Yeah well, if you go past the 24 month in service Nissan corp will tell you tooooo baaad. It's alignment and it's your problem. I have an early 03. 2 sets in 12K miles. Aligned by the dealer but it's still my fault. So much for Nissan customer service. AThis will be my last so called high end Nissan. Next time its a Porsche or BMV. And I hate it casue I love driven the Z.

 

[QUOTE=pulpz2]

Date 04/01/04
Left
_______After Before
Camber -0.6 -0.6
Caster 8.1 8.1
Toe 0.03 -0.07

Right
________After Before
Camber -0.7 -0.8
Caster 8.9 8.9
Toe 0.04 -0.03

Alignment machine: Hunter series 211
mileage: 7462
Before: Tire roar and feathering inside tread blocks
After: Jittery and uncertain straight-line responsiveness


Date 3/30/05

This is the data for an alignment performed after the Hotchkis spring & sway bar install and new Eagle F1 GS-D3s:

Left
______ After Before
Camber -1.69 -1.69
Caster 8.32 8.32
Toe 0.06 -0.38

Right
______After Before
Camber -1.31 -1.33
Caster 8.8 8.8
Toe 0.06 0.50


Alignment machine: Hunter series
mileage: 16,189
Before: very quick turn in - partly due to new springs and sways but cross toe is -1.1 degrees after suspension mod!

After: total cross toe 0.12 degrees. I requested 0.10 degress (0.05 each side). turn-in significantly reduced with postive toe)

One other note, the camber is increased by almost -1 degree on both sides. I will be watching the tires very closely for camber wear and feathering. I may have to cross rotate them.

 

That front camber is about where I run my rears, you will deffinately get a more aggressive inner tire wear pattern with double the front camber you previously had. I opted for -.75 front & -1.3 rear camber with my toe to the latest tsb specs....... I realize this is not much of a choice unless you opt for adjustable front arms. I went with the kinetix pieces front & rear to pull my camber well into spec. Of course if the cornering ability you get from the aggressive camber is what your after as opposed to longer tire life then that's fine. I see numerous z owners now going back to the original alignment settings to regain the better turn-in ability as that's more important to them than the tire life........
Just to add, before anyone goes buying aftermarket toe bolts shoot me a pm, ill tell you how to get more adjustment out of your rear toe w/o buying cambolts or so called toe arms......

-justin

-justin

 

Grifferjr and I both have had our alignments done recently by reputable service centers. Both alignments are at ~+0.05 left and right. But our steering wheels are cocked a little off center.

My question is, if the alignment is done with the steering wheel dead center with out the driver (or some weight in the driver seat), is this enough to cause the steering wheel to be rotated to the left say to about 11 oclock?

 

Pulpz2,
No, the orientation of your steering wheel has almost nothing to do with weight (or no weight) in the driver seat...our suspension is too stiff to ever detect the correction you make to keep the car tracking straight.
I assume you have not wrecked the car and bent the frame. What happen is your alignment technician did not make the toe adjustments evenly from both left and right.
You have a right to expect better workmanship.

 

I am .04 toe in on the left and .05 of toe in on the right. I have a rough time believing that, that small of a difference is what is causing my wheel to be cocked to about 11 oclock, its not quite that far but it is close.

my steering wheel was almost dead straight before and much more responsive. without going through the whole mess, here is what i rationalize what has happened.

I have an 03 without the compression rod replacement (yet). before the alignment, i was toed out left front .06 and toed in .11 on right front. this setup somehow counteracted the compression rod and i ended up okay, except for in the long run i would have chewed up the rubber.

now with about the equal amount of toe in on each side, the compression rod pulling to the right has surfaced as well as the soft steering that everyone has complained about with the new specs.

am i pulling this out of thin air or does this make any sense. i have very limited knowledge with this stuff.

 

Thanks.


Grifferjr, what he is saying is that your steering wheel (as mine) was left at 11 oclock when they aligned the toe to 0.05 left and right. So when the steering wheel is at 11 oclock, the car is in proper alignment. The steering wheel is just not in the proper position.

