ben.harris

Hi Tony, Just a couple more questions, as I'm hoping to get down to you in the next couple of weeks to get the alignment sorted: I've got a hard-top on the car at the moment. This is only going to be on over winter and will be coming off at the earliest opportunity next year when it warms up again. Is the extra weight of it likely to affect things and should I take it off before having the alignment adjusted? Does the amount of fuel in the tank make a difference to having the alignment adjusted? A full tank works out at just over 30kg. Is this enough to affect things? Cheers! Ben.

Cheers Tony. I'll get it booked in for when I can next get a day off work!

Sorry - just realised I should have posted this in "General Problems / Discussions".

Hi ... and sorry for the long post! I've got an MX-5 which I've owned for 4 years, done various things to, and had aligned by WIM twice in the past after various changes (although not recently). I use the car every day and don't track it. I've some alignment questions I thought I should ask before booking in at WIM. The History: The car was originally an automatic, which meant it had longer springs on the back to take the extra weight from auto transmission. The previous owner converted it to a manual, but didn't do anything about the suspension. It was also running tyres which were too large (195/60/15 instead of 195/50/15) at the time. Not long after I bought it, I fitted new shock absorbers all round and took it to WIM for to have it aligned with their "fast road" configuration. Since that first alignment, I changed the tyres to some Toyo T1-R's in the proper size (195/50/15) and fitted cheapy eBay Rokkor coilovers which (in my opinion, considering their cheapness) are actually very comfortable and ride quite nicely. Not long after doing this I took it back to WIM and had it re-aligned again, as the car was now sitting considerably lower than it had been previously and had far too much camber. That was two years ago. Since the second alignment, I've changed the wheels to some which have a slightly less offset to them (ET38 previously - now ET27) and are slightly wider (6" to 7" I think). I also now have 195/50/15 Uniroyal Rainsport 2's fitted in the hope they would resolve one of the problems I describe below. I suspect the suspension has 'settled' a bit too, as she is now sitting noticeably lower than when I first installed the coilovers and had the second alignment done. I don't have any issues with speedbumps though, so haven't touched the height adjustment. The problem(s): I have always found that when it's wet and there is standing water on the edge of the road, unless I am driving very slowly the car veers violently to the left if I go through it at anything over about 30MPH. This has happened with both the T1R's and the Rainsport 2's (and was one of the reasons for having the Rainsport's fitted), even with puddles that aren't particularly deep. It can be pretty scary at times! I find that I have to go so slowly through them that I even get other cars overtake (dangerously) sometimes because they're fed up with me keep slowing down for puddles! The other issue I have is cornering in the wet, I have to slow down much more than I would normally expect to (or other cars appear to have to) otherwise the car threatens to understeer (steering goes very light) unless I'm very careful. I never get any hint of oversteer - only understeer. I've tried different tyre pressures (both 26PSI and 28PSi) in the hope it would help, but find it makes little difference - if anything, increasing the pressure just makes the wet cornering worse! I don't have any issues when its dry - only when wet. If I was to make an amateurish guess, I'd say it feels like there is too much toe-in. Does this sound feasible? One last thing, if it helps - I've taken a photo of where I park the car (they say a photo says a thousand words!). The surface is very small loose gravel over tarmac. The sweeping line on the ground is from my front offside tyre. It's where I've pulled in (from the lower left), before reversing into the space. I wasn't going particularly quickly (5MPH), but it looks like that tyre was struggling for grip, even then. I'm guessing I need to book in for another alignment again, but wanted to get opinions from here first as it's a 150 mile round-trip down to WIM! Thanks for any advice! Ben.

My MX-5 is in need of alignment, after fitting coilovers and lowering it, but I also have some new wheels I wish to fit too. Am I better off getting the alignment done with my existing wheels (15x5.5J ET38), and then fit my new wheels one aligned, or should I fit the new wheels and tyres (15x7J ET27), then drive the 100 miles to WIM and get the alignment done? Will the offset make a difference to the alignment, or would it be minimal? Oh, and the car is an MK1 MX-5, so I can't just drive to WIM on my old wheels with the new wheels in the boot (the ideal scenario), and carry a passenger! Not enough space!