I’m curious what you guys are seeing regarding abnormal tire wear. Would you post some pics? Genuinely curious.

 

post #4 has pics of the tires worn on the inside edge.

 

No idea how I missed those pics the first time through…thx🤙🤙

 

hello,
it would be useful to see the printout of a new general alignment.
from what I see, (wear of the front tires on the inside, and changes to the front toe in particular), the problem must be sought on the steering rods, therefore the steering heads, or at least the problem with the steering box.

 

UPDATE: For mine, I went back to the alignment shop I used initially. We are both at a loss. He aligned (I'm under the vehicle with him the entire time, FYI) the fronts. Rears were on verge of tolerances so he decided to align only fronts, then roll back in and recheck after getting those two proper. Another weird anomaly, the right front showed camber was out of tolerance...when we rolled it out and back in again, it was within tolerance. Maddening.

With all numbers in the "green", I departed. There was certainly improvement, but nominal. The same, albeit moderately improved, driving experience: car drives on rails and holds the line...if the steering wheel is 5ish degrees turned to the left. This has been the case since i took ownership, and remained the same before and after all alignment attempts.

I quoted the above, as I'm interested in learning more about this topic and how to address it. My guy at the alignment shop did mention a reset of the steering module? Is this one and the same to the above? Thanks, in advance, for any added information from the members here!

@outofalignment Not sure how much this will assist you, but more information is never a bad thing for any of us, I suppose...

 

Hi, I think doing a steering ECU calibration maybe could help eliminate those 5 degrees of deviation. I'm not sure if it can be done, but you definitely need an LR tool.
It is very difficult to diagnose these alignment problems, I personally have never had any problems on my car in 30,000 km travelled.
I think the cars are still under warranty, the procedure could be: print a first alignment document, then after a certain time (15 days?) print a new alignment document with any misalignment.
Go to the dealership.
Defender's front suspension and steering is very complicated, but like all these structures it is static and fixed.
the elements that can modify the alignment are all the elastic elements of the suspension and steering, steering heads, steering gear box, then the silent-blocks of all the joints and suspension arms, there are certainly many elastic points, and they should be disassembled and check them all.
it's a long and complicated job, but given the chronic problem I see no other solution and in my opinion these are the main suspects.
sorry for this bad english....but i use the translator.

 

Your translated English is better than mine, as a native speaker. Haha! No need to apologize!

The alignment shop I have frequented mentioned he has the capability to do that calibration, but we shall see. I would love to take it in to the dealership...unfortunately, however, I've been waiting on an appointment for a month or more at this point (for a standard annual service plus some small items to address under warranty). Very frustrating, when there are other options for the work but the warranty awareness I exercise has me waiting this one out for my dealership appointment. It's honestly not a huge issue for operation of the vehicle, but I just replaced the tires with brand new KO2's. The last thing I want is to drive on the new rubber any longer than necessary before getting to the bottom of this.

Thanks for the added insight! More come, I have no doubt... Take care.

CW

 

Outofalignment:

It seems probable(?) you might be suffering from bad Steering Angle Sensors (SASs), a bad Electronic Power Steering Control Module, or a failure of the technicians executing the alignment work to properly adjust the necessary Steering Angle Sensors (SAS), post-alignment.

This attached pdf file might give you and others reading this thread a greater understanding of the brave new world which we are all experiencing in living with Electronic Vehicles.

I was totally unaware of what is in the presentation and am on my third reading of it............. kind of revolutionary.

------------------------------------------

THE FIRST BULLET ON PAGE 21 BLOWS ME AWAY ....... I spent my youth driving cars with steering wheels and racks bent and not often with the steering wheel level. Apparently, that no longer is acceptable !

The Vehicles On Board Systems Assume That

• The steering wheel is straight ahead when the vehicle is driven on a flat level road
• Toe is equally divided between the two front wheels
• There is no directional influence caused by tires or chassis
• There is no rear thrust influence causing a driver to counter steer

 

When you lift an independent suspension vehicle, as the suspension goes up, your toe settings go inward creating a "toe in" situation. Since the tie rods run at a steeper angle they effectively become shorter. This is why the manufacturer does not let you travel at speed without being in standard ride height. Your service writer is correct in that there is not much to adjust. I was blown away that there is no camber adjustment. The dealer should have just set the front and rear toe. "Toe in" will sometimes give the visual effect that the camber is out of spec. The suspension geometry is pretty cool on the new defender in that camber does not seem to change much at different heights until you get closer to full droop. Very different from the lr3 that would get that crazy positive camber at full droop. For air suspension vehicles there is a special "tight tolerance" mode you enable to keep the suspension from adjusting during the alignment which will throw off the specs quite a bit. Another factor is tire pressure. If it is just a few psi off, the specs get out of wack. Performing an alignment is quite fussy. Dealing with tenths of a degree. Technicians do them in many different ways and have very different results.

QUOTE=nashvegas;852336]OP -- It does sound like a component is perhaps bent or otherwise not in spec. Maybe it hit a curb on a test drive before you.

I was surprised when I had my dealer realign to the 1.5" lift rods, the service writer said "well there's not much to adjust on these". Anyway I still paid for the alignment. I'm not sure what exactly they may have adjusted but they said they did it...

I **assumed*** they would be adjusting the camber. Because when the air suspension goes up (esp with the 1.5" lift rods installed), I could clearly see the rear wheels showing a tilt (ie camber) at the new standard ride height, and even more obviously showing negative (?) or positive (?) camber at offroad heights w/ the lift rods installed. Or maybe I'm crazy and was imagining this but it looked like an old LR3 when they'd get in access or offroad height... . After the dealer realigned with the lift rods on, the camber looked zero at normal height.

See pic below



But apparently that's not adjustable. So in other words I have no idea what I'm talking about and no idea what the dealer actually did... @sarek what do you think ? Was I imagining this (and in other words, why do you need an alignment just for toe when you add lift rods..)[/QUOTE]