Front end alignment that hard?

[SilverMoose]

So I go to stealership for a simple alignment. Get truck back and steering wheel is still crooked,,, I think ok no problem just go back and quick fix,,,nope. 97yo guy comes out saying geometry is correct and must be a bad tire needs rotating or new tire ect ect. I must be totally clueless. What does a tire have to do with crooked steering wheel? The truck drives perfectly straight,,with wheel crooked? Attached is the alignment report for any of you that understand it.

 

[whtrapta]

I did my own at the house and it's dead perfect. Only takes about an hour.

 

[SilverMoose]

It drives perfectly straight now..no issue at all,,,except steering wheel ie red stripe is over to right not a bunch but def noticeable,,if I center it up while driving truck goes left,,let go of wheel and truck goes straight but steering wheel crooked again,,maybe just being ****?

 

[Rookie]

Did you do anything that would've knocked it out of place?

 

[whtrapta]

It drives perfectly straight now..no issue at all,,,except steering wheel ie red stripe is over to right not a bunch but def noticeable,,if I center it up while driving truck goes left,,let go of wheel and truck goes straight but steering wheel crooked again,,maybe just being ****?

my truck did that after texas. the tires were aligned correctly as far as the toe in/out but the steering wheel was off. You need to move both tie rods in the same direction.

 

[pirate air]

Hard to see the numbers on the print out. Most likely the steering wheel was off center when they went to do their final toe adjustment. If you don't center the wheel and lock it into place when you make the adjustment, the vehicle will drive fine but the wheel will be off in the position it was in during adjustment.

---------- Post added at 08:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:50 AM ----------

Looks like initial total toe was .52 and final total toe is .16 if I see that correctly.

 

[SilverMoose]

Tie rod solution,,again no genius here,,but how does that straighten wheel without changing alignment (going straight down road)

Nope, have not hit anything to bend or twist anything, ( not home enough yet to get out on much more than week tank trails)

Alignment numbers, this better to see?

 

[whtrapta]

when doing an alignment you normally make both tires turn in or both turn out to get the toe correct. to straighten the wheel, you have to make both tires turn the same direction using the tie rod adjustment to where the wheel is straight.

I used this to figure it out.
Alignment-How to DIY - F150online Forums

 

[pirate air]

Specs look "ok" (not to my standards but I'm **** when it comes to alignments). The steering wheel wasn't centered when they made the final toe adjustment plain and simple.
You can do like whrapta said and adjust the tie rods evenly. The left will need to adjust in and right will need to adjust out. Personally I'd take it back to the deal because without the proper equipment, you really have no idea what your total toe is after you've adjusted the tie rod to get the steering wheel straight. In the perfect world the total toe would be the same if tie rods were adjusted evenly but unfortunately ford parts aren't machined perfectly, hence the reason each wheel is at +.08 degrees but yet the steering wheel is off...

---------- Post added at 09:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:16 AM ----------

when doing an alignment you normally make both tires turn in or both turn out to get the toe correct. to straighten the wheel, you have to make both tires turn the same direction using the tie rod adjustment to where the wheel is straight.

I used this to figure it out.
Alignment-How to DIY - F150online Forums

That's not an alignment. That's a toe set and whoever wrote that failed on one or two key items. When doing a real/professional alignment (or even toe set) the steering wheel is centered and you can either adjust individual toe off of live readings, or enter into a program such as "wintoe" which basically takes you step by step and has some other benefits that aren't worth going into. This is all done and calculated after you take into account thrust angle and occupancy weight. You never go back and adjust the steering wheel to center it after you've made the final toe adjustments, that's the whole point of centering it in the first place. If its off, you did something wrong, and you need to start the whole process over not just adjust the tie rods one way or another. Thats junk yard shit.

 

[PropDr]

It would be easy to center the steering wheel.
but first find a straight empty section of two lane highway and first drive on the right, then on the crown and finely on the left and note the behavior of the truck.