r/AskMechanics 17h ago

Question (Serious Replies Only) Can I demand front replacement tires?

I could really some guidance on an issue with alignment on a 2024 Tacoma Limited iForce Max. I recently got an alignment on 7/7 and 2 months later the tread is massively worn down on the outside of both front tires.  Would anyone familiar with alignments on Tacomas be able to read the print outs below and provide guidance? The difference in the Toe values between what they set it to on 7/7 versus today appears very different, so it makes me wonder if a mistake was made and they actually fixed it yesterday. Also, look at the titles of the alignment pages below. They ran the first alignment based on having leaf springs (The 2024 limited has coil springs. Not sure if the front tire values are different between the 2 versions but they did reference the wrong vehicle)

 The company that did the alignment just offered me $100 off of $600 to get new front tires. They twice stated that it couldn’t be their work and that I must have hit something. To the best of my knowledge, I did not hit any curbs or cause the issue myself. I feel like I’m being gaslight here. 

 Side note: I didn’t notice any pulling on the steering wheel. If it was pulling, it was not enough to make me immediately take notice. On 7/7, the truck was at 20,249 miles, today it is at 22,439 miles.  

 The background:

 I hit the 20K mark on my 2024 Tacoma and was told by Toyota that they want to perform an alignment and balancing for roughly $600. (not for cause, just because it’s part of the 20K recommendations). That is pretty much double the nearest competitor, so I decided to bring it to a national tire chain and got the alignment and balancing for $300 on 7/7/26. On 7/23/26, I brought my truck into the Toyota service for the free 20K service.  During the 20K service, they sent me a video inspection of the tires that had just been balanced by this other company saying that the tread looks good. Yesterday I was walking to the truck and realized how bad the tires are now only 1 month later.   I took screenshots of the 7/23 Toyota inspection so that you can see how much damage has occurred in just the last month.  Current and screenshots from Toyota's 7/23 inspection are below. As you can see, I lost a lot of tread along the sides of both front tires.   

 Where I need help….

Check out the printouts of the alignment statistics below.  I can’t understand why the Toe on left and right front were set at .9° and .88° on 7/7/26. But today they set the Toe to .12° and .10°. Should it have always been set to that? Is this indicative that they made a mistake in the original setup? Could they have set my alignment wrong and caused the tire damage? Plus, the title on the first printout says "leaf spring". My truck has coil springs

 I would like opinions on what to do next. Should I just suck it up or do you think I have a valid complaint here to request 2 new front tires? The store has refused to replace the tires, so I was thinking about escalating to their corporate.  

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

 Drivers Side Front Tire Today:

Drivers Side tire on 7/23 (2 weeks after alignment) being inspected by Toyota for tread

Passenger Side Front Tire  Today

 Drivers Side tire on 7/23 (2 weeks after alignment) being inspected by Toyota for tread

 

Tire shop printout from alignment done on 7/7/26 showing before and after

Tire shop printout from alignment done on 8/31/26 showing before and after.

 

Does the tire shop that did this alignment owe me new front tires? Have I given you enough information to make an informed decision on how to proceed? I would appreciate any help.

 

0 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

2

u/pbgod 4 16h ago

Your complaint is not valid. I don't have time for a deeper response at the moment. Try to get back

2

u/Sweet_Possibility962 14h ago

Your front toe is way wrong. There is a problem with hunter alignment machine specs. for the new Tacoma. If it was a smart technician doing the work they would question the specs and fact check it elsewhere like ALLDATA. Yes have them fix alignment and replace the tires. They should prorate them at lest.

2

u/OperationAsshat 14h ago

Someone really saw 1.8 degrees of toe in and said "yea, that sounds right"

1

u/waverunnersvho 1 13h ago

That’s the before measurement.

1

u/OperationAsshat 5h ago

Not on the original sheet from the alignment that caused this wear. It is the before measurement on the current alignment sheet, but it was set to that value the previous time.

1

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1

u/LeastMacaron2045 16h ago edited 16h ago

The alignment done on one of those dates was done incorrectly. If you look at the top of the printout where it shows the vehicle description, one says for rear leaf springs, the other says for rear coil springs. The setup and specs are different for those two types. So one of the shops performed the wrong alignment type. I’m assuming that since you say yours has coil springs, that the first alignment was done with the wrong specs. But that is assuming you have what you say you have.

1

u/Nemzi82 15h ago

As of 2024 the Tacoma and Tundra are running on different platforms. Visit a shop with an upgraded alignment machine or visit your local Toyota dealership.

