Alignment of a lowered car.

[Nebone]

Took the car to VW. They checked it and called me that my driver side tie-rod is seized and needs to be replaced in order to align the car properly. They want ~$400 for the tie-rod and alignment.

In my opinion:

- Car drives fine, does'nt pull or anything. All I can tell is after like 300 miles driven since, the inner front tires are getting pretty skinny.

[brlukosk]

Took the car to VW. They checked it and called me that my driver side tie-rod is seized and needs to be replaced in order to align the car properly. They want ~$400 for the tie-rod and alignment.

In my opinion:

- Car drives fine, does'nt pull or anything. All I can tell is after like 300 miles driven since, the inner front tires are getting pretty skinny.

I've heard of that before as well. You can replace the tie-rod for a lot less than that. Under $100 if you do it yourself. Alignment should be around $80 at VW. For a while it was $36.99 here for a 4 wheel alingment.

The problem is that your tie-rod has to be either cut out with a torch or un-seized by some other means. Try some PB blaster or somthing at home to get it loose then take it back?

[iin10ded]

hey daft i've had the same experience. my groovy bilsteins are set at max height and they still scrub the inners. toe is dead on [at least according to a fairly reputable wheel /alignment shop].

1more - in not sure what you're doing right that i'm not, but i'm starting to suspect something is generally amiss with my suspension and i'm leaning toward going back to stock sport as it's designed to work on this car.

as another data point a friend with stasis motorsports [also a very well designed system] and a 25.5" fender height has very minimal inner wear. so maybe it's the lowering springs?

and 400 is crazy for a tre and alignment. 1/2 hour with a torch should free it up. or overnight with pbblaster and a LOT of cursing. man i dont miss working on rusty cars AT ALL.

From my experiences on the B5 A4, I've never been able to keep a set of tires for more than 15K miles. The lowered suspension is just too much camber for the inner edges to handle. Honestly the front end is by far the worst. I recall my front camber being in that -1.7 -1.8 region too. Toe is always dead on and it still eats the inner edges like crazy. This is also on a tire with a 400 treadwear rating.

My OEM sport suspension allowed tires to last closer to 20K miles before hitting the wear indicators.

[NoFlyZone]

I'm betting that my alignment will be closer to $200 here in the Bay Area, Ca. My car is lowered using Eibach springs sitting around Koni's set at setting 7- which is pretty hard although the car still rides smoothly.

I have little faith with alignment shops due to that fact that the best alignment I've had was performed by me. This after a complete alignment trashing from a Las Vegas Audi dealer. They set the rear toe ALL THE WAY IN, unbeknown to me until it was too late. The result? Back of my car always seemed to get dirty very quickly and brand new set of Michelin's Pilots bald in 4K miles. Talk about tires fighting each other!

That being said, I'll give that "high" priced Audi specialty shop a try and I WILL eyeball this alignment when they're done.

Problems I've encountered before the Audi stealership incident was scalping on the inner edges. What causes this? It didn't happen on my own alignment but with other alignments I've had in the past, it was common to have my tires wear quickly from this scalping process.

[Nebone]

VW said that I must have ben misinformed and their Alignment fee of $69.95 is just for basic front wheel toe alignment. They said that AWD alignment, and the use of torch to heat parts up etc would run around $200 becuase of the mechanics time. This is ridiculus!

Where can I align my car around RI/MA/CT??

I found full tie rods for $75 and I think I will buy them.

[NoFlyZone]

I found full tie rods for $75 and I think I will buy them.

Nebone22, be patient with the removal of those tie-rods. It was one the hardest jobs I've performed on my Audi. The tie rod end threads are at least 3" long. Start with some spray lube like WD40 or similar to work inside threads. Use that along with a torch if necessary. Use a very good long handled 18mm wrench to start. I started that way and progressed ultimately to a long pipe at the end of my wrench for one side. The other side was worse! Broke my 18mm, screwed up the steering rack captive assembly a bit then ended up using large vice grips, an 18" pipe wrench and a large pipe over that for leverage. It broke like the other with a large SNAP! From there it slowly came loose. Don't mean to scare you and I hop you have much better luck. Maybe 188K miles or hum, more tampering with my shit from that Audi dealership?

I used a healthy amount of anti-sieze compound on the threads when reassembling the tie-rods. Again, good luck

[Nebone]

"Don't fix it if it ain't broke" goes well with this problem. I never had alignment problems and with 115k on the clock, the car never had an alignment. I replaced a steering rack on a MK4 Jetta and removed the tie-rods while whole rack was off the car and that was a pain.

I will take my front wheels of and examine the tires etc. I'm planning to go to Waterfest and that will probably aliminate my side of tires. ~450 miles.

Lets recommend me a shop here that has a SET price and WILL DO IT.

