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Originally Posted by svo supporter
Now that's an interesting piece you've written there. I'll attempt to explain why.
14MM toe in on the rear and the car was driving straight as a die? If you think about it, if the right rear was looking inwards 14MM as you look from the front of the car, the back of the car would have been pushed across to the left, which then transfers to a car drifting right. Those who understand alignments would know about this.
Your original posting saying the car was driving straight was obviously wrong, or you misread the car. That sort of toe would be very noticeable with the drivability of the car.
Secondly. Placement of alignment tool couldn't be the cause. Mate, that's the biggest mistake you could ever make. The alignment tool placed on the wheel is the most important thing to doing an alignment there is. If that's not sitting square and straight, no matter what adjustments you do, it's doomed to stuff things up. So, that's struck off the list straight away.
That tool must sit straight and square. If you ever get a chance while your car is being aligned, grab that tool, whilst you have the adjustment screen up and move one edge and watch how the toe or camber changes. Then you'll understand what I'm referring too.
How it ever came to have the figures shown is beyond me, or even how you failed to notice the car drifting quite hard off to the right. Were you actually watching while the whole job was done? This might explain a little bit.
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I have driven this car almost every weekend over the last year on a 180Km return trip to the Mornington Peninsula on freeways and open roads (100K/h). I can only say that it drove as straight as a die although I agree that this should not be the case. I know that this seems impossible but I have for the last 25 years bought a new (work) car every year and they have never sat on the road so well, hands on or off the wheel.
I was fortunate to find a service manager who allowed me to watch the alignment process closely and was very happy to explain what they found. He explained that the alignment would be expected to be within 1 mm and preferably adjusted to about 0.5 mm. He said that the measurement was made across the 17 inch rim face.
Therfore, if you are attempting to adjust the alignment within 0.5 mm the positioning of the tool on the rim face is very important. However, the fact that the alignment was out by 14 mm means that the tool would have to be falling off to be sitting out from the face of the rim by this amount and to have caused the error in alignment. Hence my statement that the placement of the tool could not be the fault for this large error.
So I don't know where I'm at now, as my wife has just reported that the car (with perfect alignment?) is now pulling to the left on the freeway. I'm yet to check this myself.