Rear allignment

[Chris5388]

Hi,

I was just recently in an accident were the rear of my car bounced off a curb and i had to replace a couple of things. After it was told to me the rear was properley alligned and the axle was straight, I still seem to notice my right tire sticks out a little more than my left tire on the rear of the car. Is this how it is supposed to be or is there something wrong?

Thanks,

[TraceZ]

Slight variance is normal, depending on the amount. installing an adjustable panhard rod will allow you to center it perfectly.

[Chris5388]

Slight variance is normal, depending on the amount. installing an adjustable panhard rod will allow you to center it perfectly.

Will that affect the way it drives?

[TraceZ]

As long as it tracks strait and nothing is damaged, no.

[Trash man]

u have 16wheels or a third gen? i got the 16" wheels on my car wit the spacer plates from the fatory, maybe they left one out?

[Chris5388]

u have 16wheels or a third gen? i got the 16" wheels on my car wit the spacer plates from the fatory, maybe they left one out?

I have a 4th gen with 16'' rims, i havent checked that yet ill take a look.

[MN6WS6]

No spacers on a 4th gen. I'd venture to guess it's just the panhard rod. The only real way to check something like that is on an alignment machine. On a 4th gen, the rearend is not adjustable, so they should do what's called a thrust alignment, which is where they check the specs of the rearend and align the front of the car to the rear of the car. The printout sheet will show this information.

For anybody who gets an alignment: Make sure you ask for a pre and post alignment printout sheet. A good portion of alignment shops only change the toe and never touch camber or caster, even though you get charged as if they did a lot of work. A pre and post alignment printout will show you exactly what (if anything) they changed. If they did not change something and it is out of spec, don't pay for it. Alignments are a PITA and a lot of shops will rip you off on them if you don't check their work. If you ask for this information up front, they know you'll be checking it to make sure it's right.

Alignments are very tricky and time consuming when done correctly. Camber causes inner or outer tire wear, and is probably the one thing that everybody knows about. They talk about it on NASCAR all the time, and it's why you see tires leaned in or leaned out on drifters, import tuners, or just flat out ricers. Toe causes excessive tire wear all over the tire and how much steering you have to use to keep the car straight when driving straight down the road. Toe in is when the tires are pointed towards each other (you want a slight toe in condition to keep the car from darting left and right) and toe out is where the tires point away from each other. Caster also has an effect on keeping the car straight because it is the angle at which the tires are leaned forward or backward from straight up and down. It also increases or decreases turning radiuses depending on it's setting, and also causes a pull condition if it's not adjusted correctly for the crown of the road. Caster is the most difficult to adjust, the most often thing never adjusted, and is arguably the most important thing to set because of how it affects the way the car drives to the customer. It is also the first thing that should be checked and adjusted, because it will throw everything else off if it is adjusted last. So if your caster is off and you catch it, they have to redo everything they did because caster adjustments throw everything out of spec.

[Injuneer]

Chris:

I'm going to offer you a helpful hint, and I think I've suggested it before. ADD A "SIGNATURE" with basic info about your car, including the year. You can see from the posts above, people don't know what year your car is, so they are assuming it may be a 3rd Gen or a 4th Gen... for all we know, it might even be a 1st Gen.

You will get more accurate responses to your questions if you tell people up front what year your car is, the trans type and any major mods. Lacking that, people are making assumptions and guessing, and the answers you get might not be correct.

Fred

[MN6WS6]

Fred, he said right above my post it is a 4th gen with 16" wheels

[Joe 1320]

Will that affect the way it drives?

That depends. Technically, the thrust angle is fixed due to the nonadjustable control arms. However...... changing the centering of the rear can affect the thrust angle ever so slightly. If you are in doubt of anything, adjustable lower control arms and adjustable panhard rod will allow the rear to be set up perfectly. If the rear is just a hair offset, doubtful that you would notice a difference in tracking once fixed with the panhard rod. Then again, ya never know.

[Injuneer]

Fred, he said right above my post it is a 4th gen with 16" wheels

Yes... I saw that. But he added it only after several posts, and 88bird5spd asked if it was a 3rd Gen.

Maybe I'm just in an unusually sh!tty mood, but I can't understand why its so much trouble to include that kind of info in the initial post.... guess I'm in the minority on that one though. So I'll just make it a habit to ignore posts that don't include enough into to allow an intelligent answer.

[Chris5388]

Thanks for all the help guys, I think ill buy an adjustable panhard bar in the future and straighten this out. I will also be sure to add a signature , thanks again for the help.