Wheel Alignment

[dubbed]

Hey Dubbers,

I need to get a wheel alignment done on the Golf. The tyres I just replaced were worn unevenly and I don't want my new ones to chew out prematurely. I was just wondering how these cars are aligned? My previous Falcons could be aligned by adding some shims in the front upper control arms, but once lowered too much they required a camber kit (to fit even more shims). So before I go in and get stung, are Golfs easy to align? Do they usually require a camber kit or anything special?

Thanks in advance.

[Golf Houso]

I wouldn't be surprised if you problems just lied in wheel alignment and a wheel balance. I would do those first before attempting to put some camber shims in, I know for my mk3 it wasn't a very big job and was done rather quickly by the tire place when I got my tires re-balanced after I had painted them.

[dubbed]

I would hope it was that simple but like I said the last set of front tyres wore out unevenly and I just got new ones fitted - so they should be aligned and balanced perfectly but it feels like it pulls to the left now.

[No457 Snowy]

Mate, take it back to the alignment place and tell them it's pulling to the left and let them do it again, if it's pulling and you leave it, you'll definitely scrub them out quickly. If it's still funny after that you'd better find an alignment place that knows Euro cars better than where you're taking it. A lot of places are only used to doing Commodores and Falcons.

When I finally found a good place to take mine the guy told me there are a few little tricks in fine tuning the adjustments on Euro cars that the Commodore/Falcon boys don't know about, "they just use the tie-rods for the toe-in/out and that's it", he said.

The car drove better than ever once I left it with him for the day.

Snowy.

[dubbed]

After I picked up my car (half an hour after they said it'd be ready) I just had a bad feeling about the place. They seem really amateur so I don't want to go back there.

I might suss out another tyre place and leave it with them. Next option will be a place that specialises in Euro cars but I'm tipping it'd be expensive...

[No457 Snowy]

Yeah, he wanted the car for the whole day because he was busy, I had to book a week ahead to get it in and it was around $120 for the alignment but it made a massive difference.

Snowy.

[dubbed]

Ouch! Sounds like it was worth it though. I'm going to take it to my local Pedders, he's honest and always looks after me. I need to get my bushes checked out anyway because it feels like there's a lot of slack between gear changes.

[dubbed]

Okay fellas I had Pedders check over the car today. I didn't get to speak to the tech first hand because I had work but my girlfriend relayed as much as she could remember.

Basically the alignment was pretty much spot on, all the bushes and mounts are apparently in tact too, and the shocks are also fine which is good news. Now as for the car pulling left... The story is that Golfs don't have much in the way of customising the alignment (camber/castor) which I am led to believe anyway. The reason for pulling to the left is that because Germans drive on the right side of the road, these cars are built to allow for the slight angle roads are made with - a slight slope from the centre and outwards / | \. So obviously in Germany cars slightly lean to the right side of the road. To compensate they have designed cars to ever so slightly pull to the left so you don't fight the wheel. In Australia we drive on the opposite side and would require the opposite to compensate for the tilt in our roads going the other side. His theory is that because I have new tyres I notice the pull a lot more due to the extra grip (that and they're fairly wide).

It makes sense to me, but I don't see why they would export hundreds of thousands of VWs for countries who drive on the left hand side of the road and not compensate for this. That and the fact no one here mentioned this new ideolgy to me!

What are people's thoughts?

PS: I'm tired so apologies if I don't make much sense.

[Mrk_Mickey]

Hahahahahahha. Dude, that sounds like the biggest load of crap!

But then again, I actually wouldn't be surprised if it were true.

Hahaha...gotta love VW

[Bubu]

What your saying makes sence but I dont believe that. I have never heard of cars being set up to pull to one side. If you notice it doing it under normal driving then how would it feel on the German Autobahn doing high speed! I have been to Germany (last year) and I have been on the Autobahn and it dosent look like its sloped (although it may be its just not obvious to the eye). Therefore I doubt the car would need to be set up to pull to one side if the road is reasonably flat.
I wonder if it was you and not your girlfriend (ie. a male and not female) that took the car in, would have told you the same story?

[No457 Snowy]

Well, I can't say if that theory is correct or not but I've had my car from brand new and I honestly don't remember it doing that in any noticable way.

I checked out the Alignment section in my VW Repair Manual and it mentions that certain tracking problems can be corrected by slightly adjusting/moving the sub-frame. This isn't something your run-of-the-mill alignment place is going to attempt (they probably wouldn't even know about it). But it can be used to correct side to side Camber differences and also make minor Caster changes, either of which could be causing tracking problems.

Maybe it's something worth mentioning to them.


Snowy.

[D3bb4]

They usually do set cars so that they'll stay fairly straight on roads that aren't flat (as most roads are not) - but suspension places set that up, not the factories in Germany And it shouldnt heavily impact on the car driving in a straight line.

From experience with local pedders... i find they like to talk through their hats sometimes. And give bloody expensive quotes. That said, yours is obviously a different one.

[dubbed]

Hmm well tis all not very reassuring..

As for my girlfriend taking the car in, I don't think it made a difference (I hope) to what they were saying because she spoke to the guy who I usually deal with and mentioned it was my car etc etc. But who knows? Maybe they don't know their European cars too well... I will have to take it to a specialist in future.

I will show you the results of the alignment later and see if anyone can pick up anything odd. Nothing stood out as strange to me but I'm no alignment expert.

[brad]

Now as for the car pulling left... The story is that Golfs don't have much in the way of customising the alignment (camber/castor) which I am led to believe anyway. The reason for pulling to the left is that because Germans drive on the right side of the road, these cars are built to allow for the slight angle roads are made with - a slight slope from the centre and outwards / | \. So obviously in Germany cars slightly lean to the right side of the road. To compensate they have designed cars to ever so slightly pull to the left so you don't fight the wheel. In Australia we drive on the opposite side and would require the opposite to compensate for the tilt in our roads going the other side. His theory is that because I have new tyres I notice the pull a lot more due to the extra grip (that and they're fairly wide).

It makes sense to me, but I don't see why they would export hundreds of thousands of VWs for countries who drive on the left hand side of the road and not compensate for this. That and the fact no one here mentioned this new ideolgy to me!
.

Biggest load of bollocks I've heard in a while.
The above is true of a lot of US based cars (back in the '80s) such as f100 utes because the Yanks didn't look beyond their own market and most of the cars had been converted from LHD to RHD.
As for VWs - they make enough market specific vehicles to set them up properly in manufacture. The aligner hasn't a clue.

[dubbed]

Biggest load of bollocks I've heard in a while.
The above is true of a lot of US based cars (back in the '80s) such as f100 utes because the Yanks didn't look beyond their own market and most of the cars had been converted from LHD to RHD.
As for VWs - they make enough market specific vehicles to set them up properly in manufacture. The aligner hasn't a clue.

Exactly my thoughts

Um on the plus I can highly recommend these guys to align your run of the mill Falcon lol