I went in for new tires this afternoon and had some lovely new Potenza RE950's installed on my 1987 GXL. They put the car up on the alignment rack and told me my rear end was horribly out of line. I asked them to fix it and they replied with something to the affect of "tough noogins there is no way to adjust the rear end." By the time I left the tire store the walls were covered with blood and urine and the muffled shouts of "HE'S TURNING MY FACE LIKE A ROTOR" echoed from the walls.

Is there a way to avoid another such situation or is my rear end destined to never be aligned? Save the fine men who install tires.

 

Toe-in is adjustable.

Camber is not adjustable from the factory. I have NEVER seen an FC that had rear camber in spec.

Basically, just don't worry about it. Tell 'em to set what they can. Your tires will wear out quickly, anyway, even at the factory specs.

 

Add a rear camber adjustment link. Many vendors carry them. Get one that can be adjusted while installed.

 

Are you sure that the toe-in can be aligned? I checked with two places and they said it wasn't possible to do anything on the rear.

 

that's because they are idiots! tell them to get a hunter, it tells you exactly where to adjust every angle that any car has.

it helps a lot if you keep calling them lazy idiots until they get off of there fat lazy asses and do their job.

 

Download the FSM and read the chapter on wheel alignment.
Print and bring copy of FSM pages(about 3-4 pages) to the alignment shop.

Alignment techs avoid touching anything difficult or seriously rusted. The price for an alignment is usually too cheap to screw with difficult rear suspension alignment on some cars. If you want it done right, be willing to pay more and say so. Don't expect a $49.99
alignment to include everything. Alignment machines cost way to much to make a profit on it. Most of the time, they get you with suspension repairs/tire replacements justifying the alignment.

Front: caster/camber/toe
Rear: toe(subframe to link distance) & camber if you buy above mentioned adjustment link.

We are not idiots. Most of the time, it is not worth the hassle. Rear tire wear is usually caused by lead foot and not rear alignment.

 

The rear toe is adjusted by rotating the cam-bolt that holds the control arm to the subframe. It's fairly easy to get at with an impact gun and a wobble.

The shop I was at charged $60 for a 4-wheel, one hour's labor, and I could typically knock them out in 20-30 minutes. I'd have no problems with bleeding a little in order to get the alignment out the door

 

Keep in mind, with the adjuster you can only adjust camber on both sides simultaneously! Something is bent on my FC (probably the trailing arm) and the camber on my two rear wheels isn't equal! I have to get a piece replaced or else zoom around with nearly 2 degrees more camber on one side than the other... Why didn't Mazda design a suspension with proper adjustments...

 

On a good note the tires you chose are very good. I ahev had them for about 5 months and they are the best i have ever driven on.

 

Adjustments don't make up for wear/worn/bent/broken components or crashed/rebuilt cars. Check your ride height. Replace all your bushings. Check your subframe to lateral link distance and toe.
The main reason for the aftermarket camber adjuster is because so many people lower their cars and need to get rid of the rear squating look. It is not there to fix something not fixable. Mtrix has the separate rear camber adjusters which might fix something not fixable. Not cheap but it allows separate left and right adjustment. This will help you people with camber differences that the normal aftermarket adjuster can't do.

http://www.mazdatrix.com/h6_86-92.htm
http://www.mazdatrix.com/getprice.as...um=86-01-E015L
http://www.mazdatrix.com/getprice.as...um=86-01-E015R