Wheel Alignment

[R P]

Just had my Kona in for a wheel alignment. I had noticed my rear tires wearing unevenly. Luckily, I had some spare Nexens, so I took them with me to the dealer and changed out the worn ones. They checked my alignment, and sure enough it was way off. Very strange, as I didn't notice it pulling or driving bad.

The service guy said they have been doing 1 or 2 alignments a day on cars coming into their shop (they check it for free) for the last month. That surprised me, as I have had 4 Subaru's, 3 of them going over 300K kms, and never needed an alignment on any of them. Still remember hitting a big pothole with one, blowing out a front tire and still it didn't need an alignment. And my current Subaru (Crosstrek) is driven hard on a rough FSR to our cabin in the summer, and never an issue with it.

The guy said that winter driving on the highways here going on and off of packed snow at high speed can knock it off. And I have been driving into the interior for skiing and snow hiking, and did encounter rough highway conditions with partially packed snow at times. But still would not have expected that to knock out the alignment. I guess I will have to drive a little more gently in those conditions going forward.

It does tell me that Hyundai's are not that sturdy on rough road conditions. Having said that, my son's Tesla M3 just had his 3rd bout of suspension control arms replaced and alignments. Two were under warranty but not the last one (very expensive). At least my Kona didn't need any parts replaced.

So curious, anyone else had any alignment issues? You might not know it, unless you have it checked.

 

[Ivan Salazar]

How many K on the car and how often have you done a wheel alignment?

 

[R P]

43K kms, and 1st alignment.

 

[KiwiME]

Could the rear alignment have been off from new?

 

[R P]

I don't think so. When I last rotated tires, 20K kms ago there was no sign of uneven wear on any tire. I am not sure exactly when it started, as I did not notice any diff in driving. It was just when I looked last week, I noticed the inside edges of the rear tires were really worn down. And when I looked from behind it seemed like the wheels were splayed out, looked really weird actually. So that is why I took it in. The two tires I replaced were well worn down overall anyway, so not a big loss. And luckily I did have a spare set (paid just $80 for all 4), so just had the cost of the alignment.

The service advisor said this was not uncommon to see, and as I mentioned they do a lot of alignments. He thought it had to do with driving in the mountains on partially covered hard snow pack, which I had been doing this winter. I do remember encountering some pretty rough patches some times. What happens is the plows don't take it all off down to the pavement, and then it gets rough, until it finally gets worn down or melts. This is pretty common here and I have been driving it every winter for decades. But this is the first time it caused a problem like this.

The advisor gave me a copy of their alignment, showing how far it was off, with a before and after for both fronts and rears. Only the left front was affected, but both rears. I could make a copy and display it here.

 

[R P]

Here's a copy of my alignment.

 

[KiwiME]

So, it seems you had excessive negative camber of the rears, curiously identical on both sides both before and after.
Also, notice that your front left and rear right had identical excessive toe-in before the correction.
I think an annual check would not be a bad idea! Even a factory defect would be unlikely to show up at both ends on a single car.

Just had a peek under mine to see if my tires had any issues. They don't but I'm hoping they will soon so I can buy some better tires than the Nexens...

The photo shows the adjustment for the rear camber (which you had noticed was incorrect). My left is set one click off center and has two marks of factory QA paint.

 

[electriceddy]

Here's a copy of my alignment.

View attachment 15091

That's out quite a bit, you are probably correct in assuming the rough plowed roads as the cause.
My ~ 10K kms 21 model is wearing evenly, and when I traded in my 18 model ~25K kms there was no sign of uneven wear (using those same Nexens).
I am however not noted for driving in those conditions - or at least as little as possible.
I agree Hyundai could probably have manufactured a more hardy suspension system, given the weight of the vehicle especially in winter conditions.
Will keep an eye out, thanks for the heads up

 

[R P]

Yeah, but I have been driving those same roads in the same conditions for many, many years in various different cars. And I thought it was a little odd that the service guy said that my case was not uncommon, and they were doing lots of alignments. Not just on the Kona, but other Hyundai's. He wasn't specific on which cars, though, just that it was not unusual. And he did attribute it to the winter road conditions.

Not sure exactly how the alignment parts are held together. But could it be possible that the camber bolts were not tight enough from the factory, and allowed it to slip out of place? I still find it hard to believe that just a rough road (not big potholes or anything) should have caused it to be so far out of alignment.

He also said they checked all the suspension parts and anything related over very carefully, and no sign of any other damage.

 

[tanelv]

I had also wheel alignment done in Oct 2021, after around 80 000 km. Front axle required alignment as well, which I suspected by the not in the centre steering wheel. My dealer suspected that the heavy weight of the Kona EV is causing this. Sounds reasonable, if Hyundai uses the same parts as in the ICE Kona, then it has to deal with a lot more weight because of the battery and regular driving on uneven surfaces as I do might lead to that. So for me I think it has to become a routine to go to wheel alignment more often to avoid ruining the tyres too soon.

