Alignment issue- rear toe

[nedfunnell]

I have a 2000 Toyota Echo. It was due for a tire rotation so I sent it to the local "BIG O TIRES" (LOL!) to have their free rotate and balance service. I had noticed some steering wheel vibration at highway speeds, so I suspected an issue with alignment. Also, I replaced my shocks all around four months ago.

The report came back with everything in spec but four things:
Right front toe, +0.13° (0.10° max)
Total front toe, +0.20° (0.20° max)
Left rear toe, -0.14° (-0.01° max)
Right rear toe, +0.35° (0.33° max)

I bet an alignment would straighten out the front end, but I was told that they would need to buy parts to put in the back to correct for rear toe. (Rather, my wife was told this and I got it by proxy)

I am not familiar with alignment much at all. Can anyone tell me what parts would be needed to put in the back to correct the toe issue?

Would the toe issues in the back cause steering wheel wobble?

Is this something I can do myself?

Why does total toe matter?

 

[Viperoni]

Adjusting the rear toe is more complicated on Echo's indeed, and yours is a bit wonky, but to be honest, unless the car is in great shape, I wouldn't spend the money on fixing it.

Adjusting the front end is a very simple adjustment.

 

[PottedMeat]

i had a steering wheel vibration when the front outer tie rod ball joint was worn. you can check for that and other front end problems by jacking up the left and right front tires and trying to jiggle them up and down and side to side with your arms.

Can anyone tell me what parts would be needed to put in the back to correct the toe issue?

this could be some sort of eccentric bolt

 

[Viperoni]

this could be some sort of eccentric bolt

The echo's twist beam suspension requires the type of shims shown here:
http://www.4130-products.com/step/shim/

 

[phucheneh]

Alignment issues do not cause vibration. I don't know how people started to become under the impression that they did, but I wish I could scream it from the rooftops that they do not. At least, not short of something being totally FUBAR to the point that one or more tires are basically being drug as much as they are spinning.

OP, your alignment is barely even out. at .07/.13 on the front, the toe is almost even. If you were to walk up to the car while it's on the alignment rack and gently bump the front of the left front tire, the steering wheel would move an imperceptibly small amount and the toe would skew the other way. That tiny bit of difference does not matter at all.

With the max total toe at +.20, I'm guessing spec is +.10, plus or minus another ten. You're not going to see abnormal tire wear from than .10*.

The rear is a bit more serious, but only just. On solid axle trucks, it's normal to see somewhere around +.15-25 or so on one side, with a corresponding negative amount on the other side. The total toe is still amount zero, but the axle is essentially cocked a tiny amount to one side. The reason this is common on trucks is because the leaf springs are the only thing locating the axle. It's a less common occurrence on cars with a solid rear axle, but it still happens.

This is addressed by doing a four wheel alignment. 'But the back isn't adjustable,' people will say.

...right. But you're still aligning all four wheels relative to each other. If the rear wheels are pointing to the left relative to the body of the car, the solution...is to make the front wheels also point left (relative to the body) when the steering wheel is straight. The car is intentionally made to appear to be driving straight when it is actually 'dog-tracking' on a very miniscule level. Your car is basically already set up like this...aside from the minor tweaking to 'total toe' in the front, it IS aligned. You could use shims to correct the orientation of the rear wheels, and then tweak the front wheels to match, but it literally accomplishes nothing. Total toe on the rear is apparently already in (+.10-20 is a common spec on the back of a FWD car, just as it is in the front).

 

[JCH13]

Yeah... would not expect to see a steering wheel wobble result from an alignment issue... that is a great non-sequitur.

Worn ball-joints could explain every issue listed. The slop causes steering wheel vibration and allows the wheels to go out of alignment. If it's a 2000 Echo, and you've never replaced these suspension components, I can all but promise you that they need doing.

 

[xBiffx]

I've never had success on a rear alignment. Half the time, there is no adjusting it. Also, only time I've even seen it out that bad was due to a previous collision. Hit anything since you've had the vehicle?

 

[silicon]

I have a 2000 Toyota Echo. It was due for a tire rotation so I sent it to the local "BIG O TIRES" (LOL!) to have their free rotate and balance service. I had noticed some steering wheel vibration at highway speeds, so I suspected an issue with alignment. Also, I replaced my shocks all around four months ago.

The report came back with everything in spec but four things:
Right front toe, +0.13° (0.10° max)
Total front toe, +0.20° (0.20° max)
Left rear toe, -0.14° (-0.01° max)
Right rear toe, +0.35° (0.33° max)

I bet an alignment would straighten out the front end, but I was told that they would need to buy parts to put in the back to correct for rear toe. (Rather, my wife was told this and I got it by proxy)

I am not familiar with alignment much at all. Can anyone tell me what parts would be needed to put in the back to correct the toe issue?

Would the toe issues in the back cause steering wheel wobble?

Is this something I can do myself?

Why does total toe matter?

probably the alignment is good on your car since it is very close to factory specs...ask yourself, does the car continue in a straight line if you lest the wheel go on the highway, is there abnormal wear on the tire tread such as feathering of scrubbing of the tread? Are the front tires properly inflated? are they correctly balanced? is there mud or debris caked to to the front rims? Are the tires possibly defective in some way?

 

[nedfunnell]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. It sounds like my alignment is not the culprit for my steering wheel vibration. Ball joints are indeed suspect, as I have not replaced them since I bought the car last year (~20k miles?) and the previous owner did not seem to be a very maintenence-minded individual apart from oil changes. When I get home from vacation, I'll jack the car up and try to rock the front wheels.

The car does seem to track straight, but it is such a light and tall car that the wind blows it like a sail- so it's hard to judge if there is drift, or if I'm just being windblown. The tire shop did not mention any unusual tire wear. The PO did back into something once (crease in the trunk lid, roughly on center, replaced)

 

[nedfunnell]

So, I jacked my car up yesterday and I could not detect any play in the front wheels up and down, and only minimally left and right, which I could ascribe to steering linkages. Probably not ball joints then?

 

[JCH13]

There are ball joints in the steering linkages. It is likely that they are going bad. Any play at all suggests that some parts need replacing.

As an example: in my MK2 MR2 there was an audible click in one of the steering rods ends, less than 3k miles later this turned into noticeable play, which rightfully caused it to fail a safety inspection.