Toe in adjustment

I just ran across a very interesting, believable and insightful post on this topic.

"i was an alignment tech years ago, and while using the degree toe measurements and the sensors that mount to the wheels may work perfect for vehicles on stock size tires the measurements become inaccurate when someone changes to a larger size tire. if you measure at the wheel instead of the outside of the tire, the toe difference actually becomes larger with the taller tire.


example: an 1/8" toe in on 225/75/15 can become over 5/16" toe in on 35/12.5/15, even without messing with steering or suspension.


it is this reason that i would never recommend using the wheel mounted sensors for aligning a vehicle on larger tires."

I use a floor jack and jack stands (or lift), tape measure and a wrench.

14 years, +100,000 miles and 3 lift kits, and mine has never been to an alignment shop. All you need is a tape measure.

its simple trigonometry really, if you think about it from a top down view. but i get what he is trying to say. X.XXX of toe based on Y.Y degrees on a 28" tire is X.XXX plus a little bit, assuming the same degree, on a 35" tire due to the tire diameter change.

i think most will agree that 1/8-1/4 of toe in is what you are after. i shoot for an 1/8, but always bias towards 1/4 rather than zero if i cant hit it right on the mark. from 31s to 35s, zero issues with drivability or tire wear.

Ive always used a tape measure on 33s, 40s, 32s, all of my rigs. never been to an alignment shop, this further justifies why ! I usually shoot for 0" to 1/16" Toe in , sometimes 1/8" on the 40s

I still align my comanche (on 40s) using an alignment rack....then again most people don't have a rack laying around.

VAhasnoWAVES said:

its simple trigonometry really, if you think about it from a top down view. but i get what he is trying to say. X.XXX of toe based on Y.Y degrees on a 28" tire is X.XXX plus a little bit, assuming the same degree, on a 35" tire due to the tire diameter change.

i think most will agree that 1/8-1/4 of toe in is what you are after. i shoot for an 1/8, but always bias towards 1/4 rather than zero if i cant hit it right on the mark. from 31s to 35s, zero issues with drivability or tire wear.

Click to expand...

i meant to say 1/16-1/8, like mentioned here. my appologies.

blondejoncherokee said:

Ive always used a tape measure on 33s, 40s, 32s, all of my rigs. never been to an alignment shop, this further justifies why ! I usually shoot for 0" to 1/16" Toe in , sometimes 1/8" on the 40s

Click to expand...

I use a tape measure too. The bigger the tire the more you need.

Hmm. I wonder if I should try like 1/4" toe in , on my 40s sometime.