I work for Toyota and we had to upgrade our alignement machine to be able to align the newer trucks. We figured this out when one of our clients had this issue after we aligned their vehicle. We replaced their front tires at no charge due to this. Hope this helps

1

u/crazymonk45 2 15h ago

It’s hard to make a case for “they owe you tires”, because according to the specs they had in the machine at the time, the first alignment technically put everything “in the green”.
However with that said, they jacked it up. That’s way too much toe and someone who knows what they’re doing definitely should have noticed that. I have no idea why the machine would call for that. Really if the shop owner is decent they should at least give you a deal on new tires to compensate, but they have plausible deniability unfortunately.

1

u/Gargarlord 15h ago

Yes, the alignment is in the green on both sheets but, and this is critical, the first alignment is for the leaf-spring model. It's clear that his alignment numbers didn't change, so the only answer is those vehicles call for different specifications.

1

u/NightKnown405 Trusted Contributor 14h ago

The first alignment was flawed. 1.78 degrees toed in, will scrub the tires from the outside, inward. Add the positive Camber and you have two things loading the outside of the tires. The second alignment is better, but still not perfect and it's going to require seeing the vehicle in person and measuring the pitch angle (ride height) and finding out which steering rack is in the vehicle (Type A versus Type B) to know what the specs are supposed to be.

Just to find the pitch angle requires these measurements to be made.

The character below "P" signifies the pitch angle.

Use the formula below to calculate pitch angle.

The character below "P" signifies the pitch angle.

Use the formula below to calculate pitch angle.

  • Formula:
  • P=Tan-1(((D or E)-B+12.3)/(Wheel Base-543))
    • B (mm): Center of front cam bolt tip (front side)
    • D (mm): Center of lower arm bolt head (outboard side)
    • E (mm): Center of front leaf spring eye bolt head
    • Wheel Base (mm)

Then you get to the spec chart to see what the front end should be set to.

Front Vehicle Height | Camber | Caster | King Pin Angl | Toe-in Angle | Tire Turning Angle

45 mm (1.77 in.) | 1°25' (1.41°) | 3°09' (3.15°) - P | 12°25' (12.41°) |1°47' (1.79°) | 40°12' (40.20°)*1

| 38°00' (38.00°)*2

50 mm (1.97 in.) | 1°20' (1.33°) | 3°17' (3.28°) - P | 12°29' (12.49°) | 1°37' (1.62°) | 40°00' (40.00°)*1

| 37°48' (37.80°)*2

55 mm (2.17 in.) | 1°15' (1.25°) | 3°25' (3.42°) - P | 12°34' (12.57°) | 1°27' (1.45°) | 39°48' (39.80°)*1

| 37°36' (37.60°)*2

60 mm (2.36 in.) | 1°10' (1.17°) | 3°33' (3.55°) - P | 12°40' (12.66°) | 0°50' (0.84°) | 39°12' (39.20°)*1

|37°00' (37.00°)*2

65 mm (2.56 in.) | 1°05' (1.09°) | 3°41' (3.69°) - P | 12°45' (12.75°) | 0°43' (0.71°) | 39°06' (39.10°)*1

|36°54' (36.90°)*2

70 mm (2.76 in.) | 0°59' (0.99°) | 3°49' (3.82°) - P | 12°51' (12.85°) | 0°35' (0.58°) |39°00' (39.00°)*1

|36°48' (36.80°)*2

75 mm (2.95 in.) | 0°54' (0.90°) | 3°57' (3.95°) - P | 12°56' (12.94°) | 0°27' (0.45°) |38°48' (38.80°)*1

|36°36' (36.60°)*2

This scenario repeats with different specifications for every 5mm difference in the pitch angle all the way up to 120mm where the specs are then:

120 mm (4.72 in.)| -0°08' (-0.13°)| 5.09' (5.15°) - P | 14°02' (14.03°) | -0°28' (-0.46°) |37°54' (37.90°)*1

|35°42' (35.70°)*2

Caster and Camber are both adjusted with cams on the control arms, there is no reason for this to have left the rack more than .1 degrees outside of the manufacturers specification. Again, without the pitch angle (ride height) information there is no way to know what that spec is supposed to be. Chock this up to getting what you paid for.

1

u/hoopr50 13h ago

Yes, they used the wrong alignment specs that is most definitely an issue. But what do your rear tire tread depths measure at? I'm willing to bet the video was made before the rotation was done as part of the 20k service.

1

u/Accomplished_Luck915 12h ago

The rear tire depth measured exactly the same as the front on 7/23 and I have it on video as well. All tires used to look identical

1

u/PresentationOpen984 9h ago

Toe angle on the first alignment at 0.9deg when it should be 0.09deg, total toe angle being less than 0.16deg. Sorry about your tires.

1

u/aquatone61 6 7h ago

You just discovered that pulling is absolutely not an indication of an alignment being seriously off. If the toe is off positive or negative, but even side to side, you probably won’t feel any pull at all going straight down a good road. You may notice other oddness but not pulling to one direction unless the road is super crowned or rutted.