We had the front end aligned the year we bought KoKo. The chassis comes from Ford with a ball park alignment as they have no idea how the chassis will be used or how much the weight will be. We followed directions and had it done after letting it “settle” for 5,000 miles and loaded as it goes down the road. No problems for four years. Then it started eating tires. We bought tires twice and had it aligned three times. Turns out that not a one of the alignment shops replaced what are called blanks that Ford puts on to hold the ball joints with adjustable thingies called eccentrics so that alignment on all axis can be done. Eccentrics tune both the camber and caster, but more of the former. The bottom line even highly recommended alignment shops can screw you. All they know to do is what the machine tells them.
Roger Henderson refused to comment if Ford ships chassis with blanks. For that, he lost all credibility.
A friend with a SOB, who read about our FE woes and was also eating tires, called us to advise that the shop they went to for alignment this time found the blanks, still on after 140,000 miles.
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