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I just took my car to get it aligned and all numbers came back within standards, at least according to sheet given to me at the facility, with the exception of one: Cross Camber. I will try to add all numbers here for reference:

Front Left:
           Actual   /  Before   /   Specified Range:
Camber     -1.0     /  -1.0     /   -1.3   -  0.3
Caster      4.9     /   4.9     /    4.2   -  5.7
Toe         0.04    /   0.23    /   -0.03  -  0.13
SAI        13.0     /   13.0    /    12.0  -  13.5
Inc Angle  12.0     /   12.0    /    10.8  -  13.8

Front Right:
           Actual   /   Before   /   Specified Range:
Camber     -0.6     /   -0.6     /   -1.5   -  0.0
Caster      4.9     /    4.9     /    4.2   -  5.7
Toe         0.06    /    0.38    /    -0.03 -  0.13
SAI        12.6     /    12.7    /    12.0  -  13.5
Inc Angle  12.0     /    12.0    /    10.5  -  13.5

Front:
          Actual    /  Before    /  Specified Range:
Cross Camber** -0.4 /   -0.3     /   -0.3 - 0.8
Cross Caster    0.0 /    0.0     /   -0.6 - 0.6
Cross SAI       0.4 /    0.4,
Total Toe      0.10 /    0.61    /   -0.07 - 0.27

Rear Left:
          Actual    /   Before   / Specified Range:
Camber       -0.7   /   -1.6     /   -1.1  - 0.1
Toe          0.08   /   -0.08    /   -0.13 - 0.38

Rear Right:
          Actual    /   Before   / Specified Range
Camber       -0.7   /   -1.3     /   -1.1 - -0.1
Toe          0.05   /    0.08    /   -0.13 - 0.38

Rear
          Actual    /   Before   / Specified Range
Cross Camber  -0.1  /   -0.4
Total Toe     0.13  /    0.00    /    0.00 - 0.50
Thrust Angle   0.01 /   -0.08

** (Note here how the actual worsened from the Before...Is this OK??),

Any help understanding these numbers will be greatly appreciated, especially that Cross Camber result for the front that was shown as the only number NOT within specification. Thank you.

dlu
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Coamex
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1 Answers1

7

Cross Camber is the difference is camber between two wheels. In this case your front wheels. If both wheels are set the same, the cross camber zero. In your case the front left camber is -1.0 and the front right is -0.6.

Notice in the camber specs that the two sides of the car are not the same. Camber controls the tendency of the car to "self-steer" (much like leaning a bicycle or motorcycle causes it to turn). Since most roads have a crown to them a bias in the camber based on the side of the road the car is intended to be driven on will result in less tendency to drift "downhill" towards the edge of the road. Cross camber is the measure of that bias.

The car will tend to "pull" (or in this case it might be more accurate to say compensate) towards the side with the more positive camber.

The claimed spec for the cross camber is -0.3 to 0.8 and yours is slightly out of spec in terms of the overall difference between the front wheels even though both front wheels are in spec. So it may have a bit more of a tendency to pull to the left than if it were in spec.

dlu
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