I feel like a wee bit of a moron today...

I had my car aligned after some suspension work. I took the car to a fellw I used a while back because it was convenient. The car was an absolute handling nightmare. When I told him he said we aligned it to Mini's specs.

I am accustomed to working with fractions of an inch with regard to toe only and if I translate what the tech told me the specs are about 1/16" toe out up front - per wheel - and 1/4" toe out rear - per wheel.

The car exhibits wicked turn-in, as should be expected but incredible instability and rear bump steer especially at highway speeds.

When I changed the rear trailing arm bushings and inner and outer tie rods a week ago I set the alignment and it felt pretty good.

I set toe with a tape measure and rear toe was -.30 left and right. The tech set rear toe to .20 and said this is toe out...I asked why on earth would anyone set up a production car with toe out front and rear? This is inherently unstable...in any event, the difference between the two looks to be about a 1/2"...?

What ever my numbers mean, the car was quite stable going down the road but lacked that wickedly fast almost nervous turn-in feel.

So, am I screwed up? I thought a negative sign in front of the front wheel meant toe out and a negative sign in front of the rear toe value meant toe in... ???

 

Not screwed, but you need to get the car aligned correctly, now!

Just tell your alignment guy you want 1/16 toe out front (total) and 0 in the rear.

 

I thought that a negative toe number was Toe-Out for the front or rear.

 

Well his before spec was -.30 and after was .20 and after was DEFINATELY very spooky...the back end rear steered over every bump and in the turns it was very close to swapping ends a few times.

Greg...a hair toe in up front and a hair more than that in the rear...I drive 100 miles everyday on a straight and boring highway...otherwise I'm with you!

I asked for as little toe in up front with being zero and a little more than that in the rear...we'll see how that feels and what his machine calls those numbers...

 

When we raced Hondas in Firehawk we always had 1/16 out in the front and 1/16 in in the rear.

 

And i personally like that...a little toe in in the rear is a good thing.

So to the question, now that I just got the car back from its 3rd alignment in two weeks.

The car feels like a rock now... front toe -.15 and rear -.30 both are negative numbers...but according to the tech, mini specs toe out for both front and rear .15 front toe and .20 rear toe

17" BBS wheels 205/45/17 - a stock size that shopuld correlate to the rolling circumference of every other stock tire.

I cannot imagine that mine specs toe out front and rear...the car was absolutely unstable! I have to dig up infor about degrees and inches so i can translate what .15 and .30 deg toe out is.

 

The alignment spec that someone posted for the GP, that was supposedly supplied by Mini USA, was:
Front Total Toe: 0.22 - 0.38 (0.30 +/- 0.08) "Toe-In"
Rear Total Toe: 0.27 - 0.53 (0.40 +/- 0.13) "Toe-In"

Figuring that your 205/45x17 tire has a diameter of 24.26":
1/16 total toe out would be about -0.15 degrees.

 

Okay, now we are cooking with hot oil

So 1/16" equates to -.15 deg toe out...the tech is telling me that mini is specifying toe out front and rear??? The rear spec - in the middle - is -.20 deg. So it's no wonder that the car was really nervous and somewhat uncontrollable.

I asked him to reverse the signs and re-align the car. So I have about 1/16" toe in up front and about 1/8" toe in rear...I'll shave a little off each of those next time...three alignments in two weeks $418.00 I coulda almost bought those Koni shocks...

Thanks for verifying quickmini

 

So what do you think of the Koni shocks? And what springs are you running?

 

I don't have koni shocks...but as I wrote, I could of made a big dent in the purchase of a set given the cost of three alignments...

JCW springs in the car now...JCW shocks have poor rebound control

 

You should have just brought the car to me Michael and I would have had it set up sweet, with corner balancing.

 

Greg,

I think you know I trust you! But you also know this car is still owned by the company...I paid for two of these alignments. This should have been very simple...I asked for a basic mini spec four wheel alignment and what I got was horrible...first guy never bothered to adjust rear toe - and still charged $188.00 - and the next guy had his values - negative and positive backward.

As you can imagine, driving a mini with 1/16" toe out front and nearly 3/16" toe out rear is a handfull!

 

Sounds like you need to be demanding a refund... And find another shop, b/c $188 for an alignment is outrageous !!

 

What's amusing is the variability between shop's 'factory specs'.

One says .10 deg toe in up front and .30 toe in back...another says .15 toe out up front and .20 toe out back...as different as night and day.

I had to really scratch my head and ask myself what I've been doing my whole life...turns out they are both wrong.

My fualt though since I simply asked for a factory spec alignment...dumb me for expecting all the specs to be identical...and to factory spec.

.10 deg toe in front and .20 deg toe in rear is perfect especially for a car with a wider than normal track.

 

I forgot if i said it before, but screw "factory spec."

The shop could have the wrong (or a completely fabricated) factory spec, they could do the alignment wrong, or the factory spec could just suck. All 3 of these possibilities are much more likely than everything working out perfectly when dealing with most shops.

There's gotta be a better shop near you. For me, I give my shop some numbers, they get me those exact numbers. And it's only 99 bucks!

- Andrew

 

There is a shop within walking distance of my house...most folks have had great luck. I went there a couple of years ago and asked for an alignment and gave the guy my specs - I was very nice - and he threw them at me and asked me to leave???

My options are absolutely horrid!!! Another shop, full of very young folks, performed a really poor alignment...when I got under the car I noticed they used vise grips on the inner tie rods...chewed them up pretty good along with a hole in the boot. I mean seriously, how dificult is this?

Too many machines being operated by young and poorly trained folks who have no feel for a car. I'm nor suggesting I know it all, but at 52 years of age I've seen enough to tell the difference between a good and bad alignment...or what makes up a good and bad alignment.