Extended tie rods? For lowered Golf

[52172]

We just installed Vogtland lowering springs and my alignment is set, but alignment shop said turning the tie rod ends changes the toe? Has anyone ran into a problem with tie rods after lowering? Maybe we need to unthread the inner tie rod a little more to enable adjusting the outer tie rod? Thanks

 

[KrashDH]

Toe is really all you have to align on these cars without getting camber adjusters for the upper shock mounts. Unfortunately that's the name of the game when you lower, and I can tell you from experience if you don't get camber adjusters, it's going to wear out the inside of your tires no matter what you do. I find it hard to believe you are completely out of toe adjustment though...that seems odd to me. But yes, tie rods will adjust the toe, that's correct.

I was lowered 1" for a year and it didn't take much to bring my toe back in, but I didn't realize how bad even 1" lowering was for the camber of these cars and it ate the insides of my tires prematurely (brand new as well). I went back to stock height after that. I would look into getting some camber adjustment if you plan on staying lowered to get you back to where you need to be for even wear.

 

[52172]

like camber plates for the strut towers? Do you know who makes them? Thanks.

 

[Uberragend]

Not sure I understand what you are asking.
The INboard end of the INNER tie rod threads into the steering rack. That part is NOT adjustable.
The OUTboard end of the INNER tie rod end threads into the OUTER tie rod end (along with a jam nut), which is then mounted into the arm on the spindle.
Adjusting the toe is done by loosening the jam nut, then turning the OUTboard end of the INNER tie rod one way or the other within the OUTER tie rod end, effectively making the entire linkage longer or shorter.
Changing the SPRINGS should have no effect on how this system operates.
That being said, I have coilovers on my Golf, and lowering this car only required a toe adjustment, and it was slight. Otherwise, nothing else changed.
Perhaps you can clarify exactly what the problem you are having is?
George
EDIT - I am down about 2", and I have over 90K mi on a single set of tires. NO unusual wear. Perhaps your Tower bushings need to be looked at?

 

[KrashDH]

EDIT - I am down about 2", and I have over 90K mi on a single set of tires. NO unusual wear. Perhaps your Tower bushings need to be looked at?

If you're talking to me, everything was fresh when I installed my kit. Control arm bushing, TRE's, ball joints, tower bushings, sway bar links...everything the front end needs was done at the same time. There's no way around it, it's geometry. If you lower the car and have no camber adjustment, the insides of the tires will wear faster. It probably depends on the type of tire too that you are running if it's more noticeable or not. The tires I'm running now, probably wouldn't notice because they have pretty meaty tread. The tires I was running before were more street tires so it was really easy to see the wear happening. Maybe I got a faulty set of tires but the tires I was running came with high regards, so maybe they were made on a Friday. Going back to stock sus, no issues and no odd wear with the same front end components.

To the OP, do a Google search, they will pop up, I don't know who makes them. I came across them a few years ago when I was debating whether or not to keep the kit.

 

[Uberragend]

Krash - I wasn't responding to you, your post came in while I was typing I think. I just laid out all the info I could think of.
However, consider this....If there is indeed no camber adjustment, the camber is fixed. Which means that lowering the car via springs (which is just changing the resting position of the system within its range of motion) would NOT change the camber because it can't be changed. Camber is fixed by virtue of the design.
What I think is more likely is that the toe adjustment was not correct, and that can most certainly wear tires in all kinds of strange ways. I run Blizzaks in the winter and BFG Advantage T/As the rest of the time. I have seen absolutely no uneven wear on any of them. It would have showed by now.
Thoughts?

 

[KrashDH]

Lifted or lowered, the same concept applies, and you change your hypotenuse of a right triangle when you do that. If you have a truck at stock height and you lift it 3", your camber will be off. Same applies the other way. That's why camber adjustments exist.

In the terms of coilovers, it's all about the preload. The more preload on the springs via the spring seat, the higher you will be in the suspension setup, which I was at. The less preload, the more "sag" you have and the suspension sits deeper in the setup...more lowered. You might get a low, cushy ride, but you're likely to blow through the travel faster.

