So got my front lower control arms installed today. Had them do 23 1/8" eye to eye on both sides. Ended up with this for caster:

Left: 5.2 degrees
Right: 5.1 degrees

Based on what I've seen here I requested 1/8" toe-in. The alignment guy thought I as nuts and warned me against it. Told him to do it anyways and I would come back if I hated it. This is what I ended up with:

Left: .21 degrees (.12 is OEM max)
Right: .19 degrees (.12 is OEM max)

On the surface it seems to drive ok but havent done too many miles. Any thoughts on this?

 

Hmph,with those specs your total toe would be .40, almost 1/2in. Your tires are gonna chew up in the front, I know this from experience.

 

Figured as much. Should I be shooting for .12 on each? Might have to try a different alignment shop... Thoughts on my caster?

 

No, shoot for a total toe of somewhere between .10 and .24
That will get you in the ballpark of 1/8 in toe in.
EX.
say .09 on driver
say.09 on passenger
that would give you .18 of total toe

A good alinement shop should understand this and be able to get you there.
Hell, all they have to do is go by the stock freakin specs to get you there.

 

Is there a driveability difference in changes to the toe settings? Meaning, if you have 1/2" instead of 1/4", or even toed out instead of in, will you feel some difference? Or will you only be aware of it after a certain number of miles when you look at the tires?

 

too much toe in can cause some handling issues but more importantly, it'll cause really really bad tire wear. you literally can grind down a new set of tires to being almost bald in a single trip - i have seen it happen more than once. toe out can actually help stablize your jeep and it's usually what i recommend to temporarily help prevent death wobble. however, toe out, even just a little, will definitely cause bad/rapid tire wear and i would not recommend it for an extended period of time. being that a jeep is a rear wheel drive vehicle, you front wheels need to be slightly toe in.

 

This happened to me when I first got my Toyos, within a couple thousand miles I took off about 10,000-15,000m in life of the two tires.

When checked on the alinement machine, I was at .50 total toe-in, hes at .40, he needs to get his toe right quickly.

 

Mine drove fine, maybe it was because they're a 13.50 wide tire it wasn't as noticable. I noticed the tire wear after a vacation trip.

 

Good information. Thanks for posting.

I understand the geometry, the specs, and the process, but rarely get a ride back from the alignment shop with a perfectly centered wheel and tires that don't feather. Seems like it always takes some observation of tire wear and some tweaks of the rod ends to get things centered and the tires wearing correctly.

This is probably the result of minor variances from vehicle to vehicle. The specs get close, but an alignment shop could never make any money spending the time I spend tweaking the toe-in. I used to put up with a lot of off-center steering wheels and tires that wear wrong until I figured this out.

Still, I depend on the alignment shop to give me a front end with correct caster and camber. Wtihout that, tweaking the toe-in won't help much.

 

As far as i know you cannot adjust camber in a jk, cause it has solid axles.