2012 & 2013 Passat Alignment Discussion

thundershorts said:

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?.

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Haven't driven it yet; picking it up tomorrow; corporate e-mailed the reports to me.

Please let me know what I can tell the dealer to do with the alignment if the car is still pulling.

Thank you.

with the six minutes of angle caster difference right to left, you may still have a slight drift to right. Have them first zero front and back toe as I told you to see if castor comes closer to being same right and left, maybe 2min or less, if not, realign subframe while toe set to zero. Just loosing the subframe bolts may indeed allow it to happen. leave toe at zero, drive car.

I predict what will occur and of course I could be wrong, The castor differential will cause the car to still drift, the dealer will have been told by VW to do nothing further, as this would count as a second attempt to repair under lemon. The steering column change probably wasn't necessary but was done to show they made effort.
Toe has the effect of what I call "numbing" steering feel. More toe, more numb, less toe, more feel. The ability of the steering controller to correct for crown is "numbed out" by the stiffness imparted by the toe.
It all comes down to whether you are satisfied with what they have done. You have a lot more patience than I do,

Thank you so very much, thundershorts!

You have armed me with all I need if the car still doesn't drive right.

I will update you later today.

Let's hope for the best!

Picked up the car today. Drives much better! Wouldn’t say it pulls now, but it’s very susceptible to road crown, I think. I’ve noticed it easily drift in either direction, yet I’ve also been able to have it track straight. Steering feels tighter, which is welcome. Also notice that the slightest notch of the steering wheel to the left or right has the car going in said direction, and by this I mean, a so very beyond slight notch either way, whereas when it’s precisely, precisely, precisely, precisely (did I say precisely?) centered, it keeps straight, except for the aforementioned road slope. Then again, there are times there’s road crown and it’s tracking pretty darn straight given the slope!? Difficult to describe! If I didn’t have pulling to begin with, I may even say this is normal for this car - that it’s super sensitive - basically too sensitive. I’ve also been told that the facelifted models have different steering systems; electronic vs. hydraulic, and that the rack had to be replaced because they needed to calibrate a sensor within it that couldn’t be reprogramed / swapped, so a whole new rack was needed!? R.O. as follows:

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=666761&d=1505537968

Thanks for everyone’s help throughout.

Years ago research found that the minute steering corrections contributed a sizable amount to driver fatigue, dbs600, if you are ha[[y the way your car drives, you may decide to go no further. The stiffness you feel in the steering is pretty much from the toe settings. Your description would pretty much match mine on both the 2013 and the 2015 sel, which I found totally unacceptable. If I had not been able to correct it on the 2013, I would have sold it rather than drive it so I already knew and expected to have to correct the 2015 when I bought it. The principal driver of the 2015 is my gf who is much more critical than even I am. If I told her I was going to return to the original settings, you'd feel the repercussion in NYC from here. After all this discussion and explanation on this thread, I hope there are members who have benefited and haven't been bored.

thundershorts said:

Years ago research found that the minute steering corrections contributed a sizable amount to driver fatigue, dbs600, if you are ha[[y the way your car drives, you may decide to go no further. The stiffness you feel in the steering is pretty much from the toe settings. Your description would pretty much match mine on both the 2013 and the 2015 sel, which I found totally unacceptable. If I had not been able to correct it on the 2013, I would have sold it rather than drive it so I already knew and expected to have to correct the 2015 when I bought it. The principal driver of the 2015 is my gf who is much more critical than even I am. If I told her I was going to return to the original settings, you'd feel the repercussion in NYC from here. After all this discussion and explanation on this thread, I hope there are members who have benefited and haven't been bored.

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I love your GF!

Fiancé is the opposite. :|

Dbs600, Did the VW people mention to you that the steering rack they installed in your car was a remanufactured(rebuilt) part? Perhaps just an oversight on their part...




















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Just curious why VW installed a used(remanufctured) part in your new car. Could it be the dealer had one in stock but not a new one? Or simply a cost cutting measure? Don't you think a new, couple hundred mile car should get a new part?

thundershorts said:

Just curious why VW installed a used(remanufctured) part in your new car. Could it be the dealer had one in stock but not a new one? Or simply a cost cutting measure? Don't you think a new, couple hundred mile car should get a new part?

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Thanks for this info.

Hmm; no they didn't, but if the car drives straight, I think I feel okay about it, as it's a lease that's covered under warranty.

Corporate called and left a message to follow up; I can ask them about this when I return the call.

Thank you again.

Well the crappy OEM 235x45x18 Hankook tires are history now, I had a set of 4 General RT43 235x55x18 installed a couple of days ago. Part of the out the door price included Road Force balancing.

Much softer ride since the sidewall takes some of the bumps. For the life of me I cannot understand using those 2" or maybe even less sidewall tires, might as well run on steel rims. In addition the change in size has made the speedometer reading bang on as measured with my Garmin GPS. Any VW speedometer reads up to 5% higher than actual speed.

Printed out thundershorts alignment figures for the garage and getting this done tomorrow.
They use current Hunter Alignment machinery.

Well here is what happened. The city I live in has about 50% immigrants and a lot have somewhat sketchy English skills.

That's what I ran into. Showed them my printout but were not interested.
Not knowing how the Hunter system works I can only assume they input the make and model car and that's the settings being used.

Also no printed report afterwards. So I have no idea of before and after settings.

Must have been an ancient alignment setup. maybe you got the toe and go quickie. I would go somewhere else and check to see what setup they have before I let someone touch your car.