Firestone unable to get caster right telling me ran out of adjustment.

My caster is off- .6 and they are telling me they have run out of adjustment on the bolt is this right or are they just stupid? I've been searching and haven't been able to find this problem elsewhere so i'm thinking rookie mistake on their part. Check sig for lift details .

Also if they are right how do i fix this i'm ruining my 1.2k tires because of this.

The hole on the washer is centered as well which makes ms think they just skipped it. Please help me not look like an idiot when i go back down there to complain

From my experience the people who work at Firestone are kinda dumb. I had the 4runner in getting it aligned and while I was there I told them to check the U-Joint, because I was getting a lot of shaking in the cab. Well I came back later and they said the U-Joint was fine, in fact looked brand new. They told me it was the torque converter! I took the 4runner to another shop, and they told me I was lucky I brought it in then, because the U-Joint was about to fail. I replaced it and no more shaking! That's my story, can't really help you with this specifically!

They told me the same thing. Said I needed a larger cam to make any more adjustments.
Actually going back today. They aligned it last week and my steering wheel is not centered anymore....
What a PITA.

BS. Bring it up to the manager at Firestone and tell him you'll take it somewhere competent and have them do it right and expect a refund. Not to be an A-whole but that's what I've learned to do from my past experiences. Good luck though, hope you get it fixed soon so those tires don't get too chewed up.

My experience has been that the large chain places like NTB, Firestone, etc...just don't want to deal with aftermarket stuff on vehicles even if it has been professionally done and made for the vehicle. NTB made me sit an hour waiting for the tech to tell me he couldn't get the bolt loose. I took it to my regular small town mechanic the next day and he said it was tight and he had to heat it up, but no big deal. He did say though not to lift it any higher cause I was almost out of adjustment space...

FoneRunner said:

My experience has been that the large chain places like NTB, Firestone, etc...just don't want to deal with aftermarket stuff on vehicles even if it has been professionally done and made for the vehicle. NTB made me sit an hour waiting for the tech to tell me he couldn't get the bolt loose. I took it to my regular small town mechanic the next day and he said it was tight and he had to heat it up, but no big deal. He did say though not to lift it any higher cause I was almost out of adjustment space...

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i know but i like the life time allignment i paid for, i want to show them how it's meant to be done so they can honor the "lifetime" part of it, i don't want to threaten a refund i want them to do it right, i as well would like to find a pic of the other adjustment places as well to go in there and make sure they tinkered with those as well.


if i am truly out of adjustment how do i fix this do i simply get a longer bolt or it much more complicated then that? from my under standing the bolt just is basically just a push-pull and offsets from teh bolt being pushed again the frame to adjust the camber.. is this right? or is the caster coming from the a-arms?

your right man if i hadn't paid for the lifetime thing i would go down there with steam coming from my ears demanding my money back but for $140 lifetime alignment i think it may be worth holding their hand and working out what needs to be done considering that i may be swapping my suspension around quite a bit.

No matter where you take it to get aligned, they probably wont be able to you get you more than 0.5 to 0.7 degrees of caster. When I had mine aligned after installing a SS 1.2, they were able to get the camber/toe within spec, but in doing so, I lost all my caster. I think the tech said that the stock spec for caster is 1.2-1.5 degrees, and the best he could get on mine with the lift was 0.6 degrees on either side.

That being said, like another guy had said in the other thread (there was duplicate thread here at one point), the caster setting will not cause abnormal tire wear. Caster has more to do with steering feel, and the tendency of the wheels/steering wheel to return to center after a turn. Picture a shopping cart's front wheels... they have about 45 degrees of caster... when you turn the cart, the wheels swing out to the side, but immediately return to a center because they are being "pulled" due to their attachment point ahead of the centerline of the wheel. The caster on your 'Runner serves the same purpose. If you're on the freeway and you jerk the wheel real quick to the right/left, you'll notice it wants to return to center on its own... the less caster you have, the slower it is to return to center.

Toe in/out will cause some nasty tire wear, as will positive/negative camber, so make sure they get those within spec in the meantime.

Also, I watched the guy do the alignment on my truck, and if I remember correctly there are cams on the upper/lower control arms that control all 3 settings, and that's it. I had mine aligned the day I got the wheels/tires put on, and within a week the camber was way out of spec due to the lift settling. I took it back and had it re-done, and now it seems to be fine.

Your measurements look alot like mine did... I had major positive camber, and toe out after I installed the lift. I don't think you're gonna get much more caster than that no matter where you take it, but I'd have them try to get those toe readings closer to zero and match up the camber on either side. Either +/+ or -/-.

On your driver's side, toe out + negative camber = accelerated wear on the inside edge of the tire.

On your pass side, toe out + positive camber = accelerated wear on the inside edge, plus some probable feathering of the tread blocks (each tread block will wear down more on the front edge, and the rear edge of each tread block will end up will less wear).

The SAI is "steering angle inclination" and is built into the suspension geometry. It will change a little as you adjust the camber +/-, but wont really have an affect on your tire wear. The included angle is the SAI + Camber for each side... again, not someting to worry too much about.

Have them focus on getting the toe/camber as close to zero as possible, then dial in as much caster as possible.

So it's looking like to have everything right i need new a arms then? Or what are my options to fix this close enough isn't good enough you know. What do you guys think if i dropped it an inch?

Also i've been told you get this when they use only one set of adjusters where are all of the adjusters for this i searched online and had a look and can only find 2

There are 2 cams on each lower control arm, for a total of 4. One is on the front, the other on the back, on each side.

