2012 & 2013 Passat Alignment Discussion

You guys rock; thanks for all your continued support and insight!

If VW doesn't make it right, I plan to reach out to media and/or an attorney.

They should be ashamed of themselves. Poor, dishonest dealings thus far.

Also feel I should be compensated for the hassle, aggravation and time lost.

Still have to wait and see...

There isn't enough as far as cost involved to get totally twisted about this. Cost of setting up your car correctly ranges from 115 to maybe 200 at a fancy place. Myself, after about 5 minutes, I took it down the road 1/2 mile and got it done for 115 bucks. Just a attorney consultation would be a lot more, especially in NYC. The passat chassis is basically a good platform, it just comes with wrong isettings for pleasant driving.

thundershorts said:

There isn't enough as far as cost involved to get totally twisted about this. Cost of setting up your car correctly ranges from 115 to maybe 200 at a fancy place. Myself, after about 5 minutes, I took it down the road 1/2 mile and got it done for 115 bucks. Just a attorney consultation would be a lot more, especially in NYC. The passat chassis is basically a good platform, it just comes with wrong isettings for pleasant driving.

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Very good advice. Thank you.

I have a friend who's an attorney who specializes in lemon law. To my knowledge, an alignment problem is a safety hazard. I've also been told by the dealer and do see in the TSB's that there's methods by which alignments are warrantable for the first X number of miles; that said, the car was delivered this way.

If the fix is easy enough, and they refuse to repair, but I bring it in enough times and ultimately have it repaired, whether by them or elsewhere, guess the ball is in my court. I hope they realize the money they'd need to spend on representation could've been / can be better spent getting down to the bottom of this with me now, not later.

Time / hassle / aggravation, yes, nothing can truly compensate for this, but the nonsense was brought to me; just can't let something like this go. Hard earned money for something that's so blatantly defective. Wrong on so many levels; taking advantage of consumers, and I'd consider any statements that the car doesn't pull or drift - or is doing so for other reasons - to be fraudulent in an effort to deny warranty coverage. Certainly a breach of contract and against public policy and their obligations.

If anyone has any VW contacts to cut through this mess, please let me know. :|

Your anger has taken over your desire for a solution. YOUR health is at risk here. Get over it. Seriously. Life is too short. Compensation for your hassle, aggravation, and time lost? You won't get further support from me on this

Time to move on. This thread has offered you adequate support, encouragement and real technical advice that will solve your problem.

Chill. Get your car aligned. Move on.

tdiatlast said:

Your anger has taken over your desire for a solution. YOUR health is at risk here. Get over it. Seriously. Life is too short. Compensation for your hassle, aggravation, and time lost? You won't get further support from me on this

Time to move on. This thread has offered you adequate support, encouragement and real technical advice that will solve your problem.

Chill. Get your car aligned. Move on.

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What he said!

tdiatlast said:

Your anger has taken over your desire for a solution. YOUR health is at risk here. Get over it. Seriously. Life is too short. Compensation for your hassle, aggravation, and time lost? You won't get further support from me on this

Time to move on. This thread has offered you adequate support, encouragement and real technical advice that will solve your problem.

Chill. Get your car aligned. Move on.

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No conflict wanted, but you misunderstand me. Anger hasn't overtaken want of a solution. I'll move on when VW makes it right, one way or another. I don't simply pay for something, only to be screwed over. If I screw myself over further, that's up to me, but resulting from their BS.

I truly appreciate the support and technical advice. Tremendous help, but the technical advice is all I meant to ask for help with (plus any VW contacts). While this is a message board and anyone can weigh in however they like, I wasn't asking for advice on health, but thank you.

Stating that my car pulls to the right because I don't take it to get aligned doesn't look at the problem from the right perspective, in my opinion.

Thundershorts, could you please post the required setting numbers to align the 2015 Passat. Either here or PM me please.

Within the next 2 weeks I'll replace the "Hankook" tires and will get the Road force balancing done and at the same time would like to get the alignment done.

