My Fit I just bought pulled to the right so I had them check the alignment. I asked them to check the rear also and one of the wheels is out of spec. They called their higher ups at Honda and Honda is replacing the rear axle. Part on order. In a week they will replace and run the new numbers and align it. Does that sound like an OK solution? I am not a car guy so I am out of my area of expertise.
Thanks,
Steve

 

You have gotton done what was thought to be impossible as most dealers will only reference the back wheels and forgo fixing the rear alignment, only settling that if its within tolerance specs its considered okay. The rear spec must have been very much out of spec? How far? do you have numbers?


In any event, glad they are changing the rear beam. If you see that the alignment specs are within Honda spec but not completely 0 degree toe, the EZshim kit you can install yourself to correct toe/camber. Be aware that NO Honda dealer no matter how much you beg, demand, yell, scream, threaten legal action, they simply will not do it. Its not a Honda part and will not cover it.

 

Thanks for the reply. I am picking up my car from Honda in a couple hours. I will try to get a print out of the numbers and post them here. Since I am not a car guy the numbers mean nothing to me. I knew my car drifted to the right though so when I had them check the front alignment I had them check the rear because I had read this thread. Putting in a shim kit myself is beyond my ability. Hopefully Honda will help me out. I hope my pulling/drifting to the right problem is gone when I pick my car up today and the rear alignment is fixed with a new rear axle. I don't think the rear alignment would affect the drifting problem.

 

its very difficult to shim rear hubs.
on axles with welded hub plates the hub can still be shimmed but its very hard to do and very costly.
I would recommend checking the alignment to see if one side shows toe-in and the other toe-out. the axle can be 'adjusted to even up both sides whether both are toe-out or both toe-in and tat will be a technical solution.
Further, the alignme of the rear axle doe not appear to be a serious concern unless its way out. No Fit here has shown inordinate wear or even serious handling problems due to rear heel toe variations.
unless you want to see the axle squared with the chasis I'd say leave it alone and quit worrying.

 

Thankfully the hub plates are bolted on. See the pictures in previous posts. Shimming bolted hub plates is a breeze if you know how much to compensate for. The fact that welded hubs exist at all befuddles me. Terrible way to make an axle.

 

Here's the report on my Fit. I pulls to the right. I don't know what to do. They are ordering a "rear sub frame." Can the rear wheel being out of spec affect it pulling to the right? I'm bummed and don't know what to do to get the car to track straight. Advice is greatly appreciated.

 

Yes excessive rear toe can cause pulling to one side. An ezshim can certainly correct the left rear tire which has the problem the camber specs look fine. I'm not sure if your alignment shop would even install a shin and I'm not positive what they mean by rear subframe. It is not terribly difficult to install the shim but if you're not familiar with car mechanics it will be a daunting challenge.

report back and let us know. if I was in your position, and with the mechanical ability I have, I would simply install the shim myself, then return it back to the alignment shop and have them rerun the alignment specs again. Hopefully it would be corrected after the installation of the shim.

 

I just got my car back from the shop and my rear is out of spec as well. Since I lowered it, I wanted to make sure everything is good and straight afterward.

The left rear *before* number is .42*. Interestingly, those of you that have cars out of spec, it appears this is an issue with the left side only? Anyone have the right-side out? It looks to be a consistent amount out on these cars. Could this be engineered intentionally for some odd reason? I'm just trying to think things through completely before I decide to fix something that may not need to be fixed.

Although this amount doesn't bother me much, the car handles fine and doesn't pull or anything, I might add a shim if I decide it needs to be corrected. Now that I know the amount of correction needed, I may even attempt to shim this on my own and then return to the shop to verify it's in spec.

On a side note, I lowered my car 1.6" in front and 1.3" in the rear. This amount of drop in creased the toe to .2*, for a total of .39* both sides. This confirms that if you lower your car, an alignment is definitely needed.

Also, since I lowered my car more in the front than rear, this bumped up the castor to a total of about 5 degrees. Even though I believe this amount is negligible (probably making the steering ever so slightly quicker), castor is not adjustable in this car, so keep that in mind.

 

My Fit is at Honda today to replace the "rear suspension beam." Hope this fixes it.

 

Here's the new numbers after picking up my Fit from having the rear suspension beam replaced. The before numbers are in my post above this one. Do the numbers shown below look OK? I need to drive the car more to see if it still drifts to the right.

 

Rear alignment numbers look much better and are within spec. You shouldn't have any tracking issues or major wear issues.

 

[QUOTE=SteveSatch;1287039]



The front toe is easily adjustable and i would have them adjust it to be on the positive side of center. That's if they will? But ideally you want the toe to be on the positive side not negative. Will it hurt anything? NO. But it will help tire wear in the long run as you get a lot of miles on it.

 

Thanks for the info on my new numbers. I doubt I can get them to adjust the front toe though. I don't think they want to see/hear from me again on my alignment. I wish I knew about about the car stuff. I would have talked to them about getting a positive toe on the front before I left.

 

Why does it say Honda 09-13?
I thought you are talking about the 2015 model.

 

If this is an aftermarket shop likely the preloaded specs are not yet available or installed on the machine. I checked the owners manual and it doesn't have the specs for the camber, caster or toe, which all contribute to thrust angle. Obviously toe should always be close to 0 degrees as possible.

 

It was done at a Honda dealership with a good rep. I have no idea why it says 09-13. My Fit is a '15. That freaks me out a bit.

 

I would not worry about it. The caster specs on the front are identical which to me doesn't indicate an issue. Your camber on the rear is identical too which is great. Toe is well within spec,

 

I'm not so sure. The alignment with driver is the important issue.
What was the readings with driver? Front and rear. Lets suppose camber changed from positive to negative, more on thr driver side than passenger side. If the left side camber is -.4 while the right is -.1 degree and that means the lateral thrust is great to push the car to the right. A leaned tire will push the vehicle is the direction of the lean when the circumference encounters rolling resistance. If the left tire leans inward at the top (neg camber) the tire will push the vehicle to the right. Its not violently so but can be seen on roads with crowns in the center where because we drive o the righthand side the car is always tending to run downhill and negative camber on the left helps.

I'd look to increasing the right side to -.4 or -.5 degree also and see if its cured. And with driver. Or .5 left and .4 right sans driver.

 

Based on Steve's new specs after alignment he should not have any tracking issues. As I've mentioned in previous posts even with the new toe alignment numbers he will experience a SLIGHT tire wear issue, but we are talking maybe 5% less tire life compared to if toe was exactly at zero degrees for the rear. Thrust angle looks good. Camber for both the front and rear are equal on each side, same for front caster. Front wheels are offset to the left by a VERY small amount to deal with road crown.

 

Anyone new experiencing alignment problems? I took my LX CVT in 3 weeks ago for a re-alignment (it was pulling to the right). They said they corrected it, now a few weeks later it is pulling to the left! I just brought it back in this morning for that issue along with my 10,000 mile oil change and tire rotation.