Rav4 4.2 Tracking/camber?

[Electraman]

First post so be gentle. My wife has a 2003 4.2 2.00 petrol and we have two problems (or they may be linked), it seems very sensitive (noisewise) to what tyres we put on the rear. It came with Bridgestone Duellers and when they were up for replacement I put a pair of General Grabbers - horrendous road noise. Swapped back to Duellers and the noise disappeared, now we have a whine which is not mechanical and I have had all the transmission and suspension checked for wear etc. It occurrs at 40-50 mph and is linked to road speed. The tyres have been checked and are in good order except that......

I have recently noticed a feathering on the tread on the inside of the OSR tyre and my local garage recommends a 3D wheel alignment.

Has anyone else suffered from excessive tyre noise and is rear suspesion misalignment a common problem with the RAV or has SWMBO kerbed the sucker and knocked something askew?

[anchorman]

Gentle? Wrong forum :P

Just kidding, we are usually quite friendly but frequently go off on a tangent!

We had something similar quite recently so if you do a quick search you might find it but the good news is that the RAV is almost fully adjustable at the back so if it is out it can be sorted. It doesn't necessarily mean somebody has been rough although you can't rule that out. It could be that somebody has changed a part and not realised that each of the rear joints is on an eccentric cam that must be carefully restored or re-adjusted.

Here is the data sheet for you RAV so you can give it to the tracking specialist;

rav4_gasoline.2003_service_datapdf.pdf

If it still whines afterwards you'll have to come back to us but keep in touch anyway.

[Electraman]

Thanks Anchorman. Having been lurking here for a year or so I'm aware of the general "ambience" of the site! I felt lucky that Bothy hadn't chipped in to tell me it needed supercharging or something (in Gaelic no doubt).

I'll get the old girl (the RAV not SWMBO) checked at Protyre in Exeter who have been recommended to me for optical wheel alignment and report back.

[Electraman]

I tghought I would update this request with further information. The tracking check revealed the toe and camber on both rear wheels was out, worse on the offside resulting in the wear on the inside tyre edge. The adjustment cams were rusted into the bushes on all four adjustable arms resulting in the puchase of new bolts, bushes and nut plates (over £90.00 from Mr T.). The tyre centre couldn't get them out but only after trying on 3 visits with a total travel distance of 150 miles!

The big bush in the rear trailing arm needed replacing as the bush could not be extracted and the car has spent a week in my local garage. They are drilling out the lower control arm adjustable bush as you cannot buy the rubber bush it is in on its own - only fitted to a new arm for £150.00 each!

So beware if your rear tracking is out - it could cost a bit more than a quick £55 optical track to fix. In fact I wish I had decided to keep replacing the tyres - it might have been cheaper!

[jedi134]

Hmmmmmm does not sound good, my rear camber looks way negative when viewed from the back, but no tyre wear at present, may lube these joints up next time i`m under her, so maybe when I do need an adjustment they may be free.

Or are we talking rusted like welded together rusted?

[Electraman]

The garage had to burn out the big trailing arm bushes and replace them, the smaller control arm bushes were not available seperately so they drilled out

the central eccentric adjusting bush/washer as it was rusted in solid as were all the others. A seven tonne press would not push them out!

They have assembled it all back together with lashings of grease so now all I have to do is drive another 25 miles to Exeter to get the alignment adjustment done - the whole saga has taken over a month with the vehicle off the road for a week and cost in excess of £300.00!

[bonjo]

If you do a search you will find I posted a very similar topic a while ago. (I would add a link if I could find my post!)

Basically this is a common problem with RAV 4.2 (others I don't know). The rear suspension adjustment plates/cams/points tend to seize not necessarily rust.

The only solution is expensive replacement parts & regular visits to the said areas with WD40 & anti seize products to stop it happening again!

I am however surprised you had such severe miss-tracking these cars are pretty good even with some light off roading. You must have hit something very hard

Regarding the tyre noise. I think this is a side effect of having such a sporty handling (harder suspension) and maybe not enough sound proofing.

A while ago, I changed to Geolanders & it was terrible. Went back to OEM Toyo A14 a couple of years later, car is back to normal.

[Electraman]

Further to this situation. I have just got the bill from my garage - over £700.00! The labour content was 10 hours at £47 an hour and they reckon the job took nearer 18. I'm gobsmacked......seems that as the adjusters were in solid the arms wouldn't come off without bending the mounting points so it was time consuming to cut through and get them out. On top of which they claim not to get a trade discount on parts from Toyota and put 28% on the price. They have been good to me in the past so maybe this is payback time.

I can't get a straight answer out of my local Mr T dealer on job times etc so Anchorman any input on this one?

[anchorman]

Not really. I have only heard of yours and one other but there are a couple of Toyota teccy's looking in so maybe they can comment.

With regard to the discount, I can get it from Toyota dealers if I dig in so your garage should but for future reference, don't forget Kingo discounts parts for us. You can get them off him and just get your garage to fit them.

Cheers.

[Hoovie]

First post so be gentle. My wife has a 2003 4.2 2.00 petrol and we have two problems (or they may be linked), it seems very sensitive (noisewise) to what tyres we put on the rear. It came with Bridgestone Duellers and when they were up for replacement I put a pair of General Grabbers - horrendous road noise. Swapped back to Duellers and the noise disappeared, now we have a whine which is not mechanical and I have had all the transmission and suspension checked for wear etc. It occurrs at 40-50 mph and is linked to road speed. The tyres have been checked and are in good order except that......

I have recently noticed a feathering on the tread on the inside of the OSR tyre and my local garage recommends a 3D wheel alignment.

Has anyone else suffered from excessive tyre noise and is rear suspesion misalignment a common problem with the RAV or has SWMBO kerbed the sucker and knocked something askew?

Replying a bit late to first question and this may be irrelvant given what else occurred to your RAV ......

I swapped from Duellers to Grabbers - interestingly, also fitted by ProTyre in Exeter - and found no difference I could identify in tyre noise. In my case I replaced all 4 tyres rather then just a pair. Found Protyre very good incidentally and would be place of choice to go to in the future 

[Indica]

Dosen't sound good. I may have the same camber problem with my rear wheels.

I my rear wheels checked this morning and my left is at -1.39 and right -1.41. I admit I dont understand all the techy stuff. But when you look from the back you can see a difference in angle from the front.

Anyway, I thought it would be a quick fix. Not the case. The mechanic could not budge the nut after an hour of doing what mechanics do. I heard someone hitting metal with a hammer at one point. He even showed me the bolt that he'd being trying to adjust. It was rusted solid.

He's going to give me a price for replacing a concentric washer and bolt?

I dont like the sound of 10 hours labour at £50ph+ vat plus parts. What happens if I just left it as it is? I've only had it 6 weeks and havent noticed any wear on the tyres, juddering, whine or anything like that.

:( Indica