[FisherKing]

I have the same problem......From everything that I have heard , the car needs to go to tha f-ing dealer . I was told that it needs to be strapped down to the allignment rack , with the suspension loaded , b4 they can finish an allignment . Appearently , there are upwards of 15 points of adjustment that have to be made with the suspension under load.....bwt....I am running 1.2 under stock on POS eibach BLO kit .....going to Stasis nxt week

[Nebone]

I took the wheels of and compared fronts to rears. I think I haven't rotated them since I put them on after winter. Fronts look even on both sides (little less on inside). The rears have almost 2x the thread depth. I take corners pretty fast on exit ramps and these tires have ~180 rating if I remember correctly.

I rotated the wheels front to back. I will be down at waterfest and after I get home I will inspect the quality of tires. I hope to see you guys there.

[projectdarka4]

Anybody in the chicago area know of a good alignment price? i called the audi by my house and they want 189 for the quattro alignment.. id be happy spending 150 if i could find a place. 150 sounds fine, but 189 sounds rediculous!!

[Nebone]

I put about 1000 miles on the car since I lowered it. Tires do seem to wear pretty fast on the inner corners. The toe must have changed with the camber since they should not wear this fas.t I'm taking a trip to canada tomorrow after which I will most likely have to get new tires :(. I have a set of sport winter wheels that I wanted to throw on the car for the trip but I don't know if its such a good idea to drive on those on the highway that long. Once I return I am pushing for an alignment.

[Monchichi8]

I need to get my car aligned after lowering it. I never had uneven tire wear with my sport suspension and plan on it staying that way. Alignment shops say that because it is lowered they can't guarantee it from wearing uneven as their own precaution

Is there something I need to tell them (specks to set it to) before they do the job or should I let them do their thing as they would with any other car.

Thanks

Just go to someone that knows how to align audi's!!! spend the extra cash..should be 70 -100 bucks.

[onemoremile]

The key is to be specific in what you want. That takes away all of their objections when you confront them about a shoddy job. It is cheaper to spend a little extra cash on a good alignment than it is to keep trashing tires. You guys killing tires are also losing big time on mileage. It takes a lot of energy to scrub tires against each other and all of that energy came from your gas tank.

[Nebone]

THe key to this is someone that knows how to align audis. No one here seems to be able to do it. VW also said my tie rod is frozen but I keep spraying it with PB Blaster.

[Nebone]

I have done the alignment at True Wheels near Boston, MA. The wheel came out a bit crooked but ever since I put a few thousand miles on the car and tires seem the same. Handling is great and it rolls in a straight line.

[Kyle H]

I'm dropping the car off today at Subaru. It has H&R Race Springs on Bilstein Shocks. Drop is good and no rubbing.

Heres what I'll tell them.

- Set camber to be equal on both sides within speck. (Subframe needs to be shifted to achieve that)
-Set to within speck and within range (both sides slightly + or slighty -)

Camber seems lke it can only be set to one value if set eually on both sides since subframe shifts both sides qually and control arms have no adjustability.

Toe can be adjusted to anything by turning the tie rods and must be within speck, hopefully equal on both sides.

So I'm taking my car in next tuesday to get aligned after I got my coilovers installed and control arms + tre's changed. The tires have already scrubbed A LOT, and the camber is horrible, will there be any problem with aligning it since the tires are so uneven?

They couldn't give me a solid price quote and said that they would just charge me the hourly rate of $90/hr, so I want to make sure they do it right (in a non-asshole-ish way).

Anything else I should tell them? Right now I'm on my stock 15's, and I plan on going up to 17's in the next month or two, so does that make a difference?

Thanks guys.


btw, I'm on STaSIS coilovers @ 25.5" ground to fender in the front, and 25" in the rear.

[Nebone]

With the measurements you took you should be on the safe side and won't kill tires too fast. Your camber will be slightly negative after they align it for you. Since your control arms and TREs are new, there should not be any problems in breaking them loose so thats a money saver. Make sure that camber and toe is even front and back.

[loustylez]

here was mine in spec on 17's and i was about 25" ground to fender

[Kyle H]

Alright sounds easy enough. So they'll give me one of those sheets when I pick it up, correct?

[loustylez]

you should ask for one before you go in. better yet, show them mine and say "this is in spec, make it as close to this as you can."

[Kyle H]

So today I took the car in and they said they couldn't do it. Apparently the car is too off camber, about 2.5-3º off, and there isn't enough room for adjustment to correct it.

What do I do!? Do I need to get adjustable upper control arms? Are the control arms installed wrong? Is the shop just clueless?

[loustylez]

they're probably not aware that you have to shift the subframe or something. i'd say find a new shop. what kind of place are you taking it to now?

i've always been able to get in under -1.8 or so degrees.

[onemoremile]

So today I took the car in and they said they couldn't do it. Apparently the car is too off camber, about 2.5-3º off, and there isn't enough room for adjustment to correct it.

What do I do!? Do I need to get adjustable upper control arms? Are the control arms installed wrong? Is the shop just clueless?

Where did you take it?

Is the camber off on both sides or just one? Is it equally off? How low is your car? You don't need adjustable arms unless your car is lowered to an impractical level.

[loustylez]

negative 2-3 degrees and you'd definitely be able to see the camber by looking at it i would think. either something is broken or this guy doesn't know how to do it. instead of teaching him and sacrificing uneven tire wear later down the road if he doesn't do it right, i'd just find someone who can.

