hunter alignment

[Grale1]

Hi guys this is my print out from the other day, hope you can see it clearly enough, can you shed any light onto weather this is ok or not as it still doesnt feel right it's pulling to the left alot more today but i hit a pot hole pretty hard yesterday and think i need my wheels balanced also now.

Hope someone can give some pointers. Simon

 

[Prawn]

To be honest mate most of that looks good, but your steering wheel hasn't been centred has it?

When you say it pulls left, does it pull left if you let go of the wheel, or just if you hold the wheel straight? You've got toe in on the LHS and toe out on the RHS, so with the wheel held straight it ought to turn right :S

It does say on the left hand side that the wheel isn't straight and toe adjustment is required though!

 

[aragorn]

WTF have they done to the front toe?

Before you started it was running ~20mins toe out, which is a setting thats fairly aggressive, but will provide a car with sharp steering and excellent turn in. Its probably too much for road use though, tending towards some tyre shoulder wear so would probably benefit from being a little less aggressive on a road car.

Afterwards they've got one side at 10mins toe in (a nice safe mumsy setting that will make the steering a bit numb, but should minimise wear) and the other side at 15mins toe out?! Thats a complete mess. Both sides should be at the same setting. Either both toed in for a generic shopping car feel, or both toed out for a more interesting drive.

The rest of the figures look fine. Front Camber is "red" becuase the cars lowred, but the values are good. Caster is a little odd in that theres half a degree difference between the sides, but its not adjustable on an A3 so nowt you can do about that.

I'd be taking it back, and telling them you want it set properly, as all they've done is made it worse. A small amount of Toe out, perhaps between -5 and -10 on each side is probably a good place to go on a road car. I run ~-7 on the A4.

 

[Grale1]

Prawn if I let go of the wheel it pulls left, so I have to hold it of centre to go straight, so when I'm driving in a straight line the bottom of my steering wheel is left of centre if I put it central it will just go to the left, hope that makes sense.

aragon, the first set of figures looks bad as I took there once I had changed the wishbones, ball joints track rod ends and drop links, but to me after they have aligned it, the new figures don't seem like there that much different, I thought everything had to be in green, there seems to be no decent places where I live to get this done properly, now I'm in a dilemma weather to get this readjusted properly or wait as I want to put coilovers on and do the wheel bearing, I just get ****** of with these garages that say they get it " spot on " and it always feels that it will go where it wants to go, never feels tight on the road always feels floaty

 

[s33nyboy12]

WTF have they done to the front toe?

Before you started it was running ~20mins toe out, which is a setting thats fairly aggressive, but will provide a car with sharp steering and excellent turn in. Its probably too much for road use though, tending towards some tyre shoulder wear so would probably benefit from being a little less aggressive on a road car.

Afterwards they've got one side at 10mins toe in (a nice safe mumsy setting that will make the steering a bit numb, but should minimise wear) and the other side at 15mins toe out?! Thats a complete mess. Both sides should be at the same setting. Either both toed in for a generic shopping car feel, or both toed out for a more interesting drive.

The rest of the figures look fine. Front Camber is "red" becuase the cars lowred, but the values are good. Caster is a little odd in that theres half a degree difference between the sides, but its not adjustable on an A3 so nowt you can do about that.

I'd be taking it back, and telling them you want it set properly, as all they've done is made it worse. A small amount of Toe out, perhaps between -5 and -10 on each side is probably a good place to go on a road car. I run ~-7 on the A4.

Have to agree with above, ****** mess IMO . For normal road use and comfortable driving , centre steering and get all in green . I had to change tyres, rear springs, bushes and 2 hunter 4 wheel alignment sessions on mine to get in green running mint and it made a wicked difference. Car felt 5 years younger, not to mention pro long tyre life I also filled tyres nitrogen for even better results.

Sean

 

[vfr800]

If all the suspension components are good then I'd be expecting greens across the board. I let my local indy do mine and it came out spot rollock perfect.

Car felt 5 years younger, not to mention pro long tyre life I also filled tyres nitrogen for even better results.

Really? 100% Nitrogen made a difference. Thought that's only required on extremely high performance setups. I've always been happy with a 78% Nitrogen mixture.

 

[s33nyboy12]

If all the suspension components are good then I'd be expecting greens across the board. I let my local indy do mine and it came out spot rollock perfect.



Really? 100% Nitrogen made a difference. Thought that's only required on extremely high performance setups. I've always been happy with a 78% Nitrogen mixture.

I need to be clearer apologies, I don't know what mix. My friend owns a tyre company and just did it when I had four new Pirelli p zero Nero rosso fitted by him! And I meant mix of all new components and alignment made it feel 5 years younger

Sean

 

[Grale1]

Suspension and wheel bearings are all that's left to try along withe arb bushes, so maybe ill get the bushes and change to coilovers and try and find a decent place

 

[vfr800]

I need to be clearer apologies, I don't know what mix.

I was being cheeky. I meant bog standard air - that you breath - is 80% Nitrogen.

I agree with the new components making a huge difference, when I got mine I replaced/upgraded most of the bushes to poly. Handles lovely!

Liam

 

[aragorn]

You wont get 100% green on a lowered A3 TBH. The camber increases as you lower it, and cant be adjusted out unlike on an S3.

Similarly with the castor.

Toe should be green ofcourse, and the rear being a fixed beam should be green which it is.

 

[Grale1]

I'll be taking it back today hopefully, so I need to get them to do the toe adjustment and centre the steering wheel,

i can see my week off is going to be taken up with getting the car done lol

 

[Grale1]

Had the realignment done today, a little better than it was but I forgot to pick up the new print out, but I can still feel it want to go left, how can I see if I have a binding caliper? As this is where I'm starting to lean towards now and a few of you guys have said about this.

simon