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Mk3 Focus new front tyres and alignment


Gman
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New here and after some advice.

Hit a pot hole over the week end near side and damaged the side wall of the tyre.

So a new tyre was required the car was running budget tyres on the front like this when I got it so thought this would be a good time to get some decent rubber and replace both the front tyres.

Got some Michelin poilt sport 4's fitted , they then told me my alignment was out... I was in two minds to let them do this as it was not my normal tyre garage..

Result car drives worse then before .. firstly the tyres were way over inflated...

Having looked at the paper work it's says before alignment +0.5 and after +1.5 I take it this is the front toe?

I don't know much but I thought FWD cars should have toe out (negative) ?

 

The car now drives very skittish and nervous in a straight line just feels wrong!

I'm booking it in at another garage to have a realignment.

I trust this garage but what sort of toe/ out should I be looking at?

How many miles do new tyres take to bed in ?

Any advice appreciated thanks .

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Welcome to wim :smile_anim:

 

You are correct the static toe should be negative around 10' total so that the dynamic toe is 0. As the car gets older the static toe would be increased toward negative due to the worn bushings.It seems to me their machine is out of calibration meaning they have blindly set the toe to far negative hence the skittish handling.

 

New tyres bed in instantly in the dry and about 500 miles in the wet. This is not due to anything other than the new tyres will under steer and the driver needs time to adjust. 

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Thanks for the replys.

 

I didn't actually get a print out just a figure of before and after.

I do know that all they adjusted was the toe so the figure can only be that.

Hopefully having toe adjustment carried out on Thursday will report back.

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Well had the alignment done ... and results not good !?

They said it was within factory specs... .. they checked front and rear toe, caster, camber thrust angle and other secondary angles all which were ok.

They did change the toe slightly...

 

The front toe now is reading

 

Left- 0.6mm

Right- 0.6mm

Total - 1.2mm

 

This figures are in spec apparently with factory spec being 0.0mm - 2.5mm ... ?

 

Adjusted tyre pressure's seem very slightly better but I'm still not happy with it.

One thing I did notice that when I had the new tyres fitted they put the wheel which was on the nsf or the osf... not sure if this would make a difference.

Any ideas ..?

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Not as good as before ... seems to pull at times.. seems to tramline more as well .

So I can rule out the tracking as this seems to be all ok..?

One thing I have noticed is a slight floor vibration at 60-70mph... maybe wheels are slightly off balance?

 

I think some of it may be due to the new tyres with higher tread blocks ... not sure, I've only covered 350 miles on them.

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Thing is the markings are only as good as the fitter reading them........Nevertheless one thing is bugging me and that's the tramlining? If the toe angles are correct ( and they are ) why is the car susceptible meaning the toe must be changing dynamically... On your car the reason for this is worn lower wishbone bushings but i hope this has been checked?

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Good point but aren't the bushes horizontal on the Focus so they don't tend to wear as quickly? On my Mondeo which had vertical bushes the car tramlined everytime they showed any sign of separating from the arm.

 

Can't worn ball joints and TREs caused this too?

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Yep they are horizontal and the car needs to be jacked up in order to see the metal core torn away, loaded ( wheels down ) they would look fine. The ball joints could do it but they would need to be so worn the noise alone would tell you there's a problem.

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Those numbers are good so now we know the wishbones are fine. The fact it's fine on the motorway suggests the tyres can't cope with the road crown... I think for testing purposes move the front tyres side-to-side and see if there's a difference on the pull/ tramlining.

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