How bad is negative toe on a road car?

[Tommie38]

Car is a MK5 Golf GTI running all new OEM spec suspension. Lots of new bushes, shocks, springs etc.

I’ve just had geometry done at Kwik Fit (please don’t ask) and they left me with quite a lot of toe out in the rear. It looked like the trailing arm needed to be loosened and they only adjust on the offset shoulder bolts apparently.

Front camber -1.00/-1.06
Front toe 0.01/0.06
Rear camber -1.45/-1.20
Rear toe -0.15/-0.14

How bad is that rear toe going to be? Aware of the theory that it might help low speed turn in but not high speed stability or braking. My question is, in the real world would it cause me a problem for driving or tyre wear?

Grateful for thoughts.

[BananaFama]

I'm guessing they adjusted it back to factory settings .

[Tommie38]

Sadly not, factory rear toe is between -0.01 and 0.11.

[thebraketester]

Depends how much of a light rear end you like. I wouldnt want toe out on the rear. 0 or a small amount of toe in is pretty optimal for the mk5

[Tommie38]

Thanks for the input guys.

I guess my starting position is that I want the car to feel like it did from the factory and I know the car won’t give me that at the moment.

My question really is will the geo that I left with be the equivalent of drift school in the wet on a set of worn Wang-Li rears. In other words will it c0ck everything up or just be a mild difference.

[Tommie38]

Tommie38 said:

Thanks for the input guys.

I guess my starting position is that I want the car to feel like it did from the factory and I know the car won’t give me that at the moment.

My question really is will the geo that I left with be the equivalent of drift school in the wet on a set of worn Wang-Li rears. In other words will it mess everything up or just be a mild difference.

[thebraketester]

Maybe. Maybe not. Depends. I would get it back to factory spec and forget about it.

[Tommie38]

Yep, I think I will.

For as long as I can remember certain companies have been a bit of a joke and I have stayed away because of their reputation.

I just noticed that he used the alignment specs for a standard MK5 as well, rather than the GTI. To be fair to him, he did end up only charging me for the front. Just would have been good to know policy is not to adjust the trailing arms, particularly given we spoke about adjusting trailing arms when I dropped it off…

[thebraketester]

This is what you should be aiming for.

[Tommie38]

Yep. I can’t remember which target settings were different, I think camber was part of it.