Alignment issues?

You should most certainly get a front (and rear as well) wheel alignment to standard specifications at your earliest convenience.
The technician should also check for any damaged, bent or worn suspension components before the alignment procedure.

 

You might have the wheel alignment checked the next time you rotate the tires. Ask for a printout of the values including the 'tread depth.'

As a general rule, they will do the front toe alignment with the alignment check. However, front camber and rear wheel alignment and camber are much harder and from a dealer, expensive.

If you'll bring the results back here and post them, we can offer some suggestions. But first get a hard copy of the alignment report.

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson

 

Alignment and Zero Point Calibration of the steering

 

For what it's worth, your experience is exactly the same as mine (except my lousy dealer didn't give me a print out even though I had asked for it several times).

Looking forward to knowledgeable people's reading of your print out.

 

Regarding the traction control light coming on, what is the tread depth of your front tires? If they are getting worn, expect to see the light come on especially when it starts raining in your area.

Regarding the alignment, basically the dealer aligned the front wheels and the end result looks good - a slight positive toe-in and the camber is fine.

Prior to the alignment, you had a slight negative toe-in. One analogy is to think of trying to snow ski with your ski tips pointed out - how hard would it be to maintain control under those conditions.

The rear wheels were left unchanged since the Toyota dealer cannot adjust the rear. Total toe-in is 0.21" which is near the max spec of 0.27". This means that your car should track very stably, but mpg would be slightly improved if shims were used to bring toe-in closer to zero.

 

If you are picky, then you may find an independent alignment shop that will use shims to adjust the rear suspension toe-in to close to zero; this may cost $100 or so.

Otherwise, you can be happy with your alignment as-is.

 

We were burning tires up, yes they were the integrities, and we got a new set at N/C, but it continues. We just put a set of Good year Comfort treads (80K warranty) on, on Tues. and had them do an alignment ($150 at the Goodyear shop,) and found the RR was off 1/4". They had to order the shims, so we are back today.

19K miles and a 3rd set of tires, but we kept the 2nd set for summer. Hopefully this will solve the tire wear issue.

Spendy, but we've always had good luck there, plus we get free rotation for life.

I will scan and post the report when it's all done.

 

seriously, i don't understand why toe is in inches.

saechaka, your chances of finding someone who can/will adjust rear toe on a prius are slim. it's in spec, if you're tires are wearing ok, don't worry about it too much.

 

Everyone pretty well covered the major bases. But understand, I do my own maintenance and am a little 'anal' about alignment. So take this as from someone who may be a little ... compulsive:

• Front right camber - I would get the correction bolt ordered and bring it in under -0.50 degrees
• Rear camber, both - AAAGGGGHHHH!!!!! I would get a shim kit and bring them to -0.50 degrees
• Rear toe, both - UGGGHHHSSS!!! The shim kit can bring those to 0.0 or just slightly positive but under 0.05 degrees

The problem is finding someone who will do this. Since I bought a life-time warranty and can do my own, it is not a big deal. But it gets a little ... tricky explaining how to do it. BTW, I am having more success with the EZ SHIM now that I've destroyed a couple. It has to do with understanding the term "correction value".

GOOD LUCK!
Bob Wilson

 

Here it is
The 1st one (with color) is from Tuesday, with no work done.

The 2nd one is from Thursday, with the shim added.

Notice the difference on both "Before". I guess the question is, can the alignment vary that much in 2 days and 250 miles, or was it an operator error?

 

If they added toe shims to one of the real wheels, it looks about right:

3/32 < 1/8 (4/32) - left rear toe change
1/32 < 5/32 - right rear toe change

The data suggests it was the right rear wheel they added the shim. Now it is possible to reduce the rear camber by putting shims in on the opposite wheel. I did but I'm anal about such things.

Your front wheels look pretty good for toe but I bought the camber bolts and reduced mine, closer to zero.

Of the two, toe is the most important. Camber can cause edge wear but not as bad as toe. You can correct camber wear by flipping sides IF YOUR TIRES HAVE NO ROTATIONAL BIAS. Some tires are only supposed to turn in one direction.

Otherwise, you're better than before. Camber could be taken out in the front and rear but you're getting into the range I like to run.

GOOD DEAL!
Bob Wilson

 

I hate to break up the flow of a good alignment discussion (so please continue), but I would like to add the following for the original poster's consideration: with 125,000+ miles I doubt the shocks are any good anymore. In my vehicles I tend to need new ones every 50k. This might be having some impact on the cornering performance as a worn shock will have trouble keeping the rubber on the road during aggressive cornering so it doesn't surprise me that the traction control would respond if the shocks are worn.

I do my shocks/struts in sets of four and go for aftermarket performance types, but my Prius is so new that it will be many miles before I anticipate doing this. In my experience the front struts in passenger cars have gone out first so if I was looking for the greatest impact and only doing two, those are the ones to target.

There is a "corner test" to try where you push down on each corner of your car and release. The idea is that it should spring back without large overshoot or jiggling. On the heavier front end I've found the test unreliable (clearly blown shocks that didn't work at all when off the vehicle didn't look that bad in the test), while the rear is sensitive to the test. Considering that the opposite corner is also participating in the test (even though it is not apparent, remember the axis the car is pivoting about--down on one corner means the other corner is getting some load as well) I guess the results are not surprising.

Also, I would expect the right side to lose traction more easily as there is less weight over there (no driver). Because of the weight distribution difference, as the body rolls in a right hand corner the right tire is going to be less loaded than the left would be for the same lateral load in a left hand turn. That's my layman's take on it, but a racer might correct me if I have it all fouled up.

 

Just wondering, did they have to make a right turn to get on the alignment rack??