My castor is out of spec on the driver side. The car goes straigth, and handles well but can castor be corrected?

 

casteeeeeeeeeeeeeer arg! yes castor

 

caster... you mean it's off-vertical?

 

yes, i have heard that castor is the least important aspect of alignment, but i am out of spec(red) by .4degress i think. Bottom line can it be fixed?

 

castor is pretty important. its what cuases the car to go straight when the wheel is released, and to a point it makes the car handle better. to much and the car is just to hard to steer to little, itll just keep goin its own way lol. anyway i wouldnt worry, but o is it .4 negative of positive off? negative make go straight possitive go own way. but sorrry to explain what it was i dont really think you can fix it unless you re do the suspension im sure. its all in the spindle placement.

 

This measurement is the amount the the top of the suspension leans back from verticle. It is the less critical than toe in or camber. It is also not adjustable in factory form. If the camber and toe in are adjusted to exact specs and the caster is off you look for the bent parts or or bent unibody that is causing it. The spec from the shop manual for caster is....1.75 degrees +- .75 degrees. You say your caster is out by .4 degrees?? Do you mean it is in the range of 1.35 to 2.15 degrees?? in which case it is in spec and is fine. If you mean it is either smaller than 1 degree or greater than 2.5 degrees (out side the factory tolerances) then you have a probelm and need to find out why.

 

i have tockico adjustable shocks and the reading was out of spec to the right in the red by on drivers side. I have not hit anything, and wonder what the symptoms of a bent tie rod or control arm feels like? I go to ptuning for my alignments, but it sounds like castor is not going to be able to be adjusted by laser alignmnet correct?

 

going to take the car to the dealer tommarow.

 

A bent tierod would not change caster only toe in. bent lower arm or strut would cause a caster change. In the red on many machines is not necessarily outside max factory tolerance. You said 1.39 before you edited this post (lol i just happened to be refreshing at that time) 1.39 Degrees is within the 1-2.15 degrees window and tho not ideal should be ok. And no caster is not adjustable from the factory... altho sometimes small changes are seen while adjusting toe in and camber. I would have the alignment shop recheck the alignment paying very close attention to how they steer the front end to obtain caster settings and then ensuring that camber and toein are right on (might require camber adjusting bolts to do this). Then they should resteer for caster adjustment again to second check it. If it is in the range of 1- 2.5 degrees you could leave it.

 

Don't worry about it. If it drives fine, then you're ok. Just keep an eye on the front tires for any odd wear patterns. Rotate tires often just to make sure.

The only way to correct it is with major modifications of the suspension (moving mounting points) or on a frame straightener.

 

Yup or replacing whatever is bent. Caster is not likely to cause much tire wear unless it is way way out of spec. IF it was WAY out of spec you would likely see a handling difference way before you had any tire wear problems from it and even any handling difference would be minimal until severe caster changes were in place.

 

I appreciate all your responses and always look forward to get insight (Thanks Ted again). I will double check my alignment sheet, and see exactly were i stand. I do not repeat do not want to deal with the dealer at all, and have had a headache thinking about it all day. I will double check the align sheet and give the specific range tonight .

Thanks All

 

another wonderful solution brought to you by the letter S, the letter L, and the member terribleTed!

 

castor on drivers side is 2.9 (out of spec)
castor on passenger is 2.5 (in spec)

1.i do know if the camber bolts i have will correct this
2. The car drives fine
3. Frame shops scare me
4. if i had a bad/bent control arm i belive i would know it (i think)
5.Toe is in spec 0.0 and camber is in spec
6. will the castor get worse, or can i get the opposite side the same spec?

Thanks for the help and based on these last questions if your not tired of me already i will take further action or none at all. ( once again i have not been in an accident or hit anything.

 

I would drive it I think...but it is odd that both sides are at around the upper limit of the caster tolerance. make me wonder if the technician didn't miss measure when he steered the alignment machine to obtain caster readings. If it was mine, if for no other reason than being sure there is an issue (even if it is a small one), I would take it to another alignment shop and have them check/align it again. I would do this simply too see if they measured the caster at the same level. You are only slightly out of tolerance by the measurements you have and likely can drive it with no adverse effect, but, tolerances are made for a reason and for best performance of the suspension the measurements should be within the range and ideally at the recommended measurement of 1.75 degrees in this case. I bet that there was a measuring error...but the only way to find out for sure is to do it again on a different machine and see if the numbers duplicate. If they do duplicate and nothing otherwise appears wrong I would just drive it and pay attention to tire wear and handling as I did (which we all should do anyway) and only chase the issue further if I saw reason.

Caster angle is essentially built into the car. It is not adjustable by design. You could adjust it possibly if there is some movement at the top of the struts where they mount to the body with the 3 12mm head sliver bolts. Elongating the holes here would allow a bit more adjustment.

Have the struts been out before? (there is a very slight amount of movement at the top of the factory struts...a very little adjustment) Are they replacment struts?? If so do they possibly have smaller shanked bolts on them at the top? (this would allow movement and depending where they were tightened down could result in a variation in caster measurement).

 

Thank You

 

I took you advice ted and went for a seconf oppinion. I went to best frame shop which my neighbor works at and they measured distance between ball joints, engine craddle, everything on the frame rack and with the trim guage. Their measurements came out to have nothing to do with the frame, tie rods, control arms, but the fact that the camber bolts that are in my tokico structs are maxed out. The hole in the struts are not deep enough to give anymone camber adjustment. The castor is not out, the camber on the driver side is. The recommendation was to get cusco camber plates (done) and i bought 2 same manufacture tires due to the fact that the front were differnt brand( same size). The front were my spares, i had a nail thru the side wall of one of the previous ones and was in a bind so i had to buy 2 new different brand tires. A replacement tire of the same brand was not in stock and i was stuck. So i guess that all those alignments were not measured equal after all.

 

Hmmm you said the Caster was out thats what was odd. Camber being out after a strut change with aftermarket struts is apparantly common tho. Mine was not is spec after installing my Airlift Air struts either. We were able to get enough adjustment with a smaller bolt allowing a little movement in the bottom strut hole, cost about $4 for some good grade 8 hardware from the nearby hardware store. (Camber adjusting bolts from the dealer are simply bolts that are smaller diameter where they pass thru the lower strut mounting holes.)

 

yea, alignment shop said castor was out, frame shop measurements from ball joints and trim guage say castor is even on both sides (not out) and frame and suspension components are good. I belive that i have simply had wrong alignment measurements, and not enough camber adjustment

 

That ^^^^ makes sense!!