Hey all, Planning to replace front with new tires (2011 Prius mod 3) but I understand it’s always a good idea to do a wheel alignment; considering our cars are FWD, the only alignment’s required are the front wheel alignment, correct? If they say they want to do an all wheel alignment, these guys are trying to scam me, correct? Since our cars are FWD and not AWD which makes alignment in the rear as unnecessary or impossible. Thx in advance.
No our cars get a four-wheel alignment there is a rear suspension so you want your rear suspension to put the wheels on the road to kind of match up with the fronts a little bit That's why we have adjustments all the way around the car they're not ripping you off to put the four heads on the wheels to make sure everything is relatively straight The difference today between a four-wheel alignment and a two-wheel is that most places don't do just the two wheel alignment maybe on a solid axle truck and even then there are shims and things that can go back there to correct things that aren't so correct but if you don't know they're not correct then you just settle for the premature tire wear and the wear of parts as they come so in some ways ignorance could be somewhat bliss You know what I mean.. as long as you're good with that no problem . Things do get pounded out on the pavement that is a fact. But if you feel people are ripping you off just out the gate maybe your suspect of certain types of people like folks that work on things or maybe you need to go to another place and see if you meet more like same type folks or something something personally is making you think that people are just ripping you off and you might want to get a handle on that before you go out shopping for car work possibly.
Each car can be different. My first question is are all four tire wearing correctly? The rear can be adjusted using shims, yet I understand most dealerships are hesitant to use shims. If the rears are wearing correctly, sure, you could skip the 4 wheel aspect of an alignment. But, one betterment of a four wheel is that this will align the tracking of your fronts to rears. A 4 wheel normally gives you a print out of the before specs, which may help you make a decision. So the question remains are the tires wearing correctly and is the steering wheel centered? I could also ask, what is the price difference? 4 vs 2 is not necessarily a scam IMO. Again each car can be different. FWIW If I was going the alignment myself, I would do a 4 wheel, yet I do not have the "rack" and for long-term tire life (40K mileage) I am not inclined to use the good ole string, level, and ruler system. If having a shop do it, again the answer is based on tire wear, but I would be inclined to 4 wheel solely on the tracking alignment. All FWIW Good luck.
I think the only thing readily adjustable is front toe-in? Front camber (or caster) is adjustable by sub'ing special bolts Toyota supplies. Rear camber is somewhat adjustable, if you remove the bearings and install special tapered shims. Bottom line: no alignment place is going to do any more than measure and report, and maybe adjust the front toe. See attached. Addendum: Regarding: What is it you're doing? I assumed front wheel bearings or suspension components, at first read. Are you just replacing some tires??
The alignment places I fool around with are generally frame shops they have good alignment tables and people that know how to operate them putting camber bolts or crash bolts into a strut system is actually quite easy and gives you some range of adjustment where things could be slightly bent that you don't want to spend a whole lot of money on the frame shop trying to straighten I used to use crash bolts on autocross cars to get better camera adjustment for slide through the cones quicker before crash bolts they used to bend the camber in albeit very carefully .
Caster can be adjusted by lowering/loosening the subframe, and using SST alignment pin(s) to correct the placement. (Or if you’re brave enough eyeball it like I did because I was too impatient to order the “backordered” tool).