You are fixed to the control arm, connected to a solid/forged knuckle. The control arm rotates on an arc, in which your strut body is attached to. If those are fixed, and your hypotenuse changes, the only thing left that can change is the angle. This will roll that arc up and back changing the wear patch that the tire sees, the lower you go. The car will naturally settle in this position based on the lift/lowering height after the preload adjustment. Reduce that angle on the hypotenuse and you're also stressing components more. It's kind of the same theory in crane lifts with straps, you can't go less than X* at the strap angle because the load seen at the connecting points is much more than if that angle is increased (lifting at a 60* angle vs a 30* angle, to the ground horizontal).

Maybe it's not enough to wear some vehicles. I'm sure it has a lot to do with other factors as well but being 1" lowered did not play nice with my car at all. The tread compound was also very soft which heightened the issue.

Yes, toe will/can be off as well, but I would think that would be less of an change when lifting/lowering than camber would be, but it all comes down to the geo of the suspension.

 

[Sauaciden]

I have first gen A3 (same platform as golf) 2 inch drop and my tires are fine. No issues doing alignment or eating tires. I would look into outer tie rods being correct for your vehicles as atleast on A3 there is like 3 different types of outer tie rods

 

[KrashDH]

I have first gen A3 (same platform as golf) 2 inch drop and my tires are fine. No issues doing alignment or eating tires. I would look into outer tie rods being correct for your vehicles as atleast on A3 there is like 3 different types of outer tie rods

Outer TRE's were P/N from the FSM (OEM).
Maybe I'm just the one with bad luck.
I'm wondering why companies would bother even producing custom camber plates for these cars if this wasn't an issue?
I read up a lot on this before I even purchased my kit going into it knowing it might be a problem.
Oh well, that's good for the guys that don't have issues and want to be lowered.

My coilovers rode like hot garbage anyway. Since I didn't want it lowered that much, it meant I had to preload the coils the max they would go so it wouldn't go deep into the sag, and that just sacrificed the ride quality. Was like a brick. No go for the roads around here, you need your suspension to soak up bumps, not transfer them into the rest of the car.

 

[Sauaciden]

Outer TRE's were P/N from the FSM (OEM).
Maybe I'm just the one with bad luck.
I'm wondering why companies would bother even producing custom camber plates for these cars if this wasn't an issue?
I read up a lot on this before I even purchased my kit going into it knowing it might be a problem.
Oh well, that's good for the guys that don't have issues and want to be lowered.

My coilovers rode like hot garbage anyway. Since I didn't want it lowered that much, it meant I had to preload the coils the max they would go so it wouldn't go deep into the sag, and that just sacrificed the ride quality. Was like a brick. No go for the roads around here, you need your suspension to soak up bumps, not transfer them into the rest of the car.

Tbh adjusting camber helps in corners so that might be the reason why they did make plates.
Coilovers are 50/50 on these cars, some have ****ty ride quality and driveshaft hitting sway bar others can go thousands of km without issues.

My only complaint for this platform is driveshaft eating my PD130 turbo to intercooler pipe. Those are expensive

 

[KrashDH]

Tbh adjusting camber helps in corners so that might be the reason why they did make plates.
Coilovers are 50/50 on these cars, some have ****ty ride quality and driveshaft hitting sway bar others can go thousands of km without issues.

My only complaint for this platform is driveshaft eating my PD130 turbo to intercooler pipe. Those are expensive

Yeah I also had issue with the lower preload adjuster nut making contact with my rim as well as rubbing on the strut body...interesting when I compared my Bilstein shocks to them after the Billy's have a "dent" in that location that was rubbing on the coilover body. Pretty sure that was Billy's solution to eliminate the interference was to make that part of the strut flat.

 

[Uberragend]

Lifted or lowered, the same concept applies, and you change your hypotenuse of a right triangle when you do that.

Completely agree. However, consider this - unless your lower control arm is FLAT at your chosen ride height, its not a right triangle. Before I installed my coilovers my lower control arms looked slightly "drooped" from the front. So that 90 degree angle of the triangle (the lower control arm being the bottom of it) was more like 100 maybe. Travel thru the suspension "cycle" downward, and you will go from that +10 degree point, thru 90, down to -10 on the "lowered side". Theoretically, the tire tread should sit the same on the contact patch in either spot, since you have crossed over the neutral point the same rotational distance. Just the same as a piston travelling inside a cylinder the same distance based on crankshaft rotation no matter if its direction is up or down.
My thought is, you might not have been LOW enough. If you went DOWN from the stock height as far as you were UP (exactly), your tire load and contact patch should have been the same.
Of course, this has nothing to do with "riding like hot garbage"