Both rear tires looked like that (I replaced the Nexens with Bridgestone Turanza T005-s from the start and they had 40 000 km done (half of my km-s are with winter tyres)), inner side rubber completely worn out on both

 

[R P]

Yup, it was the inner tire side of the rears that was worn on mine as well. Sounds like the Kona EV is a smooth pavement only car.

 

[KiwiME]

...But could it be possible that the camber bolts were not tight enough from the factory, and allowed it to slip out of place?

Can you post a couple of pics of your camber adjustments? A bit more straight-on than I did so the reading can be seen.

 

[R P]

Here are a couple pics after the adjustment. 1st one is left side rears, and 2nd is right side. Not easy doing this on a dirty garage floor...

 

[Ivan Salazar]

43K kms, and 1st alignment.

Every time you get your tires rotated you should get wheel alignment, so this means every 10k at the most. If changing tires, do it at that time. I left it for a year worth of driving and had to replace tires because of misalignment. The tire was worn on one side only on all four tires. I think the manual says every 5k KM.

 

[R P]

The dealer suggested 18K kms. On my last rotation (I do them myself), at 20k kms, the tire wear was perfectly even. And like I said, with past cars have never had an alignment, and over the same roads. But with this car, will probably have to be more cautious with rough roads, and be more vigilant with alignment checks. This dealer does those for free.

 

[KiwiME]

Here are a couple pics after the adjustment. 1st one is left side rears, and 2nd is right side...

So, first noting just for the record that on the alignment sheet the small icon for camber shows a wheel with excess positive camber rather than excess negative as you had, your adjustments pulled the lower links towards the center of the car by most of the available range.
Nevermind, that's what the adjustments are for. I wonder if the springs have sagged a bit causing the negative camber?

 

[R P]

Why would the springs sag? Don't know. Dealer said they checked everything, and nothing worn, bent or broken. Does concern me though, that a lot of the adjustment range has been used up.

 

[OzKona]

Our Kona is pretty new, less than a year old. When Mrs OK gets home I'll measure the height above ground of all four jacking points and post here FYI. (We have a smooth, dead flat horizontal garage floor. You will need similar to compare apples with apples.)

KiwiME, I'll also do the compass check for the magnet in the gearbox and post in the relevant thread.

 

[R P]

Our Kona is pretty new, less than a year old. When Mrs OK gets home I'll measure the height above ground of all four jacking points and post here FYI. (We have a smooth, dead flat horizontal garage floor. You will need similar to compare apples with apples.)

Just measured mine, and rear jack points are about 1/4 inch lower. BUT, when I had the alignment, they replaced my two worn rear tires, and rotated them to the front. So my old tires are now in the back, and new ones in the front. I think that would likely account for the 1/4 inch diff. So based on that, probably there is no rear springs sag.

I must say also, that the car drives very nicely, basically like new, no pulls and corners very well.

 

[cv_trail_runner]

I used to work at BMW as a software engineer. When I was there, I had the perk of driving more than a dozen brand new 3-series, 5-series, and Mini Coopers (BMW owns them). A lot of those cars would have alignment issues, even though the cars were new.

What I learned by asking around on this topic internally at BMW is that each car manufacturer has an alignment spec the assembly plant follows. Some manufacturers have a very tight spec - say the camber and caster must be within +/- 0.1 degree of spec. Other manufacturers have much looser tolerances. Additionally, cars' alignment can be thrown off during shipment: some cars get strapped onto flatbed trucks for delivery, etc.

On 3 different BMWs I owned or leased, I had to get them aligned within the first 5K miles. They had very responsive rubber (Michelin Pilot Sport 2) and you could feel every imperfection or misalignment flaw. In contrast, on 2 Subarus I owned (2012 WRX and 2016 Impreza) - I never had to touch the alignment, it came perfect from the factory. Those cars also had much more forgiving (squishier) all-weather tires. So, it might have been simply a matter of the squishier tires communicating less of the imperfections to the driver.

When I got my Kona EV in March 2019, I noticed right away the alignment was off. The car wouldn't track straight - I had to constantly keep adjusting the steering wheel to keep it straight. The car didn't veer to the left or to the right, instead it would always be wiggling around and trying to return to center. But it made for a very nervous driving experience.

There were two factors that contributed to that - the OEM Nexen tires it came with are very stiff. (I live in California so it's possible your Kona comes with different tires). The Nexens respond to every little wrinkle in the road and give a lot of feedback to the driver. The other factor was the actual alignment.

After about 10K miles, I changed the tires to Bridgestone Turanza QuietTrack SL's and got the car aligned. The alignment shop said the original alignment was just at the edges of the spec, but in all the wrong ways. Some tires were at the max negative angle, while others were at the max positive angles of the spec.

Both replacing the tires & alignment put together completely transformed the driving experience for me. The car started tracking perfectly straight and all the jittery / nervous behavior was gone. The tires are also quieter than the OEM Nexens on my car. The down-side? The car's efficiency took about a 10-15% hit. These tires have more grip, which also means more rolling resistance, therefore lower miles / KWh.

Long post, thanks for reading. I hope it helps.