Sadly, on Christmas day, I hit a slick spot on an overpass, hit the retaining wall, spun 360 degrees and hit the retaining wall again. I just got my car out of the body shop yesterday (I was out of town for 2 weeks), and I am confused by the alignment results.

My front seemed to align OK, but there's something going on with my right rear wheel.

The report says that the camber of my right rear wheel before and actual is -1.8 degrees, with the specified range being -2.5 degrees to -0.5 degrees. The -1.8 degrees is in green on the report. The toe, however, shows .29 degrees before and .30 degrees actual. Specified range is 0.00 degrees to .20 degrees. The toe numbers are in red with a "*" indicating that "This value is not within specification. Tire wear, handling and safety problems may result."

The body shop told me that rear alignment cannot be adjusted, so it is what it is.

So...what does that mean? Is my rear right tire going to wear oddly now? Is this something I need to address?

Any insight and advice would be fantastic.

Thanks!

 

What chassis (or model year) Fit do you have? Also, can you snap and post a picture of the report too please?

Camber is measured as the vertical tilt of the wheel with positive camber having the top of the wheel leaning away from the car's centerline and negative having the top of the wheel leaning towards the centerine. So anything from -0.01 and onward is negative camber, anything from +0.01 and onward is of course positive camber.

In a straight line, camber doesn't make your tires wear too much if it is within specification. Though if camber is excessive it can and will make the tire wear unevenly; typically thinning the tire's tread out from left to right or right to left depending on side and camber type.

Toe is measured as the horizontal rotation in relation to the car's centerline. If memory serves me right (and dyslexia doesn't mess with my memory) toe in is a negative measurement which points the front of the wheels (on one axle) towards each other (and the rear away from each other). The opposite holds true for toe out, which is the positive measurement pointing the front of the wheels away from each other and the rear towards each outer.

Toe can greatly affect your tire's wear (as well as tracking/wondering) in a straight line due to the tire being rotated either left or right and the vehicle wants to travel straight. If toe is out of spec but not excessive, you will notice a bit of "feathering" or "cupping" on the tire of that location. What you will see is that individual tire treads will be sort of wedged shaped where (looking from the top to bottom of the tire) the tread will be thin and gradually increase in thickness until it ends; then the start of the next tread will be thinner than the end up the previous tread.

Here is a link to an article with images and descriptions of various tire wear situations.

HOW TO READ TIRE WEAR

 

^ yup

you need to take it to a place that will shim the rear for you... that's too much toe and will start to eat through tires quickly...

 

Here's a scan of the alignment report:

 

Shim the rear?

The shop said that rear alignment can't be adjusted.

 

I remember reading that you could buy something to be added for the rear of the Honda Fit that will allow alignment to be adjusted. It might be this... check it out.

Camber and Alignment Kit DIRECT FIT BOLT NEW Front Rear | eBay

 

Scratch that post. I did some Googling and found out what you mean by shimming the rear.

I also read various posts on this forum by folks whose toe was higher than mine (readings like .33 and .44), and they just left it as is. I also read that shimming wasn't necessarily a good idea.

In the accident, the only place of impact was the front. There were no indications that I hit the rear on the retaining wall. There wasn't a scratch to be found back there. The only damage was on the front end. So, it's altogether possible that the alignment of the rear was like that when I bought the car.

Still open to comments, insight and advice, though.

 

That would be relevant if the front camber was out of spec but this is the rear toe. Good looking out for the OP though.

It really depends on the chassis Fit you have. Going by the 07-08 year model range on your report, its almost safe to say that you have a GD chassis. The GD chassis' torsion beam rear can be shimmed to bring the alignment back into spec, its just a pain to do so since the parts of the drum brake assembly (or the whole assembly perhaps) has to be removed in order to place the shim in its needed location which is between the beam and the back of the drum brake assembly.

Here is the part that is needed. Please keep in mind these are for one time use, so if you need to adjust the alignment again later down the road the shim will have to be replaced as well.

EZ Shim Red

Now if your Fit was a GE (09 to now), you can not adjust the rear alignment back into spec with either getting a new beam USDM/CDM spec or importing a JDM spec rear beam (or so I've read).

 

Don't worry about it; a lot of 07-08 Fits have the same issue whether the suspension is modified or completely unmolested. A lot of us have our rear toe anywhere from 0.20 to 0.39 (probably up to and past 0.44 too like you said) and it's not a problem as long as you rotate your tires at the regular intervals. If you ignore tire rotations, you may start to see cupping on the rear tires, but it's really not bad at all and it would take a good deal of neglect to be serious.

Have you ever had your alignment checked prior to your accident? Since your accident didn't result in any impact to the rear suspension, and because it is a common issue in our generation Fit, I would not be surprised at all if your rear alignment was slightly out of specifications from the factory.

I've had the alignment checked on my car about 5 times and it's not uncommon for me to get different camber/toe readings in the rear each time, even if I didn't change anything back there.

Your alignment is fine, nothing to worry about.

 

Thanks for all of the input and replies.

My car is a 2008 Fit Sport, so it is the GD chassis. I am sure it will bug me, but I will leave it as it is. I do rotate my tires regularly, so hopefully I won't have a wear issue.

I never had the alignment checked before the accident because I just bought the car in early November, and I hadn't even gone in for an oil change before the accident.

 

Now that I'm in the market for tires, I started thinking about this thread from almost 2 years ago.

I am guessing that if my right rear toe is that much out of spec, getting directional tires that can only rotate front to rear on the same side probably wouldn't be a great idea?