Toe in will eat your tires

[nick]

The other day I happened to have the front wheels turned as I approached the car. This allowed me a good view of the tread condition. I was surprised to see both front tires had significant wear on the outsides after only 4,000. Miles. I thought, uh-oh, it's time for an alignment.

I have done significant work to the front and knew that my home alignment was not perfect. The toe range in degrees should be 0 to 0.14. Mine were sitting at toe-in 0.95 and 1.02. They have been reset to 0.07.

Moral of the story is after doing front end work, spend the money for an alignment or spend it for new tires. The alignment is cheaper.


nick
'79 TR7

[FI Spyder]

I did my own alignment using string. No discernible tire wear after 12,000 miles.



- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT

[nick]

String is how I tried to do mine. I checked it with string prior to having the alignment done by the shop and it looked good. I think the problem is that the toe numbers are so small that the string method is not accurate enough. But I can't knock your success.


nick
'79 TR7

[FI Spyder]

It might have been coincidence, don't know. As the wear is good I've never bothered to take it in for an alignment to see how close I was.

You have to calculate in the different width of front and rear.


- - -TR7 Spider - - - 1978 Spitfire- - - - 1976 Spitfire - - 1988 Tercel 4X4 - Kali on Integra - 1991 Integra - Yellow TCT