Front alignment

The only purpose of an alignment is to ensure the vehicle is driving straight down the road with a straight steering wheel and there are no bent components causing tire wear or other drive-ability issues. If you are doing it this way, there is nothing wrong with that. As you said the machine is much more accurate but it can be done this way because you are manually taking the measurements the machine does. However, it sounds like you are only measuring the toe angle and adjusting the pull either way with toe. If this is the case, you may get away with it on some vehicles but unfortunately this will not correct all alignment issues. In fact it could make some worse but still drive straight down the road.

This is done by camber and caster measurements. Toe is actually the final angle you adjust once you align the others. While you can correct some pull with toe you are most likely going to start seeing significant tire wear if camber is not correct. Basically that means the vehicle is pulling one way or the other due to the top of the tire being too far in or out in relation to the center point of the knuckle and you are correcting this by pointing the leading edge of the tire in or out. This is actually compounding the issue rather then fixing it.

Long story short, you can do it this way if toe is the only angle needing adjustment but you don't know that without measuring the other angles.

Hopefully this helps. Thanks

Good morning,

You need measurements to align a front end.

First, you need to do center point steering. That is where you count the number of turns from lock to lock. Let us say you have 4 turns. Then you turn it back 2 turns and lock it there, That is the center point of the steering rack which is critical.

Then you can set the wheels toe in settings. The wheels need to have 1/8 total toe in and the wheel should be straight and not pull going down the road.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/tie-rod-end-replacement

You can use a toe bar or a tape measure to check the toe in but the toe bar is more accurate.

If you are off on your readings, then you will have tire wear.

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-car-tires-work

Roy

Thank you.

Roy