I don't know alot about aftermarket control arms (camburgs, etc.), but I was considering purchasing some so that I could keep running my factory 5 stars and still have plenty of a-arm clearance with 285's. I talked to Steve at Sonoran Steel about it, and he advised against the camburgs and others because he said "they run maxed out" as far as alignment settings go (which seemed funny to me, because they are the upper arms, and even the factory upper arms don't have any adjustment), and that I could forget about ever getting it aligned again. I'm not sure what he meant by that, and it may have just been a sales thing to encourage me to get his shaved stock arms instead.... I just took his word for it and bought some wheels w/4" backspacing to get the clearance I needed. Maybe someone who has some will chime in.

I see how it works now. I am maxed out


I thought the after markets had 2 degrees of built in caster that would allow you to get back into normal alignment?

And how come this isn't brought up more do people just deal with it or what? Also do you think dropping it an inch will give me more play to bring it in?

I do my own alignments, I'll tell you right now if you're lifted more than 2 inches you're caster will never be at "spec". My front is sitting at about 3 inches and I can't even get close to spec. But as stated before, it will not wear your tires any different. As long as they have you set to -.6 on both sides you would never know the difference. Once you get into being, we'll say, -.6 on one side and .6 on the other side your truck will start pulling to the side with the least amount of negative caster, if you can let go of the wheel and it still goes straight your caster is set as close as it's gonna get. As long as your toe and camber are set to spec you're tires wont wear unevenely.

The escentric bolts on the lower control arm is what sets the caster and camber and the tie rod ends is what sets your toe. The upper control arm is basically along for the ride. I just wanted to clarify that from a previous post.

Firestone is just there to make money. You really can't take anything they say seriously. I'd go to a local shop personally, especially if they say they can't get it aligned or explained properly. A multi-billion dollar company and problems with simple alignment shouldn't be an issue. True with a 3" lift You most likely won't get too much closer but, I bet they'd love to have you come back in with their credit card though and try again. ;-)

I am anti-Firestone and will never take a vehicle there, all because of the go around my girlfriend and her mother have had with them.

I'm in the same line as YotaZach85, and do my own alignments...especially when most places around here are charging $50+

bulger22 said:

Firestone is just there to make money. You really can't take anything they say seriously. I'd go to a local shop personally, especially if they say they can't get it aligned or explained properly. A multi-billion dollar company and problems with simple alignment shouldn't be an issue. True with a 3" lift You most likely won't get too much closer but, I bet they'd love to have you come back in with their credit card though and try again. ;-)

I am anti-Firestone and will never take a vehicle there, all because of the go around my girlfriend and her mother have had with them.

I'm in the same line as YotaZach85, and do my own alignments...especially when most places around here are charging $50+

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well the deal was i paid $140 bucks for them to align it for as long as i own the truck never have to pay another red cent again other then the 1st visit, i agree i wouldn't even be 2 pages deep in this thread if it was otherwise i would have just gone to a 4x4 shop and have them do it.


thats said, so from my understanding if i put a 1 inch spacer lift on my stock '99 with magic coils i'd never be able to get it to align correctly?
as the stock '99 was 1-1.5 inches taller then other 4runners and you add a 1 inch spacer that puts you at 3 and your f'd.....
should i be having this problem with my lift posted in sig below?

to get down to the root of it, my steering is crap when i go over the crown in teh road my i get yanked hard which ever direction the crown flows and then my wheels do the broken shopping cart thing where they trac back and forth hard until they straighten back out, at first i thought this was a tie rod issue since the same firestone that couldn't do the alignment told me it was because i had bad tie rods and not enough adjustment, i was going to do the work myself and replace the tie rods when i got a mis fire on cylinder 1 and took it to my local specialist, while it was there they checked the tie rods and said they looked fine to them but the truck did ride funny they suggested to get another alignment and here i am chasing down this,
if my tie rods are good and my alignment is "as good as it gets" why is this thing driving like a POS?

theizzardking said:

well the deal was i paid $140 bucks for them to align it for as long as i own the truck never have to pay another red cent again other then the 1st visit, i agree i wouldn't even be 2 pages deep in this thread if it was otherwise i would have just gone to a 4x4 shop and have them do it.


thats said, so from my understanding if i put a 1 inch spacer lift on my stock '99 with magic coils i'd never be able to get it to align correctly?
as the stock '99 was 1-1.5 inches taller then other 4runners and you add a 1 inch spacer that puts you at 3 and your f'd.....
should i be having this problem with my lift posted in sig below?

to get down to the root of it, my steering is crap when i go over the crown in teh road my i get yanked hard which ever direction the crown flows and then my wheels do the broken shopping cart thing where they trac back and forth hard until they straighten back out, at first i thought this was a tie rod issue since the same firestone that couldn't do the alignment told me it was because i had bad tie rods and not enough adjustment, i was going to do the work myself and replace the tie rods when i got a mis fire on cylinder 1 and took it to my local specialist, while it was there they checked the tie rods and said they looked fine to them but the truck did ride funny they suggested to get another alignment and here i am chasing down this,
if my tie rods are good and my alignment is "as good as it gets" why is this thing driving like a POS?

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They didnt match your caster. If the caster is matched you shouldnt get any road crown pulls. I have my alignment set with the toe and camber in spec and the caster is set to around -.7 on both sides. I have been told to set the drivers side to -.5 to compesate for road crown but I havent had any issues with having it matched. Does firestone give you a spec printout after they do an alignment?

this is my print out after the alignment, from firestone, so should i go back in tomorrow and ask them to match the sides?

theizzardking said:

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and you can see here the a-arm is maxed out in the bracket

theizzardking said:

this is my print out after the alignment, from firestone, so should i go back in tomorrow and ask them to match the sides?




and you can see here the a-arm is maxed out in the bracket

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Sorry, I cant see photobucket pictures from work, I'll look at it when I get home tonight and see what it looks like.