3rd Gen alignment issues

Hello everyone. Sorry in advance for a lengthy post!

I am having some alignment issues with my 23 TRD OR DCLB. I bought the truck back in July of 2023 and have since put 20,000 miles on it. I picked the truck up at a dealership about 7 hours from where I live, and on the ride home, I noticed the truck was pulling slightly to the drivers side. I figured no problem, alignments just off and I took it into the dealership at around 1500 miles on the odometer. They did an alignment free of charge and sent me on my way (see pictures below for specs).

I drove home and it did seem to feel better, however, about 3 months later I noticed the truck pulling to the drivers side once again (this was around 12000 miles). When I took it into the dealership for an oil change, I asked them to once again set the alignment, which they did (see picture below for specs). Again, truck seemed to feel okay for a little while, and loan behold again, it started pulling to the drivers side.

I took the truck back to the dealership last week (around 20,000 miles on the truck now) to have a recall done and asked if they would check the alignment once again. This time, they told me that the alignment looked good and was in spec (didn’t give me the print out) and that when they rotated the front two tires, the pull was “less” and the issue was that I needed new tires.

After hearing a tire quote from the dealership, I went and picked up the truck and started calling locals shops for other quotes. On my way home, I noticed that the pull was now to the passenger side. Last week I took the truck to a local tire shop to stick some new tires on. They did, (265/70/r16 bfg all terrains) and at the same time did yet another alignment.

On the way home, I noticed the truck was still pulling to the passenger side. When I got home, I figured I would try rotating the front passenger tire with the rear passenger tire just to see if it would help. It did not. I called the tire shop back up today and they took it in the check the alignment once again. They found that within the week, the alignment had once again come out of spec (see pictures below). I had driven the truck on pavement around 50 miles home, parked the truck (I commute with a work pickup) and then driven it back to the shop 50 miles today to have it looked at again (no wheeling, no potholes, no nothing).

The guys at the tire shop are stumped, as am I. I took a look at the cam tabs and they all seem okay (see pictures below). I also took a video of the steering rack mount bushings and there is a little bit of play. Has anyone dealt with this issue before. It seems to have been plaguing this truck since it rolled off the lot.

Thank you in advance for your input!

 

Can’t get the video the steering rack bushings to upload but it appears to have 1/8th of an inch of play side to side when the truck is parked, motors running, and someone is turning the steering wheel.

I also forgot to mention that after today’s alignment, truck still seems to pull to drivers side. Guys at the tire shop were very helpful and are having me bring it back on Friday for a better look.

 

The later alignments were better but you can tell the techs are kinda dumb.

it calls for positive camber but they ignore that and set it to zero.

ideally to fix pull id favour higher caster and put the camber in spec.

 

Ask for 0.5* more caster on the right side than the left and equal caster and you should be good to go. 0.5* caster on the right side will compensate for road crown. As Bishop mentioned, more caster will help and positive camber will reduce tendency of the truck following the road

 

Is this truck at stock height? I'm going to assume it is for the moment. Your camber numbers are okay but if it were me, I have them closer to zero but a quarter degree positive isn't too bad. Your caster numbers are too low all 'round. On a stock truck you should be able to get about 2.75 degrees of positive caster. I always ask the tech to max out the caster on the passenger side and then set the driver's side at about .3-.5 less to account for road crown. A tenth of a degree here or there will not matter.

The numbers that are really worrisome are the rear numbers, which, if accurate, are really fucked up. It always mystifies me when everyone, including the techs completely ignore the numbers for the rear end. I mean, how in the hell, with a solid rear axle, unless it's bent, do you get almost half a degree of negative camber on one side and a tiny amount on the other. And the rear toe numbers either indicate that the axle is crooked or the wheel attachments for the alignment rack are on wrong, but if they are on correctly and giving you the real numbers, then this could be a clue, except that all of the printouts more or less agree on those numbers. In theory the rear end should read zero on both toe and camber but in reality, I've always seen it off one or two one hundredths of a degree due to measurement error and machine repeatability but never half a degree.

 

The rear end should of been jounced to settle everything but keep in mind that typically you roll the vehicle from the left rear for the compensation so depending how the guy pushed on the wheel you could end up with "unnatural" camber and toe on the rear. The right side will almost always roll into negative toe as that wheel is "dragging" back during the push and "falling" into the axle bearing. When you drive the vehicle under it's own power the rear wheels will "pull" themselves straight and true, especially once things warm up and the play in the bearings diminish. I don't remember the thrust angle spec for these trucks but it looks very familiar so i'd say he's okay.

