I got my car aligned today after putting the lowering springs on it a few days ago. All went well, except for the fact that the caster on the right front is off. I know there was a minor collision on that side before I bought it. He said something may be bent, but visually he couldn't see anything. How can i determine what is causing the issue? Thanks.

 

could have something bent check lower control arm

 

Even a minor collision can potentially shift the shock tower/where the strut mounts changing the castor slightly which I believe is unadjustable.

 

Get some coil overs with cast camber plates or I think Nortel possibly or some other companies make some that will work with stock springs. The alignment I think could have cam out better. Nothings really that close you could also run a little more camber besides .5 degrees

 

Well the print out looks like mine at work so possible that we use the same machine. Anyways higher caster on the left will cause the car to go right, higher camber on the left will cause the car to go left. Anyways if you want to find what is bend than you will need a tape measure and something to measure thicknesses like I use different size ranches. Its hard to explain but you need to measure things under the car with the car not in the air(On the rack for example) and compare to the other side. Measure from different bolts to ball joint and you will see where their is the difference between the other side. I usually put ranches between ball join and the wheel to see if it fits the same on both sides, between the ear for outer tie rod and the wheel, between the strut and the wheel. And the rest you just do it with an eye. Usually with accidents a good body shop will change all suspension but cheap once waste my time and change part at a time if they cant figure it out. Sometimes you can see what got shifted from bolts marks that were left at original location, happens when the cross member gets shifted usually you can see some sort of marks. Another thing to pay attention is rust. if for example the spindle got bend sometimes you can see where the bend is by looking for different color or rust, its hard to explain but it takes sometime to master this from your boss but 4 years doing it I think I am better and I can tell whats bend usually.

 

Go to a highly reputable body shop and have them measure the underbody of the car on their frame machine (make sure it is laser-based measurements). It will give you a printout of exactly where and what is out of spec with the original factory tolerances. I think it should run around $150 but not quite sure; however, the printout and knowing exactly what/where things are out-of-whack is good info to have!

 

Just wanted to clarify, it will be able to identify structural elements that are not within tolerances. I am not sure if that would include control arms... but it would still prove useful to know if something structurally needs to be fixed.

Good luck with things and I hope it is not anything major.

 

Thanks for the advice guys. I hope it is something minor.