Before you can do a quick check, your car MUST be at it's normal settled ride height. See WHY 928 SUSPENSION IS DIFFERENT Before you have your car aligned, check your ride height. Drive to the spot that you will do the check with the steering in the straight ahead position.

CHECK RIDE HEIGHT. The easiest way is to measure from the floor to the lip on the fender at the center of each wheel. Front is normally 27", rear is 24.5 ". To be more precise you can use the shop manual procedure, measuring from the tabs on the suspension. Write down for future reference. After you have the car aligned, check these measurements again before leaving the shop. If the car is now higher, then the shop probably raised the car and it has not settled yet. If the shop raised the car before aligning and didn't compensate for toe-in change after settling then you will have toe out, and your tires will wear very rapidly.

TOE-IN-- Get down behind the car and eyeball the outer edge of the tires through the axle center from back to front. You should not be able to see the sidewall at the front of the front tire if there is some toe-in. Check the other side of the car. The rear can be checked the same way. If you just had the car aligned, and the toe-in looks OK, then check again in 100 miles. If you can now see the front side walls, then the car was probably aligned without settling first and may destroy the front tires in less than 1,000 miles.

A slightly more accurate check can be made using string. Erect a string several feet longer than the car on each side of the car at axle height. Make the strings parallel by making the distance between the strings the same in front of and behind the car. Jack stands work well for holding the strings. Measure in from the string to the tire bead on the rim. The front of the rim should be ~ 1/32" further in than the back of the rim for front wheels and 3/64" for rear wheels. If you did not drive the car into the measuring spot with the wheels straight ahead, you may have to average the sides or drive the car in again. Without slip plates, you can't just move the wheels.

CAMBER-- Using a 2' carpenters level, attach two wooden blocks ,~1" thick, to contact the edge of the wheel rim and space the level away from the wheel center and tire bulge. Using drill bits you can gauge how far the top of the wheel is in from the bottom of the wheel caused by negative camber. Front camber is -30' or .5 degrees (.5 tan X 17.25 = .151" or a #25 drill bit.) Rear camber is -40' or .666 degrees (.666 tan X 17.25 = .199" or a #8 drill bit.)

CASTER-- It is not practical to do a quick check of caster. Caster affects the self centering of the wheels, but does not affect tire wear.

CAUTION-- If you make any adjustments without slip plates, drive the car around the block before rechecking ( assuming you did not lift the car.)