 

Not sure how yanking on a wheel back and forth could possibly alter the camber on a solid rear axle, or even doing the same to the body of the truck. The rear end does not change at all like the front end does, and I simply don't buy that there's the play in the bearings that you're suggesting there is that might account for the numbers seen here. In fact this is the first time I've ever heard mention of this sort of thing. There simply isn't that much slop in the bearings. Jack up one side of your truck and yank on both the front and back wheels, and you won't feel even the slightest free play unless there are issues with the bearings or other components or if, and this would be really rare, the front wheel bearings had not been properly set up, but that's not what's happening here.

 

Bishop’ nailed it.

Your front end is still not ideal. Get it aligned from my name known shop like Belle Tire talk to the service writer and tell him and show him the sheet. Tell him you will want a sheet.

 

There isn't much play in the back end, thats true and I agree but there is some. A dial indicator on the wheel hub will usually show a few thousands of play. I actually figured out the play situation from when I was an apprentice at the dealership in the new building, the Hunter rep accidentally set up the machine to roll from the passenger side and no matter how I was taught and watched doing alignments I and the other alignment guys always ended up with a vehicle that pulled like crazy and a way off centre steering wheel. It was only when the Hunter rep came back to check it out that he told us what the deal was.

For the camber part, it's a tighter fit into the differential carrier than the axle bearings so that tends to allow for a little negative camber. I agree it looks like alot on paper but when I aligned my truck around 20'000kms (I didn't like how it drove from the factory) I also had around -0.5* camber in the rear. It's more than I typically saw on chevys but when I worked in a custom shop specializing in lifts, Toyota's always seems to have around the same on the rear end. I agree it looks like alot but based on what i've seen with Toyota's i'd say it's typical. The difference between both sides.. tire pressure maybe a little low on the right side? That part I don't really have an answer for.

Maybe an actual Toyota tech could set us straight.

Also front bearings on these trucks should have no play or maybe 0.0001" tops. If there is play up there then for sure there is a problem.

 

And yet there's still the toe problem in the rear as well, which could be accounted for by the tech not properly attaching the wheel attachments, but that seems unlikely as those rear numbers are roughly the same on all the different alignment printouts. When you have one rear wheel toed in and the other one toed out, it's going to want to turn all by its lonesome.

And having had my Toyotas aligned for the last thirty plus years, the rear numbers have never been more than a tenth or two tenths of a degree off from zero for camber or toe.

 

The toe is from pushing on the left rear wheel to roll the vehicle for the compensation and the right wheel "dragging". I've had the heads fairly off kilter but after the compensation it reads fine. It's only really if you play with the heads after the compensation roll that you'll fudge the rear toe readings. Toe will not cause a pull, even in the back. Worst you experience from that is the steering wheel will be off centre and if you drive behind the truck it will dog track/drive sideways.

I can only say "they just don't make them like they used to" unfortunately to explain why your previous Toyota's had less slack in the back

 

I thought the same thing about the rear. You can see the numbers are fairly consistent on all the sheets so I don't think it was a setup or roll back issue on the alignment during readings acquisition. But the thing is is that a alignment machine will compensate, the toe in the rear at least, with the toe in the front. I don't think that .3 degrees of thrust would affect direction of the truck and furthermore, a positive thrust angle would make the truck veer to the left.

I think the obvious next step here, which has been mentioned, is a little more caster on the passenger side, or a little less caster on the driver's side to create around a .5 difference cross caster.

 

I sound like i'm nagging so I apologize for that but, thrust angle will only off centre the steering wheel not cause a pull.

0.5* cross caster biased to the right is usually about perfect for most setups.

 

Why does it keep unaligning itself after the alignments tho?

 

It seems like it's mainly the toe that keeps changing significantly. Caster and camber seem to be stable but not ideal. I'd suspect something in the steering rack or tie rods, but this is pretty weird.

 

Im having a similar problem. Posted
A
Thread this morning and one of the people who replied pointed me at this thread! i’ll post a link so you could see my alignment results as well. I don’t want to take over this post lol but I’m very curious to see what the outcome is!

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/23-trd-sport.833889/#post-29878575

 

I bought mine in August and initially noticed a slight pull to the driver-side. I decided to leave it alone, and now I can't even notice it anymore. I rotate my tires with every oil change, which might have something to do with it because the pull disappeared after the first tire rotation.

 

Reviving this thread.
OP did you fix it ?

you have the same exact rear toe and thrust angle as mine and that’s causing my pull.

I'm looking into options of fixing this. I had an icon mini pack installed at 12k miles and that’s when it started with the pull.