[onemoremile]

See post #38 on page 2 for what that much camber looks like. It is easy to see with the naked eye.

[Kyle H]

Yep, it looks pretty much exactly like that picture. It seems equal on both sides. The front end is 25-1/4" ground to fender, so not too low. Does the camber normally change that much at my height? I changed all of the control arms and tie rod ends at the same time as my coilover installation, so I could have done something wrong.

The place is called All Wheel Alignment. It seems they're the only place in town that has the equipment to align Audis. There's a VW dealership about an hour away, would I have better luck there?

[onemoremile]

If your car is as low as mine was then your handling will suffer anyway. You're halfway through the camber/toe curve which means the suspension's reactions to bumps are all wrong. Lift it up a bit and it will ride better, handle better, be easier to align, and your tires will last a hell of a lot longer.

[Kyle H]

What height would you recommend I shoot for?

[onemoremile]

About a one finger gap. Camber should be around -1.5.

[Tiluleshpingen]

do you guys have any idea why my front fenders deformed i created a thread in tech talk. could the aligment really be the problem?
i mean i didnt have this problem until recently even when i lowered the car at first 2 moths there were no problem, then i stared deforemign the fenders and a result i ruined the front pirellis because the fender was so sharp and it was cutting the tire

[loustylez]

there's no way the fenders got deformed that i can see unless i'm totally missing something. i'd say you're too low for the tires you're running. surely an alignment wouldn't make THAT much of a difference to where one way is rubbing and the other is not.

[Kyle H]

If your car is as low as mine was then your handling will suffer anyway. You're halfway through the camber/toe curve which means the suspension's reactions to bumps are all wrong. Lift it up a bit and it will ride better, handle better, be easier to align, and your tires will last a hell of a lot longer.

I forgot about this thread and have been letting my tires die. I just have a question- my drivers side has ~ -3º camber while the passenger side doesn't look like it has much at all. How could this happen? I'm guessing it's a good thing since now they can just equal it out to ~ -1.5 on both sides, but it's confusing me how it got this way.

[AudiRacerS4]

do you guys have any idea why my front fenders deformed i created a thread in tech talk. could the aligment really be the problem?
i mean i didnt have this problem until recently even when i lowered the car at first 2 moths there were no problem, then i stared deforemign the fenders and a result i ruined the front pirellis because the fender was so sharp and it was cutting the tire

this has nothing to do with an alignment your tires are rubbing on the fenders you need to get them rolled

[loustylez]

I forgot about this thread and have been letting my tires die. I just have a question- my drivers side has ~ -3º camber while the passenger side doesn't look like it has much at all. How could this happen? I'm guessing it's a good thing since now they can just equal it out to ~ -1.5 on both sides, but it's confusing me how it got this way.

where did you have it aligned? if i understand how the subframe works, that seems like they didn't shift it properly, because as far as i know, you're right - it should be able to be equaled out (if the numbers you're providing are correct).

[Tiluleshpingen]

there's no way the fenders got deformed that i can see unless i'm totally missing something. i'd say you're too low for the tires you're running. surely an alignment wouldn't make THAT much of a difference to where one way is rubbing and the other is not.

it has deformed the other side also but the left side is much wors, what you see in the pic(thread in tech talk) is the left side after i pushed back the lip a bit ,well i looked at the tires and the are uneven wear all 4, alot on the front left side

[brlukosk]

this has nothing to do with an alignment your tires are rubbing on the fenders you need to get them rolled

Exactly.

Chances are your wheels dont have the same backspacing as stock, this is causing your wheels/tires to stick out more. This along with lowering the ride height causes the tires to rub the lip of the fender when the shocks/springs compress.

You can either
-raise your car up a bit, (worked for me)
-get your fenders rolled (lip under the fender is pushed flat)

[Kyle H]

where did you have it aligned? if i understand how the subframe works, that seems like they didn't shift it properly, because as far as i know, you're right - it should be able to be equaled out (if the numbers you're providing are correct).

I haven't had them change anything. This is just because I installed coilovers and changed my control arms/tie rod ends.

[Nebone]

Reviving this useful thread. Yesterday my car was aligned first time in two years. During this time, suspension was unchanged (Bilstein Sport + H&R Race), new outer tie rod ends were installed a year and a half ago and driver side wheel bearing was done yesterday.

How does this alignment look? Performed on a Hunter Laser Alignment Rack

[wesleyfbm]

umm im no alignment wiz but it looks better from the green. i know they showed me the sheet after my alignment during the summer and everything was in the green.

where did you go?

[Redg2]

Reviving this useful thread. Yesterday my car was aligned first time in two years. During this time, suspension was unchanged (Bilstein Sport + H&R Race), new outer tie rod ends were installed a year and a half ago and driver side wheel bearing was done yesterday.

How does this alignment look? Performed on a Hunter Laser Alignment Rack

im planning on aligning my car after i lower it soon too, it needs one now anyway so might as well lower it before i align it. but is that what the specs should be around? or should i just give em that info and ask for them to get as close as they can to it?