I'm wondering if someone can give me the specs for toe-in adjustment on a 2011 gen 3 prius. I've got a copy of the manual with it's... well.. odd measurement formula and I'm not going to lie, little league fall baseball has me exhausted and I'm not devoting any brainpower to formulaic thought. (especially since I have a set of Dunlop toe-in gauges hanging in my shop..) So anyone got a spec in MM or Freedom-units? Thanks! myles
I recall from a long-ago thread that their toe-specs are way to lax, although not the specific numbers. As if to confirm, my rear tires show wear from toe-in.
Strange, in the attached Repair Manual excerpt, for Front Toe they say to measure a distance c/c at the rear face of tires (and mark it), then roll the car forward enough to rotate those marks 180 degrees, and measure at the marks again: is it even possible, say to snake a tape measure through?
Yeah, "push the car straight forward 16 feet" for example: I'm pretty sure an alignment shop is not going there. I can't begin to understand it, just make a mental note to stay well clear of curbs. And how the heck would you snake a tape, or a taut string or whatever, clear through, once at the rear "equator" of the tire, then again at the front? Is it doable??
Ok, took a look, and the light dawns: It's definitely NOT possible to directly measure with a tape or string. You need some sort of surveyor's ruler, laid on the slab, with vertical calipers that are able to be slid along it. Or in a pinch: tape measure taped to the floor plus plumb bobs (or squares).
You're not kidding: no measurements, just "make all the measurement, then come up with the angles, and see how they compare to the spec angles. I'll try to reverse engineer it. First, from the manual: The tire has (roughly) an outside diameter of 25", and front wheel "track" of 60" (is that c/c of the front wheels?). Sketching that up (in AutoCad), with the spec'd toe-in angle (12 minutes, each side), I get an overall variation, front versus rear: Long story short: 6/32" overall difference between front and rear, or 3/16". And for the tolerances: zero would minimum, and 3/8" the max. Then you have to fine tune, left side vs right I guess. But just checking the overall would be a start. (Editorial: I just noticed I did the 60 dim while still on the slight skew, after measuring the 25 tire diameter. You can see a slight "step" in the 60 dim. Anyway: those two dims are for reference only, don't really matter.)
Mendel stupid question. Do both tie rods fully adjust? I cant for the life of me loosen the driver side 19mm lock nut, im actually wondering if its "set" from factory and you then adjust the passenger side to spec (ergo the crappy instructions). Im nearly about to bust a snap on wrench trying to get it to move down the threaded portion of the rod. I hate modern cars
I've never touched them, but I see the torque spec is a not insignificant 55 foot pounds. With a few years in the elements, they would get pretty stubborn. Did you pre-soak with some penetrating lubricant? Maybe a jarring force would help, but not sure you do that with box wrenches; give it raps with a hammer? Maybe heat would help too. Did you manage a measurement btw?
I tried doing a measurement, using a tape measure and carpenter's square. I did no rolling the wheel forward through 180 degree, and took the measures not at the tread face, but at the edge protectors on the outside face. The diameter there is 19-3/8". I got 68-7/16" at the back, and 68-5/16" at the front.
I have slightly different tooling. (Pardon the mess) Yes i did, close to what you suggested. These gauges work ok, but i packed it in for the night not wanting to use the hot wrench at this hour. Drove home on the highway life is ok. This week was control arms, drop links, ball joints, drive side cv, next week is passenger and a pcv catch can
Yes, predominantly we do vintage race/passenger cars. My Prius is always eyed with unending suspicion
