I was having some issues with a high speed shimmy in my steering wheel as well as having my steering wheel turn to the side while going straight, so I had the car aligned and the tires balanced.

When I picked up the car my mechanic told me he wasn't able to get the alignment quite right. He said it was very screwed up and all 4 tires were very out of balance. He was able to get everything within factory spec except for the front caster and the left rear camber, both of which aren't adjustable. The front caster is out by about 2-2.5 degrees on both side, and the camber was just slightly out in the rear.

I drove the car for a while and I was not totally satisfied with the results. The high speed shimmy is gone, but the tires still make a wobbly tire noise at low speeds but I don't get any feedback through the wheel. The car now pulls to the left when before it used to slightly pull to the right. The car also feels fairly twitchy, sort of like the steering is overly sensitive. My brother seems to think that maybe since the alignement was out for so long and so badly that it could have worn the tires in such a way that now when it is aligned right it will cause the car to pull to the left. I am wondering if the tire noise could also be due to a weird wear pattern. I know that on the new 350Zs a lot of people had problems with tire feathering due to bad alignment settings which caused a lot of road noise and in some cases pulling to the right, and it seems that the only cure for that is new tires.

Also, would it be worthwhile to take the steps to get the caster fixed on the front? My mechanic said that the caster being out would not accelerate tire wear, but would it make a big difference in how the car drives? This car is just used for daily beater duty so I'm not looking for perfect handling and I don't want to spend a lot of money, but I would just like it to feel a bit more stable on the highway.

 

I don't know what year your car is, but the 98-02 Accords don't have any caster adjustment. The mechanic at a local dealer unbolted my entire front subframe and tweaked it to get it within factory specs. Your caster being out will cause your car to pull to one side and make your steering wheel not centered. Your tire noise is usually from the uneven wear on your tires. The noise should go down noticebly with a new set of tires.

 

Caster will not cause your steering wheel to be off-center. Don't worry about the caster being a little off as long as the right side is a higher number than the left and the difference between the two is no more than 1.0 (hopefully they gave you a print out).
The only thing that will cause an off center steering wheel is toe. The fact that you say that you have overly sensitive steering leads me to believe that your toe is way off. This will also cause road noise. You may have tire issues but that won't cause overly sensitive steering all of a sudden (you didn't say that you had that problem before you got the alignment). Get the car re-aligned.

 

I pretty sure sears has the kit for that

 

well, first of all, not to sould like an a-whole or anything, but if your going to ask a question be sure to at least put in the year of your car, second, I don't understand how that fake mechanic couldn't adjust your rear camber, but it doesn't matter all it's going to do is wear your tires, as for the front caster, yes you can adjust it, if it is a 90-93 your just need to add shimmies, and last the weird noise your hearing, is do to your wheels wearing when they were unballenced now that they are "balanced" it's creating noise. good luck

 

i'm sorry i left some things out, caster, all caster does is make it easier or harder to turn, as for your stearing, the only things that can make it pull is your toe, or your camber, but camber has to be very excesive, if your car still pulls, you got ripped off and should go sue your mechanic.

 

The car is an 1985 as listed in my signature, but I guess I should have posted it. I don't think that my mechanic is trying to rip me off since he is a close personal friend. I just broke out my factory service manaul which states that the only adjustment the car has built in from the factory is toe in on front and rear. I guess the newer cars are different, he said my car has the "old style" strut suspension at all four corners.

He didn't give me a print out of the specs on the car since his printer was broken, but he said the toe was pretty far off on all the wheels before the alignment. The caster in the front is .7 degrees on the left and .9 on the right while factory spec is 3 degrees. I drove the car again today and it doesn't seem too bad, I think the extra sentive steering I was feeling was mostly due to the excessive power boost on the steering which I wasn't used to after driving my 350Z for a few days. It does pull to the left pretty hard, but I am now wondering whether this may be caused in part by the sagging suspension (car leans towards driver's side).

On the good side the car feels better at high speeds and the steering shimmy is all about gone. The road noise also seems to go away at higher speeds, but I think that is just due to the lousy Hercules tires that are on the car.