Car People:Wheel Alignments and struts

[AgentJean]

I just had my car aligned and the print out shows my front driver side wheel has a negative camber and negative caster and I'm also drifting to the right. I'm told by the shop that Nissan does not have a spec for these adjustments for the 99 Altima.

I've been doing a little research on the net and I found out that there are camber alignment kits that are used when people lower the suspension. My car is using aftermarket struts(They were installed before I got the car) I am thinking they were trying to lower the car or they installed the strut wrong. If either were the case would the caster be screwed up too or just the camber?

 

[AgentJean]

anyone?

 

[eplebnista]

curiosity bump

 

[zerocool84]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camber_angle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caster_angle

Obviously they did not do the complete job correctly and I would take it somewhere else so you can get your suspension corrected because lowering a car affects the wheel geometry and it needs to be adjusted.

 

[PandaBear]

Yes, if the car is lowered you usually have to do an alignment. If you lower too far, especially on a double wishbone/A-arm suspension car, you have to use some sort of camber kit.

My car had a bad camber problem that is now fixed with an aftermarket camber kit, the car is not lowered, but when I replace the strut, the problem got double fixed and the caster/camber both got screwed.

Rule of thumb : when replacing suspension components, always do an alignment afterward. That's why it is good to fix everything together instead of one at a time.