Dear Jeepers,

I've got a 2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon and went to do my balance, rotation, and alignment at the local Firestone Auto Care center today. When everything was complete they gave me a printout of the alignment...1 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 2013 Firestone Prinout.pdf2 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 2013 Firestone Prinout.pdf3 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 2013 Firestone Printout.pdf

As you can see from the attached (attachment #1), according to the service agent, they couldn't align the Left Front any more than that (-0.8), resulting in the Camber angle on attachment #2. I asked them why this was the case and they gave me attachment #3 and explained it was because some extra aftermarket parts (MOPAR cam adjustment kit) would be needed to correctly do the alignment.

Has anyone else ever been told this during one of your annual balance, rotation, and alignment check-ups?
It seems strange that an extra kit would be necessary to square the alignment...

Thanks in advance for any responses and thoughts on this...


Morning Hawk

 

JKs are notorious for being out of alignment when factory new. There are only two adjustments on a stock JK: Toe and center steering wheel. 30 minutes in your driveway, simple hand tools, and help of a friend to set yourself. Otherwise, folks just live with them.

Don't pay for a pro alignment because unless you buy aftermarket parts; nothing else is adjustable. But your Jeep will be fine unless you've actually damaged something, bending it way out of shape. Save the alignment rack sheet in case someday you suspect that. Otherwise, ignore it.

http://wayalife.com/showthread.php?3...-End-Alignment

 

Fill in the details of your lift.

For the alignment, Caster and Camber are not adjustable with factory components. (only Toe, and recentering the steering wheel). So as they said, if you want to adjust either of them, you need to buy more parts.

Read enough posts similar to yours and you will find that out of spec camber is not all that uncommon, even straight off the dealers lot. Many report that low camber caused no uneven tire wear or negative effects (depending on how out of spec it is for each jeep). If you choose to correct it, I think offset balljoints are what most people use. Haven't actually read about cam kits for camber?

Low caster causes flighty steering. This is a direct effect of the pinion tilting upwards after adding taller coils or coil spacers. Stock should be around 4.2 degrees, +/- a bit, and looks like you are still in that range. There are several options to adjust it, so if you decide to raise it, do a little reading to see which is right for you.

 

Yours is Camber, it really isn't adjustable(there are some ball joints that are adjustable) on our axles. If it was Caster you could adjust it with Cam Bolts(not recommended) or adjustable control arms. They adjusted your Toe, a pretty easy adjustment for the cash you forked over.

 

Mark,

Thanks for the link. As for the "do-it-yourself" ... this is probably a little over my head in both experience and equipment.
I'll have to find a garage that knows what their doing and that can do this out in Arlington, VA.

 

Other than the alignment rack numbers being "off", do you have a specific complaint with your front end? If not, you should be good. Firestone set your toe and centered your steering wheel. There is nothing anyone else can do unless you want to buy parts. And if you have no complaint, then don't do that.

 

Mark,

No, I don't have any real complaints. Alignment has only been a problem once before when I got the "wobbling noise" from poor alignment the first 5-10K miles and my tread pattern on the tires were wearing out every-other knob. That problem has since stopped when I did the first alignment.

However, at some point I'd like to correct the alignment for the front at some point.

 

Since you have that fixed, that's good. While alignment problems can cause uneven tire wear, normally tire cupping is caused by a bad shock absorber. What you described sounds very much like tire cupping (sometimes called scalping). Anyway, keep an eye on it because cupping is a very easy way to ruin an otherwise good set of tires. Rotating can help, but it also hurts because if you have one bad shock, then all tires get their chance to be damaged. Just keep an eye on things.

As for alignments, until/if you modify your Jeep with a lift you really don't need to be concerned with anything beyond checking the toe in angle (use a tape measure) and steering wheel centering (if it's off, it will be obvious to you and your Jeep will let you know by flashing your ESC and TCS lights during turns and removing gas in the most extreme situations--say hitting a Interstate off-ramp curve pretty fast. Otherwise, there really is no need for periodic trips to have your Jeep aligned. If you don't want to rotate your own tires, just ensure that they check the brakes and shocks. They'll be eager to do that because they are hoping to make a sale (Your rear brakes will wear out very fast--don't let them just talk you into rebuilding both axles because the fronts last a long time. Let them prove to you there's a problem.).

And all of the above, BTW, is pretty straightforward shadetree mechanic work. I know some folks aren't interested or just don't have the place or time to do it, but I'd be remiss if I didn't at least make you aware that this is easy work to learn and do yourself.

 

There's nothing to correct. If anything I'd say if you were lucky you'd have -0.9deg camber on both sides, as it can greatly improve cornering traction and reduce understeer with virtually zero downsides on a mostly street driven vehicle. Those recommended factory camber limits are far from ideal, they are just limits of solid-axle suspension designs. It's more like manufacturing tolerances. So basically if you are way off, it may indicate something is bent or damaged.

Here's hoping your tire problem was caused by excessive toe-in. I doubt it, though. What you describe sounds a whole lot more like tire pressure or poor tire balance to me but maybe a tire pressure, tire balance or too low tire pressure was exacerbated by the toe-in and caused accelerated uneven tire wear.

I agree that front end alignment is a cinch on a Jeep in your own driveway since all anyone can adjust is toe (well, and centering the steering wheel, which is basically the same thing). However I would say you really need a solid fixture that fits on the wheel rim to measure toe within the specifications necessary, since you can have a lot more than 1/16" more side-to-side tire sidewall variability.