I am going to be getting an alignment here in the next few days, but I've been doing some searching on the boards and I just have more questions now, then I did before.

I originally had the non-sport suspension on my 98.5 a4 and I put Tein Super Street Coilovers on my car nearly a year ago (9 or 10 months). The drop was pretty significant considering how high the non-sport suspension is. The other day I noticed bthat my back tires are pretty much slicks. The fronts still have a good amount of rubber on them though. I know I was supposed to get an alignment after doing the initial drop, but I didn't because the car didn't pull at nor did it have a visible camber issue, but it is apparent that there is one.

My question is - will a simple alignment be able to resolve this issue or do you think I will need to get the camber adjusted and so forth? I am getting four new tires this weekend, after I roll the fenders and I don't want to blow through this new set. For those that have lowered a4's - when you lowered yours - was an alignment all you needed?

Thanks

 

the camber is somewhat adjustable in the rear
but completly un adjustable in the front, the only thing you can do is get them to shift the subframe in the front to even the adjustments up paralell

the wear on your tires will unlitmatly be dictated by your ride height

 

So should I go to a cheap alignment place, or am I better off going to the dealership?

 

So I was planning on taking my car to the shop on Saturday but as I was driving to work today, the rear passenger tire started to shred while on the freeway. Luckily, there was no damage to the wheel and I got the car to Big O Tires safely. So I decided to just get new tires and an alignment from them instead of going to the dealership. Here is what they did.....and didn't do -
FRONT LEFT TIRE:
Camber -
Specified range: -1.0 -.2 degrees
before: -1.8 degrees
After: -1.9 degrees
Toe-
Specified range: .08 .25 degrees
before: -.12 degrees
after: .22 degrees

FRONT RIGHT TIRE
Camber-
Specified range: -1.0 -.2 degrees
before: -1.5 degrees
after: -1.6 degrees
Toe-
Specified range: .05 .22 degrees
before: .33 degrees
after: .18 degrees

REAR RIGHT-
Camber -
Specified range: -1.2 -.2 degrees
before: -1.6 degrees
after: -1.6 degrees
Toe-
Specified range: .05 .22
before: .17 degrees
after: .21 degrees

REAR
Cross Camber-
Specified range: -.5 .5 degrees
before: .1 degrees
after: .0 degrees
Total Toe-
Specified range: .10 .43 degrees
before: .50 degrees
after: .39 degrees

REAR LEFT-
Camber-
Specified range: -1.2 -.2
before: -1.6 degrees
after: -1.6 degrees
Toe -
Specified range:.08 .25 degrees
before: -.08 degrees
after: .20 degrees

FRONT-
Cross Camber -
Specified range: -.05 .05 degrees
before: -.03 degrees
after: -.03 degrees
Total Toe-
Specified range: .17 .50 degrees
before: -.20 degrees
after: .43 degrees

Ok - so red is bad...green is good. How serious is it with the camber being off in the areas that it is? Should i buy a camber kit or can I take it to the stealership to fix the camber? Any other ideas appreciated!!

 

hmm, the people at the big O shop must be lazy because i always get my alignment done at Kost and they always get each corresstire within .02 of each other.

 

So what are you saying? You are telling me they did an unnaceptable job? If so....tell me that because I haven't picked the car up yet...
Also...you are not even lowered....so maybe that explains something...

 

Lowered or not, they should at least be able to get the tires within a small amount of each other, like hiwords was saying. With these cars, there's very little you can do for camber, for example (none in the rear, tiny bit up front), but they should be able to get the alignment measurements for the front tires very close to each other. Ditto that for caster/toe front and rear. If they can't, they shouldn't be aligning cars.

 

Perhaps it is just the layout of how I entered all that info...but the toe alignments are pretty close as hiwords was saying -
Toe -
Front left - .22
Front right- .20

Rear left- .18
Rear right-.21

Total Toe -
front - .43
rear- .39