Alignment question after new tires

Toyota does not have a procedure or parts to adjust the rear suspension alignment other than installing new parts and hoping they are better. The rear camber and toe can be adjusted but requires some special tapered shims that are not available through Toyota. You would either need to do the rear yourself or find a good alignment shop, most regular high volume alignment shops will also tell you the rear is not adjustable.

Odds are your dealer will only adjust the front toe because adjusting the front camber requires some different Toyota supplied bolts and it seems like some dealers either don't know about them or don't want to bother with them.

 

Limited camber adjustment can be achieved with the existing strut bolts. If more is required, then special bolts can be installed.

 

Sears is correct - most all places do not set the rear camber and toe. They will measure it, however, to check that it's in spec. It's nice they told you a fair price though. Most places would charge you the full $50-80 and never tell you they didn't align the rear.

The good news is that the rear specs have a much wider acceptable range than the front. So it's very rare that you'll even need anythinf adjusted there. Even after I lowered my car my rear toe and camber was in spec, thank god!

As for the camber being adjustable without a camber kit: That's definitely true, but most typical tire shops like Sears, Firestone, etc won't adjust that for you, even if you tell them the procedure. You'll probably need to go to a custom alignment shop for that, or the Toyota dealership, who I hate fussing with.

 

Hopefully yes, good price and better than nothing certainly. Be sure to have them show you the printout of the readings before and after. Even if nothing can be done for the rear I'd still prefer to see how it measured. If they won't even measure and report then maybe consider a full service tire shop instead.

- D

 

Many vehicles cannot be aligned in the rear, and this is a pretty common situation. As previously mentioned, they can measure it, but they usually can't do anything about it other than replace some suspension parts and hope it works. There often aren't any parts that can actually be truly adjusted on the rear of many vehicles, thus no adjustment (e.g. alignment) is possible.

 

The bad news is that the rear alignment specs are sloppy so they have an out when rear wheel alignment is checked. It's common on cars with cheap rear suspension.

 

Hmm yeah. My point was that a rear toe of .35 is within acceptable range, whereas even .1 would be out of spec for front toe.

 

My point was that the rear spec is sloppy for the convenience of Toyota, not because it's a good spec. There is no good news there. Most cars with the form of inexpensive rear suspension that the Prius uses are in the same boat.

What makes is worse is that Toyota tells us that it isn't adjustable when it is adjustable with inexpensive aftermarket parts.

 

Haha ok I gotcha. The thing is, if it's good enough for Toyota, it's good enough for me!

If it really bugs you, you could always go to frame shop and they could tweak it for you.

 

It's on my to-do list. I'll do it myself.:rockon: