Dealership said I needed an alignment, now my front tires are done for

[sjtaylor03]

Hello all, I’ve had my 4Runner since June 2025 and now it sits at 21,000 miles. The tires that it came with are still on it but not for long. In April I went in for the 20k mile service and the front desk nerd told me I needed an alignment if I wanted the tires to last until the end of summer. I asked him why and he showed me my front tires were “cupping” on the outside. I’m no expert on tires (it seems this guy wasn’t either) and I decided to let it happen. Now after about 1,000 miles on this “fresh” alignment my front tires are wearing very heavily on the driver inside and passenger outside (see pictures). I’m going back next week to see what the hell happened because now I need new tires pronto.

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[quadna71]

Have you been rotating your tires? Are the rears just as bad after rotating or just the fronts and only since they aligned it for you? If the rears are still wearing evenly, you could make a case that they messed up the alignment. Perhaps ask them to print out the alignment results for you so you can see if anything was adjusted and where the numbers ended up.

Alignment issues aside, it's appalling to me that your tires could get that bad before you realized they were shot. You are literally through the entire outer tread rubber on the outside of that front passenger tire!

 

[sjtaylor03]

Yes! The tires have been rotated 3 times already at each service interval, the last one being right before they did the alignment. As far as me not realizing how bad they were, I had just driven 2 hours on the highway to my friend’s house when I got out and noticed there was nothing left on the outside of the passenger tire.

The rears are still in relatively road worthy condition, at least they’re wearing evenly. Before the alignment all 4 were in about the same condition but whatever happened with the alignment has destroyed those fronts

 

[shibaman]

Do you have a copy of the alignment results? Compair before and after. That may give you some answers.
Need to figure out why before buying new tires. Hope the dealership is reponsive and helpfull

 

[RaulP]

Dealer most likely say you knocked them out of alignment after they worked on it. Good luck getting them to do anything for you.

 

[L-2]

I heard the torque specs may have changed between 2024/25 and earlier on the Tacoma. See ~2:40 on video:


I don't know if the torque specs, lower control arms, are different on our new 6G 4Runners, but could be. Perhaps somebody else here will know how to research the torque specs and if any differences exist between old & new 4Runners and Tacomas. If the technician who did the alignment here on Post 1 didn't properly torque the adjustments, then that'd be a possible answer.

I agree there's something off with the front alignment on Post 1's 4Runner. I suspect if alignment is re-checked, it's going to be off. It'd be unknown as to what a Technician might have done torque-wise on that last alignment. I don't believe torque specs are typically noted on the alignment data for a specific vehicle (I could be wrong).

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to ask that Service Department if they might research the issue and warranty a couple of new tires with alignment. If the dealership admits there could have been a faulty alignment job and provides new tires, everybody should be relatively happy.

Otherwise, maybe just get new tires and an alignment somewhere else and maybe not use that dealership again for at least a few service visits to give another Toyota dealership the benefit of your business. (This might monetarily punish the 1st dealership until the customer feels things are even [if ever]).

 

[Joestac]

What PSI are those set at?

 

[sjtaylor03]

Dealer most likely say you knocked them out of alignment after they worked on it. Good luck getting them to do anything for you.

I’m expecting this result from my dealership, it’s clear they think I’m an idiot (which is truth), but I certainly don’t beat on the car hard enough to mess up the alignment.

 

[sjtaylor03]

What PSI are those set at?

35-37psi, they do look overfilled but I haven’t messed with tire pressure at all so it would be the dealership doing that as well.

 

[sjtaylor03]

I heard the torque specs may have changed between 2024/25 and earlier on the Tacoma. See ~2:40 on video:


I don't know if the torque specs, lower control arms, are different on our new 6G 4Runners, but could be. Perhaps somebody else here will know how to research the torque specs and if any differences exist between old & new 4Runners and Tacomas. If the technician who did the alignment here on Post 1 didn't properly torque the adjustments, then that'd be a possible answer.

I agree there's something off with the front alignment on Post 1's 4Runner. I suspect if alignment is re-checked, it's going to be off. It'd be unknown as to what a Technician might have done torque-wise on that last alignment. I don't believe torque specs are typically noted on the alignment data for a specific vehicle (I could be wrong).

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to ask that Service Department if they might research the issue and warranty a couple of new tires with alignment. If the dealership admits there could have been a faulty alignment job and provides new tires, everybody should be relatively happy.

Otherwise, maybe just get new tires and an alignment somewhere else and maybe not use that dealership again for at least a few service visits to give another Toyota dealership the benefit of your business. (This might monetarily punish the 1st dealership until the customer feels things are even [if ever]).

Definitely no notes of torque in the service paperwork and there’s no chance my dealership would take any responsibility for messing up the alignment unfortunately. They’ve proven to be less than helpful even with harmless questions I’ve had for them in the past.

The plan is to forget about the dealership and go to my (trustworthy) small town alignment/tire shop and hopefully not get bent over again!

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