Ok so I’ve been told that the XK8 needs to be strapped down to load the suspension when getting an alignment. I’ve also heard that it doesn’t lol. When I called a couple of shops, no one knows if it actually is supposed to. Is there a TSB or something that states it, or a written alignment procedure somewhere? I feel stupid when I call a place and when they ask where I heard that all I can say is “someone on the internet told me so”

 

I don't recall any comments relating to strapping down, but motorcarman and others have said that the front wheels should be forced apart with a spreader bar to check the toe setting.

 

The only alignment adjustment (without disassembling much of the suspension) that a typical alignment shop can make on these cars is to the toe. "Brutal" (one of our trusted Jaguar master techs here on the forum) generally recommends that the front toe be set to +.16 instead of the more typical +.12 in order to minimize the chances for excessive inner edge wear on the tires. This is what I instruct my trusted local alignment shop to do on my wife's 2006 XK8 when I have taken it in for alignment. They respect the fact that I know the XK8 much better than they do, they set the front toe on both sides to +.16, and all four tires continue to wear evenly as a result. She typically gets around 48,000 miles out of her front tires and around 33,000 miles out of her rear tires (the staggered 19-inch Yokohama YK580 running 32 to 33 psi up front and 28 to 29 psi in the rear)….

 

It's been mentioned before by our resident tech @Brutal . There is a pressor bar involved to make sure there is less of that inner edge tire wear. I am unsure of the exact detail, but I believe the bar fits between the front tires and "forces" some toe (in or out, unsure) in an effort to simulate what happens on the road. The alignment is then done with the pressor bar in place. It is apparently possible for the alignment to technically go out of spec as the bar is removed but the effort is to minimize tire wear and focus on what happens when you drive instead of what happens with the car sitting still on the rack.

Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

They might be confusing this with when you replace bushings on the control arms. Rubber bushings should only be tightened to spec after the full weight of the car resting on its wheels, and should never be tightened when the wheels are hanging down wheel as they would be on a two post lift.

This is done because the rubber bushings take a set against the bushing mounts when the bolts are torqued down.

Bushings do not rotate on their mounting bolts. Rather the rubber end of the bushing is squeezed tight against either side of the body flange and is locked in place. All bushings have a limited arc of twist up and down. When the control arm moves up and down, the rubber in the bushing twists to allow this movement. So you can see if the bushing were locked in place with the wheels hanging low; there wouldn't be enough movement in the limited arc in the bushing to rotate around its axis when the suspension was loaded then further compressed,.

 

Xk does not get strapped down, that was older Jaguars.
And yes on a presser bar aka Mercedes alignment. Takes YOUR cars suspension into the equation not every car like yours. I use my hands, you don't really need a bar. Just need to check it. Im ALWAYS toed in, then when you push out which simulates what the suspension does while you drive i want it to go in the middle of recommendations. If you set in the middle static then push out, you'll set that the tires toe out depending on tolerances in again YOUR cars suspension. Results will show more inside tire wear than it should

 

A rare appearance from Brutal. Always good to hear from you....

 

Brutal,

With this great explanation, would you then agree with the “+.16” number for toe that was mentioned above as a hard number ?

many thx,

max