Dealer Alignment Question

No it's not OK. Rear wheel alignment on Prii is frequently not very good and it can be corrected.

Toyota's official position is that it isn't adjustable. But, it can be adjusted with aftermarket shims. There are good quality shims and bad quality shims. Read through this thread and find out which shims The Critic found to be bad.
Rear Alignment Shim and Hub Bolt Torque | PriusChat

 

I think they are but verify. PM The Critic, he's helpful.

 

How long have you been driving the car? If it's been that long another couple days isn't going to hurt.

 

You aren't far enough out to need to do anything in the next few days.

The way the Prius twist beam rear axle is designed and installed in rubber mounts, the rear axle total toe will remain the same until you change something. Yours is barely in spec, but it's in spec. The individual left and right rear toe measurements will vary depending on how the car is driven on the alignment rack. You don't really need to do anything to the rear toe, although if you cut it down to about 1/2 the spec (.24 degrees total toe), your tire life will be a bit better.

I don't think you small amount out of spec on left camber is going to hurt anything. If it was too much camber instead of too little, then you would be getting worse tire life.

If you decide to have some work done, an hours labor per side sounds fair as long as the recheck alignment after they are done.

 

Thrust angle is the angle the rear axle is off of straight ahead, in your case 0.1 degrees to the left. That's pretty good. If you drove the car off and back on the alignment rack, a Prius or other car with the same rear axle setup could easily vary more than 0.1 degres each time you moved the car.

Steer ahead is similar to thrust angle but for the front wheels. That is controlled by the combined left and right toe in adjustments and is a quick and easy adjustment. It is to make the car go straight when the steering wheel is straight. If the steering wheel seemed straight to you when you were driving in a straight line, then you can ignore the fact that they measured it to be a little out of spec.

 

How did the old tires look? Were the warn unevenly?

 

You front total toe is well within spec, so if your steering wheel looks like it is straight ahead while your car is going straight ahead, then the front is OK. If the steering wheel is clocked one way or the other while you are going straight down the road, then get the front adjusted.

I can't get too excited about the amount the drivers rear camber is out of spec. If there aren't any handling problems and your tires are wearing evenly, then you could just declare victory and accept it as is.

 

If it was my car, I would probably put one shim on the RR corner to reduce the toe by 0.25 deg, and reduce the camber by 0.5. However, this is not entirely necessary, since the torsion beam uses toe-correction bushings. Because the rear torsion beam uses toe-correction bushings, the toe is constantly changing. In fact, the difference in the side-to-side readings may in part be due to the tech not centering the beam before driving it onto the alignment rack. Regardless, because of the "floating" nature of the torsion beam, the total toe is what counts and yours is well within specs.

So if you want, do the shim for the RR, but the tires should still wear acceptably after a normal thrust-angle alignment.

 

That is the reason I suggested you leave the front alignment alone unless your steering wheel was already noticeably off.

Take it back, there is no excuse for that. Be sure they give you front toe readings after they correct the steering wheel position because it is corrected by adjusting the left and right toe adjustments. They should have road tested the car and caught that.

What did you have done to the rear and did they give you an after alignment readout?

Congratulations on your car driving straight as an arrow. Is there an obvious improvement? Do you have the after alignment numbers to share with us?

 

Be sure that a zero point calibration was done after the alignment.

The shop should have a Hunter Codelink module that is attached to their Hunter alignment rack. Be sure that they do not skip any steps in the process, such as disconnecting the 12v battery when prompted to.

They'll always claim that minor adjustments do not require recalibration but don't buy into that.


iPhone ?