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GTI Camber and Toe


dirk1978
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My GTI has gradually got worse at eating through the inside of the front tyres and they now last about 500 miles. The last tyre fitter blamed the front wishbone rear bushes.

So now I've finally got some time with a friendly local garage and they're a bit stumped so far. Says all bushes look alright but the tracking is way out. Both front wheels massively pointing outwards and doesn't see how he's got enough thread on the track rods to dial it out enough.

One thing he mentioned was he thinks GTIs have different ball joints or rod ends which are longer and someone might have put the wrong ones on in the past? Anyone heard of this?

To me, the camber looks off too. The front wheels look to be sloping in towards the top. But not sure if that's normal?

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If the camber is way out and you have run out of adjustment on the track rod ends then something isnt right. The previous owner may have dialled that in for looks or to get some wide rims under the arch or because they didnt know what they were doing, who knows.

If you had wrong ball joints on the camber would be positive not negative as the GTI joint is longer for the extra track width on them, so probably just the camber adjustment on the strut bolts is way off and the tracking as a result.

Slacken the two strut bolts that hold it on to the hub knuckle and pull the top of the disk out towards you until it wont go any further then tighten the bolts back up, you could use a level or whatever to get an idea but wheels would have to be dead straight ahead and on very even ground etc to get any accuracy.

This is assuming the strut tops arent adjustable or broken and they havent drilled out the holes for the strut bolts to get extra camber adjustment.

Edited by Sausage
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Sorry I didn't explain very well.

The car is absolutely bog standard from the factory. Definitely no messing from anyone but perhaps the previous owner had track rod ends replaced with wrong ones accidentally?

Anyway, when I say pointing outwards I meant they're toeing out. Ignore me saying the camber, that was a bit of an afterthought. It's toeing I'm talking about, left wheel wants to go left, right wheel wants to go right. Pure guess maybe 3-4 degrees out.

Also - it clunks when turning and hitting a bump. So I think somethings broken somewhere. Hopefully it'll become apparent when the mechanic starts stripping it down.

For reference, this is it. Camber looks OK on this pic though?20170528_151236.thumb.jpg.5fbbef01effee698651e1083db70d32a.jpg

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I know what it is.... common in almost all vdubs that have been repaired. :)

Lower ball joints not installed correctly.

Keep wheels on hubs, but off the ground. Loosen the three bolts (13mm) where the ball joint slots into the wishbone. Push the bottoms of the wheels back as far as they'll go to the stop while tightening up again. Then check your tracking. Should have a very small amount of toe out, but can't remember the numbers!

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1 hour ago, mk2 said:

I know what it is.... common in almost all vdubs that have been repaired. :)

Lower ball joints not installed correctly.

Keep wheels on hubs, but off the ground. Loosen the three bolts (13mm) where the ball joint slots into the wishbone. Push the bottoms of the wheels back as far as they'll go to the stop while tightening up again. Then check your tracking. Should have a very small amount of toe out, but can't remember the numbers!

Thanks I'll mention it to him. Something I could do myself but it's at the garage now.

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it's the dialling it out problem, I have come across this before when someone upgraded a sport to gti, and left their rack in place.

when you're tracking it the tie rods run out of thread.

if you used the terminology of dialling in then I could see where you would all be going with the ball joint theory.

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Morning all.

The mechanic said that once he managed to get the tie rod nuts undone he was able to track it fine. Said it's all OK now. Got some new tyres on and it feels much better.

These were the tyres that came off 😮

20180727_123035.jpg

20180727_123040.jpg

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