Alignment toe bolts

[Dodaman]

Good morning, I have an online question for all your experts out there. Please forgive me. I get the gist of an alignment, but never really paid attention.

Few months back, I went into my alignment shop I use and had my A4 Quattro looked at. (I was getting ready to get new tires ) He told me that my rear lower toe bolts were all the way in and I would need new ones because he couldn’t do anything else with them to help with the alignment.

He did show them to me. But that didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I went out and sourced these toe bolts and found them but they’re the same length.

So what good is it going to do to get the same length bolt if the ones I have in there now are already bottomed out and can’t do anything else to help my alignment.

Thanks for helping me understand appreciate it

Have a good weekend




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[egovreau]

Wheel toe is generally addressed by adjusting the tie rod ends.

It generally involves loosing a jam nut, then turning the connector in the center to shorten or lengthen the tie rod ends.

I'm guess the guy was planning on charging you a bunch of money not to do an alignment. For some reason tire shops that also do alignments like to do this. I've never had this happen with tire shops that don't do alignments.

Or, for that matter, repair shops who sell tires that also don't do alignments.

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[Dodaman]

Wheel toe is generally addressed by adjusting the tie rod ends.

It generally involves loosing a jam nut, then turning the connector in the center to shorten or lengthen the tie rod ends.

I'm guess the guy was planning on charging you a bunch of money not to do an alignment. For some reason tire shops that also do alignments like to do this. I've never had this happen with tire shops that don't do alignments.

Or, for that matter, repair shops who sell tires that also don't do alignments.

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I see what you’re saying about the tie rod ends. I’ve seen that done. These guys are straight shooters. I know the owner. They’re not trying to rip me off in any way. This is an eccentric bolt. Has that oblong turning. So if I remember correctly, cause it’s been a while, you turn it and it pushes or moves to make the adjustment? I’m not exactly sure how it works. 100% but it is involved with the alignment of the rear end and apparently is critical according to other things I’ve read.

I just don’t understand how a new bolt is gonna make a difference if it’s the same size because the thing screws in and bottoms out at a certain length. Then the new boat screwing all the way and bottom out because it’s the same length but maybe I misunderstanding something.




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[VinnysS4]

It's not the bolt length, rather the eccentric portion of the bolt head. Without a picture of the bolt head on the car its hard to say, but if I had to guess, the bolt is sized. It's very common. There was probably nothing he could do without having new bolts on hand to replace the destroyed bolt(due to removal). That or it had been adjusted enough to remove some material from the eccentric portion of the head. Its like a cam lobe. If you wear down the lobe, even a tiny bit, the valves won't open properly. If the head is worn down, it won't allow enough toe adjustment.
I'm just speculating, but if I had to guess that would be why

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[Dodaman]

No, I appreciate that. Thank you. I didn’t think of it as a size of the actual lobe, I thought of it as length. He might’ve been mistaken with how he said it cause he said it was not long enough, but he might’ve been referring to the actual angle of the lobe, and I didn’t know enough to ask that. All right, so what the hell I’m just gonna get new bolts and go from there with new tires and bring them in. All right, thank you


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