There is a link in a previous post of an alignment report but it leads nowhere.

Thank you

First find a shop that aligns to minutes of arc rather than tenths of a degree. Sixty minutes in a degree so a tenth of a degree equals 6 minutes, hence minutes is six times more finite than tenths.
set both front and rear tow to zero, 0.0 , compare left and right castor and camber readings, they should be close, each on my car came out to be within 2 minutes. Set rear camber both sides to -1 or - 1 3o'. FYI, the 30' is what the printout would show for 30 minutes of a degree. If your front shows a sizable difference between right and left, you may have a subframe misalignment. You should end up with a thrust angle of 0.00. Let us know how it feels afterwards.

opps I forgot, road force balance is really not needed with quality rubber, Just make sure they mount them with the yellow dot at the valve stem. Hankook and some other tires with funny names get lumpy after a few thousand miles. As I had mentioned in earlier posts, at 56k miles on my 2013 sel there was still 8/32 left on my Conti's running with those settings. Maybe would have run to 80k?

thundershorts said:

opps I forgot, road force balance is really not needed with quality rubber, Just make sure they mount them with the yellow dot at the valve stem. Hankook and some other tires with funny names get lumpy after a few thousand miles. As I had mentioned in earlier posts, at 56k miles on my 2013 sel there was still 8/32 left on my Conti's running with those settings. Maybe would have run to 80k?

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Thank you for the quick reply.
I'll copy and print it out.

The tires I will be buying include Road Force balancing in the price out the door, but I do not think that this shop has the alignment or at least I want to take the car to a shop which has lots of good alignment reviews here in the city.

For a point of clarification: Set rear camber both sides to -1 or - 1 3o'. Is the last number supposed to be 1.30'

rear camber setting anywhere between one degree negative and 1 and a half degrees. that applies to both sides. The thrust angle should be zero. minor change of r/l camber rear might be necessary to achieve zero thrust angle. Total toe both front and rear should be zero. Still don't know what rubber you plan to install. I'll repeat, quality rubber should not need road force balance. If a tire needs road force balance, its most likely a bad tire. Cheap tires are usually the most expensive in terms of tread life, performance in wet, tracking, etc. I looked at a friends cheap tires on his Forte yesterday and they were pretty much done at 8k miles due to outside edge wear and cupping.

thundershorts said:

rear camber setting anywhere between one degree negative and 1 and a half degrees. that applies to both sides. The thrust angle should be zero. minor change of r/l camber rear might be necessary to achieve zero thrust angle. Total toe both front and rear should be zero. Still don't know what rubber you plan to install. I'll repeat, quality rubber should not need road force balance. If a tire needs road force balance, its most likely a bad tire. Cheap tires are usually the most expensive in terms of tread life, performance in wet, tracking, etc. I looked at a friends cheap tires on his Forte yesterday and they were pretty much done at 8k miles due to outside edge wear and cupping.

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Thanks again for the reply.
My choice is either Continental PureContact's or GeneralTire's Altimax RT43.
Both get similar ratings from Consumers report and TriTire Review Team.
Long guaranteed tire wear mileage.
As it happens it's the same manufacturer in any case.

On my Jetta I had the originals, then Goodyear Assurance Triple tread and ended up with a Walmart brand tire. To be honest I could not tell the difference between any of them, except the cost. I always feel it when new tires are installed, but that goes away after a while. In fact since I bought the car with it's factory Hankooks, the tires perform well except that they seem to be noisy on most road surfaces except on a newly paved road. One thing I do wonder if one of the reasons is the tire size of 235x45x18 which are a lot lower than I have ever had in my whole life. I am more used to 65 not 45 sidewalls. I do not need winter performance since I never see winters anymore. I may be spending just under $ 1.000.00 and then find out that new tires make no difference but I have heard from other users with Hankook tires also saying they are noisy.
I will be going up one size to 245x45x18 but am considering going to 245x55x18 if the can fit in.

