hi

i had new rear tyres fitted and an alignment check and print out shows rear left toe at +4. will this kill the tyre and can it be adjusted either as is or with the help of aftermarket parts?

the tyre removed from that side had increased wear on the outside but was also carrying a slow puncture for a long time.

driving the car it tracks straight enough but feels it's on a slightly harder pivot when turning right.

thanks, kris

Not trying to be clever but would you not have been better asking the alignment mechanic for advice?

There's no formal adjustment available for the rear wheels. Best hope is to get a 2nd opinion and then try and fix via shims on the suspension.


Camber is also out though.

Hi,

The report that you show is very similar to the one I got when I took my Skoda in for service at the main dealer.

The Mechanic said that if all the results are shown in green then everything is fine!

Best Regards

Dawpooldad

Official alignment specs for the 100HP from the Fiat manual (eLearn):

Front wheel toe in (mm) -1 ± 1
Front wheel camber (degrees) -1° ± 30'
Rear wheel toe in (mm) 3 ± 3
Rear wheel camber (degrees) -48' ± 30'

The rear toe is specified as 3mm toe in each side. I notice that you're 3+1mm on the left hand side and 3-1mm on the RHS (give or take) which suggests to me that your rear axle is slightly misaligned, although it's still within specifications. You may find that the mounting bracket on the left is moved towards the front on the car and the bracket on the right is moved towards the rear of the car.

it went in for a service a month ago but chap could find nothing wrong. put it into a different garage on wednesday and they investigated and suggested the stub axle is worn. can't get parts from fiat until next wednesday, will report back if it fixes the problem.

to add: i've preached to both garages about the brackets shifting but they can see no evidence of this. if the stub axle doesn't fix the issue i'll ask them to shift the mounting brackets regardless. it makes the most sense to me.

If you're sticking to stock parts, the only thing that's designed to be adjustable is the front toe. Pragmatically I've found that setting it to track dead parallel with the weight on the wheels sorts out most front tyre wear issues.

Suspension tolerances on the panda are a joke - this standard of engineering would disgrace a third world country.

The consequence is that premature rear tyre wear is an extremely common problem, and even folks under warranty who've scrubbed rear tyres in less than 15k have been told by Fiat there's nothing they can do because the car is within factory limits. Whether you get a good 'un or a bad 'un is the luck of the draw.

A small minority who've claimed under warranty have had the complete rear subframe replaced by Fiat, but they have to be outside of those ridiculous tolerances before that'll even be considered.

IMO it's one the worst suspension setups for tyre wear I've seen on any car since the Triumph Herald.

The competent may be able to improve matters by loosening & retightening the rear subframe; it's said there's some slack in the bolt holes and you might be able to get the rear end to run a little straighter. After that, you're down to improvising some shimmming and/or fitting aftermarket suspension parts with built-in adjustment - though the latter has insurance implications which some folks might wish to avoid.