I can fix my own car on most things and save the money, But after repairs I have had to pay for the front wheel tracking 3 times this year. Please please can someone tell how I can check the tracking my self. its so easy to adjust and there must be a DIY way, there usually is for most things. I had a look at laser gauges on ebay but even second hand they are still expensive. Even if it is quite a mess about I really want to do it myself, If you know how please pot it for me
As other have said, the easiest way is to use some sort of "stick" between the inside edges of the wheels and subtract the difference, then work out the angle change. The problem with this is that you can't always get a decent straight line across under the car. As you get lower down the rim, you loose accuracy because you're looking for a difference in distance between two points closer together than they would be at wheel centre height. Obviously, you can't jack the car up because if it's not at the correct ride height, you won't necessarily get a true indication of the toe setting in any case!
A method I have used for setting up a racing car is very time-consuming, and limited in accuracy, but it does work.
Set the car up at the correct ride height (fuel load, driver etc) on as level a surface as you can (correct tyre pressures etc). Make sure the car has been rolled forwards to its resting place so that the rubber suspension bushes have taken up their correct "set".
Run a length of cotton down each side of the car, paralell to the centreline of the car AND to each other. This takes absolutely ages to do properly!!! I use 4 axle stands - one at each corner of the car. I have two box sections drilled to accept the cotton in exactly the same place (so I know the two bits of cotton are paralell to each other). I rest one on a pair of axle stands just ahead of the car, and another on a pair just behind it.
Remove the wheel trims (or plastic centre if they're alloys) and measure from the cotton to the centre of each hub. Adjust the two lines side-to side until the distances are the same. NOTE that there's no reason why all shoudl be the same (in fact they are usuall NOT the same), the only stipulation is that the distance from the right hand rear wheel to the right adn bit of cotton shoudl be the same as that from the left hand wheel to the left hand bit of cotton. The same goes for the front (and again, it needn't be the same as the rear on each side, just the same as the front on the otehr side). You now have two paralell lines, each of which is also paralell to the centreline of the car.
Finally, you need to VERY CAREFULLY measure from the cotton to the wheel rim at the leading edge of each wheel, and at the trailing edge of each wheel. The difference in each pair, over the diameter of the wheel at the point where the measurements were taken will show you which way the wheel is pointing.
It takes absolutely AGES (and forget it altogether if its a windy day)! The nice thing is that you can check rear toe as well using this system. You need to be able to take the measurements to less than 0.5mm accuracy (otherwise it's simply not worth doing)! Obviously, when you disturb the car to make the adjustment, you have to start all over again!
(Personally, I think I'll be cashing out for some of those cheap laser gauges though)!
