save your money on that alignment and get 4 matching tires

it does sound like your rears are/were overinflated.




@sleeper 08: thanks for naming what we were describing. I had never heard of the term tramlining


@argonaut: the dog visual is a perfect way to describe a improperly centered rear axle...gotta remember that

 

If you lived in a city with street car (tram) tracks you would have probably heard it before

 

ordered tires today, should have them by thursday. we'll see what that does for me.

 

I was having the same problem with my 275/40 front tires. My large hotchkis front swaybar made the darting issue even worse. Irregularities would yank the wheel and tramline was noticable. I had my last alignment set to -.8 front camber (slight NEGATIVE camber) and -.08 toe (slight toe IN). I was previously set to slight toe-out and my camber was -1.2 so those changes made all the difference in the world. I also had my wheels dynamically balanced.

Now she tracks completely straight over the roughest roads even with the wide/low front tires and 9.5'' rims. Bumpsteer is gone and wheel shake disappeared. For some reason my caster is 5.9/6.5 which shows a bit 'out of spec' for a stock suspension setup but I'm guessing it's my steeda HD strut plates throwing the caster somewhat out of whack. The steering feel is good so I'm not that worried about it...

 

Either that or your alignment shop's rack isn't as precise as you think it is. I've brought this up before (and I'm going to do it again!), but not all alignment shops are created equal - and even one you trust can be way off. I would take any alignment report as more of a suggestion of what could be reality. If you see something that looks wrong, it probably is. Either the car's geometry is messed up, or the tools with which they're measuring it are messed up. If it's the tools, can you trust any of the other measurements?

I'm not trying to encourage everybody to start performing their own alignments, but you should at least be sceptical. And, for those that have an interest in this sort of thing, do it yourself. If you're detail oreinted (aka. **** retentive) like myself then you'll actually enjoy it. Oh, and since the Mustang is a solid rear axle car it is about the easiest car you'll ever find to align yourself.

 

I was going to attempt the 'do it yourself' alignment with the string method but when I got to the part about measuring and setting up tiles to adjust for garage floor leveling and placing sand or salt between them to allow for wheel rotation I got discouraged and made good friends with my local alignment shop. They throw it on the Hunter machine for $60 and if I make a small change to my suspension within a months time they only charge me another $30 for small adjustments. It's worth it to me for time and effort, time mainly which I seem to have less and less of these days.

 

got the tires on yesterday....problem seems to be a lot better. its amazing. ill be taking a 800+ road trip at the end of the month and we'll see how she really is.