I noticed a few weeks back some "cupping" on the inside front tires indicating there is a slight alignment issue.

Today while going for a short drive I had the opportunity to watch the steering wheel as I was on a flat road at around 45 mph. It has a very slight shimmy which I assume has something to do with the tire wear and the alignment.

These are the OEM Dunlops with 9500 miles on them and on my 2012 certified car. It seems awful early for alignment but I'll have to discuss with either the dealer or my own front end guy.

Not having a dealer yet because the one I bought the car from is around 5 hours away I'll be looking at a Jag dealer in Albany NY. A general quest here is are the dealers equipped to do alignment or do they farm it out. Also for my own edification does anyone have the spec. numbers for a 2012 XKR convert.

I'll be calling this dealer on Monday to have them do a recall I just got so I will consider them doing a FE alignment.

What makes me a little unhappy is I would have expected the dealer I bought the car from to have checked this during the CPO process.

 

My experience with non-SUV type cars, is that the potholes and so forth, can really wreck havoc with alignment. I got to the point were I have an alignment pretty well every 12 -18 months depending on the road condition. The tires are expensive and the alignment pays for itself, if it is in fact off.
Actually, my Jag dealer does a 4 wheel alignment which works well for me.
Lawrence.

 

Because your XKR has staggered wheels (different F/R widths) and directional tires, they can't be rotated. As a result, you'll get only half the rated tire mileage. Mulmur is right about how easy it is to knock the alignment out. Tires can be expensive, so it's prudent to keep it aligned.

 

I just had the exact experience on my 08 XKR. LF toe was a little out of spec. $119 for the 4 wheel alignment. Hopefully I caught it in time as to still get maximum life out of the tire.

Mulmur is correct. They don't just get out of alignment by themselves. Stuff happens.

 

This is the largest tire/wheel combination I have had and most of my cars have been performance type.

I find this curious as I haven't had to do a front end alignment in the past 30+ years (Corvettes , XJS , Ferrari , etc) . I am just turning 30,000 miles on my Lexus and although it only has 17" wheels and I am on OEM tires there is no wear issues with it.

I don't drive the XKR any differently and over any different roads so I'm thinkin this was a problem coming on before I got the car and that was at 6600 miles.

I would have assumed (there is that word) that this was seen during the CPO process. The dealer that sold the car to the 1st owner took it in trade for an F-Type and I have the service records which were NONE until it was traded.

At that time they replaced the battery and did an oil change. They then CPO'ed the car and sent it to me. I'll have a chat with the dealer .

Unless there is something unusual here I would expect 30-50K miles without needing an alignment.

 

By the way does anyone have the spec numbers. Caster , camber and toe in . I don't assume it is different for 20" vs 19" wheels but if so what are the 20" differences.

 

For what it's worth.....after trying many independent alignment shops, I have found Fire***ne shops seem to have the best equipment and best trained alignment persons. I always do bring my "own" (factory alignment specs) as you can't always trust the pre-programmed ones in the new computerized alignment systems. My manuals stop at 2010...I am sure someone here can extract your specs from later manual.

side Note - my car came OEM with Dunl*ps...and the wore very fast and one developed a nasty sidewall blister at 15,000 miles. Got great results with Conti's to date. Expecting 30/40k

 

I do not have the factory specs for the front end but, in general, you likely would see camber at 0.0 to -1 degree, toe pretty much zero or slight toe-in about 1/16" total and caster around 6 degrees.

I have my very simple, home made alignment checking tools that allow me to check the toe and camber settings in a matter of a 5 minutes. Thus far I have not found any adverse camber changes during my ownership of my late Jags. However, I did find more factory variations in the camber settings, wheel to wheel, than what I would prefer to see. This on brand new Jaguars.

I also used to do all my alignments on my street and race cars but, no longer. If I detect a need, I take it somewhere better equipped than I am.

 

What are you using? Separate thread if you like.

I started with a laser level and then added the factory Corvette rear caster tool.

 

Plums - Like I said, simple home-made tools. I used to have a digital camber gauge when I was racing but gave it away with last race car when I sold it.

As seen on the picture, the Toe setup is something I welded up myself. It is a pair of brackets with two identical tape measure to check the front and rear distances between the tires.

My camber checker is even simpler; a 3' bubble level. I set it to vertical, measure the distance from the level to the top of the rim, to the bottom of the rim as well as the exact rim size and do a super quick trigonometry calculation to determine the angle. Those two produce very accurate numbers for me, as shown by comparing my measurements to actual laser setup measurements in shops.

Needless to say, the measurements must be taken on level grounds that you either have/make or shim with thin layers of plywood.

 

Jagtoes. I too have the OEM Dunlops. When I purchased the car, it had 4,800 miles and the front inner treads showed moderate uneven wear.

Since our tires are asymmetrical, I cross rotated the tires and now after an additional 2,500 miles the front tires are fairly even on the inner treads. Just for your edification I would like to mention the following....

After I purchased my car and had it in for service, I checked a number of used XKs 2010-2012 at the dealership and every one of them had front inner tread wear (regardless of tire brand).

I have not aligned my car nor am I planning on doing so. As long as my car steers straight without any vibrations, I'm fine with it. I now have 7,400 miles on the Dunlops with a fair amount of tread left. Good luck and let us know how you make out.

Try cross rotating if the tires are not too badly worn.

 

I guess you got me here. Being that my tires are directional I can't cross mount. Also being they are different sizes I would not wa t to put the larger rear tires on the front. I'll get an alignment in a few weeks and see how that does. By the way the car tracks straight and I only get a slight vibration at around 50 . My wife does not feel it but I do.

 

When I crossed rotated my tires, I moved the front and rear tires to the opposite side of the car (right front to left front, left front to right front). If you have directional tires, you would have to dismount the tires and remount them on the opposite side rim. This would of course be a pain and another reason I try to go with asymmetrical tires. I've found in the past that directional tires had a tendency (possibly due to larger tread blocks) to wear unevenly as well as having excessive noise. For whatever reason, our rear tires seem to wear evenly....it's just the fronts that have the uneven wear. Good luck with your alignment.

 

Both of my Jaguars alignment really kept for some time. I was amazed considering the roads around Boston how dead on the alignment was when I replaced the tires and how even the tires wore on both cars.

 

I wouldn't consider remove and remout the tires. My bad as I assumed you had OEM Dunlops whi,h on my 2012 are directional. I'll most likely get the alignment and get a new set of tires next year.

 

True, they can't be rotated, but they can be remounted (front on front, back on back) to swap sides. But in the big scheme of things, a good alignment will help alleviate the wear issues.

 

I took my XK 07 to a local Jag dealer for a front shock absorber change and alignment. They gave me a printed page of the final numbers of the aligment that said they used the numbers of the XKR.
Are the numbers for XK and XKR the same?

 

For the front, for your specific model, yes. For the rears the XK and XKR differ.

Across all model years there are quite a few differences though depending on the market the car was sold to, whether it has the Dynamic Pack, left or right hand drive etc.