Just to add your friends tires problem, this is probably running the tire pressure way too low which does cause outside edges to wear.
Pressure too high and the center wears.

Cupping is usually caused by mechanical faults on the vehicle.

On my 3.000 mile twice yearly trip I do up my tire pressure to 38lbs for all highway and car loaded driving, but lower it again when I get to my destination to be repeated 5 1/2 months later for the rip home.

The conti's are a good choice however changing tire size is a really bad idea.

FYI, my car has Continental ProContact TX tires...

Same as both my Passat sel and the Golf S '15. At least your tires are not an issue. They track quite well.

thundershorts said:

Same as both my Passat sel and the Golf S '15. At least your tires are not an issue. They track quite well.

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Question: Any thoughts on tracking stability of LRR tires? I've been wondering for some time if LRR tires put greater demands on the accuracy of FE alignments, as well as sensitivity to tire air pressure.

thundershorts said:

Same as both my Passat sel and the Golf S '15. At least your tires are not an issue. They track quite well.

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Thank you.

tdiatlast said:

Question: Any thoughts on tracking stability of LRR tires? I've been wondering for some time if LRR tires put greater demands on the accuracy of FE alignments, as well as sensitivity to tire air pressure.

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Underinflated tires raise a tire’s rolling resistance. A 0.3-percent drop in fuel mileage is possible for every 1 psi drop in tire pressure according to government estimates.

Thanks, JP. I know about PSI and MPG. I'm wondering specifically about LRR tires and tracking, as I've experienced the issue with the NMS Passat, and again with my 2014 Avalon. Example: with OEM Hankooks (2012), car would tramline if I raised PSI above 38PSI, with what I thought was an accurate FE alignment. Once below 38PSI, the issue was resolved.

Met two regional reps yesterday.

Both were beyond nice and both immediately acknowledged my concerns upon test drive.

Got me into a loaner and said that the car will be fixed; said they will look throughout the entire car.

Let's hope for the best.

Thanks everyone!

Thanks everyone.

Crazy, but they replaced the steering column!?

They say it tracks straight now.

I'll report back when I drive the car.

Nuts, right?

I guess you'll find out what their definition of fixed is vs yours.

thundershorts said:

I guess you'll find out what their definition of fixed is vs yours.

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Very true. :|

I revisited the alignment report you had posted earlier in the thread. Originally your car toe was positive right front and negative left front which would have made it drift right, before the dealer aligned it. I would surmise that the coluum change was to replace the torsion sensing device that tells the steering controller to make slight corrections for road crown and of course senses steering angle. I'd ask for their alignment report after its "fixed". My guess is that it will still have the excessive toe set by the people at summit and you will still need to take it somewhere else to have it set up properly.

decades ago, Many tricks were applied to correct drift, One simple one was to lower tire pressure on the opposite side to counteract direction of drift and increasing tire pressure on opposite rear tire. We had a new model in 1980 which the left side of the car weighed 150lbs more than the right. The factory cure was to change the left side spring with the heavier diesel spring and weaken the right side rear spring with a torch.

thundershorts said:

I revisited the alignment report you had posted earlier in the thread. Originally your car toe was positive right front and negative left front which would have made it drift right, before the dealer aligned it. I would surmise that the coluum change was to replace the torsion sensing device that tells the steering controller to make slight corrections for road crown and of course senses steering angle. I'd ask for their alignment report after its "fixed". My guess is that it will still have the excessive toe set by the people at summit and you will still need to take it somewhere else to have it set up properly.

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Will request the alignment report and post.

Thanks for all your help.

Well here's the 2nd alignment report:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=665537&d=1505423520

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=665545&d=1505423520

Thoughts please...

Thanks.

the caster angle is missing on one of these RO's yet appears on the other, six minutes of a degree difference right to left. They set max toe both ft and rear. the car may feel much better to you but it isn't up to its full potential of drive ability How does it feel to you?.