Thats why the toe AND caster are lopsided. 99% chance there isnt an actual caster issue.

 

[ice445]

nah, the steering wheel just wasnt straight. Thats why the toe AND caster are lopsided. 99% chance there isnt an actual caster issue.

Good point.

 

[17MagMetal]

Subframe has to be shifted to the side with less caster to balance it out I believe. Pretty much no shop will do that unless they specialize in these cars.

Any forum posts about this? I want to bump my front subframe cause my front caster has a .7 deg cross difference.

whether or not something is damaged I can’t tell, I’m gonna bandaid the sucker with some brute force via subframe shift possible.

 

[bankyf]

You'd be surprised at the lack of accuracy/repeatability on these $40k Hunter alignment machines. I get the OCD of wanting all of the numbers perfect, but perfect numbers likely don't translate as perfectly as you would think. I own a $40k machine and chose to align my car at home with strings(trying out hub stands next time). I'll be interested to see how close their "before" specs this time match the "after" specs from last time.

 

[TeeLew]

Unless you're able to find a proper race shop, which will be expensive, I think the best bet it to do it yourself.

It takes a special mechanic to really care about a setup and you're unlikely to find one at a normal tire shop. You might offer to pay more to get the numbers bang on what you want. I've had enough comedic conversations with tire store guys that it's hard to take them serious.

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