Well, had my 3rd alignment. Thought I had it licked.
1st: Dealer and still drifts to right. I have eccentric cam bolts from factory and they adjusted LF to specs.
2nd: Big10 tires - way off, started wearing rear tires. 3rd: different dealer for another alignment. Back to normal (still drifting to right but not as bad). Noticed on their specs sheet of before and after that my ‘total toe’ is off. Their total toe in specs show 0.17 to 0.32 degrees for a specified range.
The specs I have from a Nissan forum show .08; .12; or .15 for total toe in. My final ‘actual’ spec after the picking up from the dealer is 0.25 degrees for total toe in… Everything else is in spec.
Which way does total toe in go? Is 0.25 worse than the above when it comes to tot. toe in or does that work in reverse?? Thanks.
It helps to list the make/model and year of the vehicle. There is a big difference in toe specs between front wheel drive and rear wheel drive.
Keith,
Sorry - '06 Nissan Frontier 23k mi.
And I think I received the Nissan specs from the net on this forum or a Nissan forum, not from the dealer.
2WD or 4WD?
2WD…Sorry, I know they differ. P.S. last place I went to said it could be ‘radial pull’. I say bs because this all started with a ‘pull’ to the right.
sigma693: Got on Alldata for your specs: .08, .12, .15 degrees, but these specs are for “LEFT OR RIGHT WHEEL” (re-read your source); in other words, individual toe as opposed to total toe, which is merely the mathematical sum of the left and right toes. (Individual toes) These specs (.08, .12, .15) are decimal equivalents of the “raw specs” which are expressed in minutes of a degree. .12 is almost smack in
the middle, isn’t it? (Not exactly since they’re rounded off to the nearest hundredth only) So the max for each side is .15; minimum .08. Doubling these you get .30 degrees maximum total toe, and .16 degrees minimum total toe. The total toe value of .25 is nicely within this specified range. You’ll notice there’s no positive or negative sign in front of these numbers- (making them positive). Positive toe means
the front of the tire is a little in; the rear out. (Pigeon-toed) Negative is the opposite. That’s on the alignment rack; as you go straight down a straight road the tires should be straight ahead- (zero toe). Many other factors besides alignment cause drift, so if you just asked for an alignment, they gave you what you requested. If your tires are ready for rotation, that might solve drift (yes tires can
cause drift). If after rotation it drifts, swap the positions of the front tires W/O taking tires off wheels. (can’t do this if you have directioal tires- the ones with rotational arrows on the sidewall) If it now drifts opposite from what it just did after rotation, culprit probably is the front tire on the side the car is now drifting to- you might now switch that w/ one of the rears if the tread depths are
fairly close. On the other hand if there’s no change in drift after the swap, culprit probably isn’t tires, but that doesn’t mean alignment is culprit. Other Factors: Uneven tire pressure side to side.; one front caliper dragging; Front tire conicity (tire worn on one edge, acting like a cone; cones roll toward the narrower side); if you have a steering box with an adjustable spool valve (ask dealer)- power
steering could be favoring one side: with front wheels off ground, wheels straight, in P, start engine, if wheels start to turn R. or L, spool valve in steering box needs to be adjusted. Before putting front end back down, rotate the front wheels by hand to see if a caliper is hung up- just compare one side’s drag to the other. Unless you’re sick of changing around tires now, you can put the
tires back in their original positions except with the front wheels swapped. If it drifts L, LF tire (right after the swap) could be culprit, and you might put it on rear as explained earlier. If you don’t want to do any of this crap and I don’t blame you, you could ask the last place to do “half an alignment”. They could adjust the front caster enough to overcome the drift; make the LF caster more negative
than it is or the RF more positive (to overcome a R drift)- vice versa for a L drift. If caster is not adjustable there could be enough camber change left in the specified range. Make the LF camber more positive or the RF more negative to overcome a R drift; vice versa for a L drift.They would also have to readjust the front toe again after changing camber or caster. If you’re persuasive maybe they could do it
gratis- “good will”; it might only take 30 minutes if they get it right the first time. Good luck, Karl S. P.S: Thank you for your suggestion, Keith. This is the third post IN MY LIFE- just bought a computer 3 weeks ago. Nice to be on this post- some others are 90% mudslinging- KS
You have a rear wheel drive vehicle. The front wheels should have a toe-in at rest. As you build up speed, the drag on the tires pushes them back toward the rear of the vehicle forcing them to toe-out. You don’t want them to go into a toe out situation as that makes the vehicle unstable. Excess toe-in at speed wears the tires faster. The engineers have figured out how far the wheels will move for various speeds and calculate the best toe in at rest.
Toe in is not your problem. The things that cause the vehicle to pull to one side are camber, steering wheel centering, dragging brakes, mismatched tires, rear wheel alignment, bent steering knuckle, or tire pull itself. First thing you need is a four wheel alignment and brake inspection. The front wheels need to be aligned to the rear wheels with the steering wheel centered. The camber needs to be correct, which on Nissans is not easy. The tires should also be inspected for problems.
If all this is done correctly and the truck still pulls, then it could be due to damage to the suspension. A bent steering knuckle is a possibility, the location of the lower control arm bushing might be knocked inward due to contact with a curb or the rear wheels could be out of alignment again due to contact with a curb or large pothole. These things are hard to bend so it would take a heavy hit.
Before going into all of this, I should have asked this question first. Does the truck drift to the right so that you have to turn the wheel to the left to go straight or does it feel like the steering wheel is being pulled to the right but the truck will go straight if you hold the wheel straight? If its the second, then it could well be the steering box itself or a bent steering knuckle.
Karl S, You have a lot of good info there, but it is very difficult to read because its one big paragraph. On a computer screen, it can be difficult to get to the end of one line and go directly to the beginning of the next line down and hit it the first time each time. Ideally, each paragraph would be three lines long, that is the easiest to follow, but an occasional 2 or 4 line paragraph is ok.
You need to hit the return (enter) key twice to create the necessary space between the paragraphs. Happy posting and hope to see you around here for awhile.
I think a bit much is being made of the toe issue. This is not likely the cause of any pull.
Just for the heck of it, string a tape measure from the rear of the front wheel (not the tire) to the front of the rear wheel. Measure both sides and compare the figures. Keep the tape snug.
The readings should be very close if not exact. An 1/8" is ok; a 1/4 or 3/8 is a concern since this could point to something being tweaked in the suspension. Normally a control arm tweak due to a pothole or curb strike, etc.
If the readings are about the same then I would seriously consider the possibility of a tire bias. Take the truck to a level, smooth parking lot. With the steering wheel centered creep the truck forward at slow speed with hands off the wheel.
If it tries to pull then swap tires front to back and see what happens. Repeat process.
Doesw this truck have 4 wheel independant suspension? If not there is a great deal of unnecessary confusing information being thrown about. With a solid rear axle the toe-in can be measured with two yard sticks.