Originally Posted by hat_man
Hello everyone.
Just had an alignment done and was wondering about the print out they gave me afterwards. Here are the before and after numbers.....
Toe in before: Left .71° Right .22°
Toe in after: Left .02° Right .00°
Camber before: Left -0.5° Right -0.6°
Camber after: Same Same
Caster before: Left 3.9° Right 4.4°
Caster after: Same Same
It looks as though they only adjusted the toe in and nothing else. So the questions are this........
1) Is the camber being that amount off bad? According to the little graph on the print out its almost perfectly centered in the green area. I'm assuming it's pretty close to perfect. im assuming it’s pretty close to perfect too
2) Is the caster being off nearly 4° bad? Technically it's still in the green area of the graph, but not even close to being centered. Is it enough to worry about or hurting my FE? It’s not off by 4 degrees, the spec is not going to be 0. More caster might even help mileage by an insignificant amount. More caster improves directional stability, but this also increases steering effort. The actual measurement vs spec is not as critical as cross caster, which helps with road crown. A Harley with a stretched front end would be an example of positive caster, while that wobbly shaking wheel on the bad shopping cart shows off negative caster.
As a side question.......I don't think there is any adjustment for the rear on my Ranger, but I'm showing positive camber and caster on the left and negative camber and caster on the right and a thrust angle of .17° There wouldn’t be caster on a non steering axle. The camber should theoretically be 0 with a solid axle, but there’s margin of error of the machine, some tolerance of the axle being manufactured, tire pressure, and how level the alignment rack is. If the thrust angle was out it could be a worn out bushing, of something bent that could adjusted with a frame puller, sledgehammer, torch, welder... I wouldn’t worry about .17 though
I've never looked closely at these print outs before, but not knowing exactly what these numbers mean in terms of FE, I'm not sure how to interpret them anyhow. Just looking for some clarification, education, and advice.
In general, the manufacturers specs (middle of the green) will get you the best fuel economy. Toe being the most critical, then camber, and I think caster would have a bigger indirect effect on driver fatigue than direct effect. Some could argue for different specs, but I’m not sure I could reliably test to see the difference. At the same time it might show in tire wear. So if theres a forum for you vehicle and everyone says make some small change for even tire wear, I wouldn’t be scared of that either
Thanks
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