 

Grifferjr,
Yes, that is more likely the root of the problem...technician did not straighten the steering wheel before starting the alignment. My explanation made the assumption the technician performed this fundamental pre-adjustment step.

Consequently, it all fits:
When technician pulled your car onto rack, steering wheel was at 11 o'clock. This is why your initial left toe was out .05, and your right toe was in .11 (ie, both tires pointing left), for a total toe of .06. When the bone-head technician saw your left wheel toed out, he adjusted...hence your car drives straight with steering wheel in it's new home at 11 o'clock. Rookie mistake.

 

There are some Z owners out there that claim they have had success using BEAR alignment equipment. Doing the old fashion mechanical alignment. Wish you guys would jump and give an update. Or post specs.

 

Okay, I'd like to throw this into the equation. The Toe setting seems to be very sensitive and some of you have mentioned that you think about the nose diving. I haven't see the term "bump steer" be used yet.

My thought is that there is a bump issue in the front end that cause the toe setting to either move in or out. I'm hoping that somebody will direct me to a shop that will help me test this, but I feel that if we look at an alignment with the car at ride height and then at compression you'll see the toe setting move out of spec.

So if anybody is getting an alignment see if they check it under compression (you'll have to load the car or pull it down. I'm going to try and get this done somewhere to see.

I've got 17K and severe road noise. I want this fixed before I buy new tires or anything.

 

Just had new fronts put on after 11K miles and 14 months of driving. The alignment had changed a lot over this time period (never hit anything to mess up alignment). How often do you guys suggest having the alignment checked and adjusted so I can make these new tires last longer? Will it make a difference to have it aligned often and tires rotated left to right? I'm coming up on 2 years ownership so these will be my last pair of "free" front tires.

 

If you had a significant change in alignment and didn't hit anything, I would suspect the alignment machine is to blame for at least a majoe portion of the change. While I was having dealer alignments and feathering problems, I saw medium changes between alignments. After my last new set of tires and dealer alignment, I immediately went to an independant shop which measured/corrected a significant error in the dealer alignment. Since then, I only have this independant shop do my alignments (every 5k miles) and have not seen much change at all. My fronts now have 16k with no "feathering" or noise. I forbid (in writing) the dealer from touching my wheels or even adjusting the air pressure.

 

What am I looking for in an alignment shop? What air pressure are you running? Thanks

 

Make sure they have the latest Hunter equipment and have had it calibrated recently.

 

Yes, latest Hunter equipment, willing to allow you in the garage around the car. Sign a waiver if you must. I like to know they have nothing to hide, will talk with me about the alignment and I can watch if they do everything correctly.
I go during the weekday when they're slow.

My tire pressure:
Cold, 32 frt, 30 rear, although these are meaningless numbers for me b/c I always drive at least 50 miles without stopping...hot pressure is what matters.
Hot, 35 frt, 33 rear.

As the seasons change, I'll adjust my cold pressure so the hot pressure stays the same.

 

My tire pressure: I also drive about 35 miles one way when I drive the Z. Thanks I will look for a speed shop to do my next alignment. I use to run mine at your air pressures but my tires seemed to wear faster. I'm now running these new ones at:
Cold, 36 frt, 34 rear.
Hot, 39 frt, 37 rear.

 

In case anyone's interested:

I bought aftermarket control arms for my 2003 350z in hopes they would correct this abnormal wear problem. They've been on my car for 4 months now and the problem has not returned. I actually didn't bother to cross rotate the tires when the arms were installed. What's happening is the "cupping" on the inner treads are actually smoothing out. So as the tires wear they are actually making less of the roaring noise. I have Yokohama tires currently with 15k miles and they look like can go another 10 to 15K miles.

 

kgb, what brand of control arm did you install?

 

There have been some good posts about BEAR mechanical alignment equipment. My local speed shop uses one. Always do a front and rear. I would also like to know about the arms. I heard there is a group by on kinetex arms for $325. I think it was beergoogles that brought up looking at the change in toe in when the car squats under breaking. You might want to look at that too.

 

I have EVO control arms.