Tyre tracking

Holy Cow!
...And I guess that's assuming some plonker hasn't had the steering wheel off and put it back on on the wrong spline :lol:

We had one in our Subaru dealership today.
Customer has a Legacy diesel and usually takes it to his local small garage.
He had a small incident last winter and bounced it off a kerb.
Local garage checked it, replaced the bottom suspension arm and adjusted the tracking. Was ok for a few days then began pulling left. The garage checked and adjusted the tracking again. Then again and again. Eventually, they told him to take it to the dealer as they had tried everything they could to make it drive straight.
My colleague stuck it up in the air to do a quick visual check as someone else was using the alignment stuff...



and found the passenger rear brake caliper sticking! First time the local garage set the tracking they problably set it correctly but when the caliper started to stick and it began pulling left they tried to correct it by knocking the wheel alignment off to make the car pull right.
Quick strip and clean of the rear brakes then reset the tracking and the car is perfect!

Why is this relevant? Because Jimnys are prone to sticking slides in the front brake calipers! Perhaps something to check if your jimny starts pulling to the side, especially if you have'nt hit it off anything.

Weirdly the sticking sliders on mine gave me the 'apparent' symptom of warped discs rather than pulling to one side

Hi all, 

I just got new tires (bfg's) and did alignment. 

It now pulls to the right and the shop closed so I'll go back tomorrow. 

However when they were doing the alignment, I saw they set it to the old model (gen 3) and not Gen 4 for the alignment specs, as they don't have the new specs yet (what they told me). 

Will that make a difference? Are the alignment specs the same for both models? 


Cheers 

When a workshop carries out a 4 wheel check they are measuring the various dimensions that make up the suspension geometry. As the rear axle is a fixed unit - no steering components - the only measurement is wheelbase and maybe track.

On the front they will check castor angle. This is a fixed figure that can be altered but not adjusted. Tracking can be adjusted and is one of the causes of unusual tyre wear. Also remember that road camber can cause a motor to wander towards the kerb.

Roger

Chalky the Jimny wrote: Hi all, 

I just got new tires (bfg's) and did alignment. 

It now pulls to the right and the shop closed so I'll go back tomorrow. 

However when they were doing the alignment, I saw they set it to the old model (gen 3) and not Gen 4 for the alignment specs, as they don't have the new specs yet (what they told me). 

Will that make a difference? Are the alignment specs the same for both models? 


Cheers 

Did you get this sorted out?