On a rear wheel drive car you need slight Toe In & a front wheel drive car you need slight Toe Out! Dead Straight the car will steer poorly, will feel wobbly going in a straight line too! It's good to do it yourself I would test drive it so you can feel if it's right!
If the front of the tire is 52.5” and the rear is 54.5” you want the measurements to be the same and moving the rear to 52.5 will change the front to 54.5”. 53.5 is the magic number.
This logic sounds reasonable to me but I'm not sure as I haven't done this yet with my car. Normally, I would have a tire place do it but I can't find any that can still do the alignment on such an old vehicle.
One thing to add is you ideally have your bug at its normal driving weight, that is with half a tank of fuel and some weight where the driver would normally be if you want to get better accuracy, the suspension geometry alters when you have a stripped out bug it sits notiecably higher espescially the front end that is too light really from the factory 😂
The side to adjust depends on the steering gearbox center, not how it looks like on the street. Remove your tires so nothing is hitting, turn your steering wheel lock to lock, count the turns then divide by 2 and turn back to center. (It's going to be aboit 2 2/3 so 1 1/3 to center) Then check both sides see where they align with the rear tires. Then do your toe in adjustment keeping in mind the alignment to the rear tires. The steering box has a tight spot in the middle if the box is not centered it will have play going straight down the road. If you adjust the box off center, it will be tight when you turn and go past that point. And do not depend on the steering wheel, good chance it has been moved to correct incorrect alignment in the past.
Thanks for the video. I appreciate learning from others. Keep sharing. Did you remeasure the front of the tire after the adjustment? Did you do the string thing again? I would think those would be necessary after each adjustment. Just to verify.
This is a great video. Just a question about the strings and ball joints. I'm not sure what I'm looking for? Are you saying that if one length of string is longer than the other, than the 'longer' side is the one that has to be adjusted? Sorry for being dense ...
No. Super Beetles have a MacPherson strut front suspension. That uses a completely different type of adjusters. The measuring stuff would be similar, except that you will want a slight bit of toe-in. A lot of shops will be able to align the Super Beetle as a lot of cars use that type of suspension.
