Riddle me this...

[N7turbo]

On the ground, my front driver's side fender sits 1/8" lower than the passenger side. I saw the lower wheel gap and measured to confirm.

When I lift the front of the car via the central jacking point, the driver's side wheel lifts off the ground first. It takes a couple more pumps of the handle to get the passenger side wheel to freely spin. I noticed this when I did my brake pad and wheel swap.

When the car is up on 4 jack stands on the pinch welds, the rear driver's side jack point doesn't touch the stand--so it's actually sitting on 3 stands. I wasn't comfortable with this so I subbed in the floor jack.

What could this mean?

 

[onerpm]

I'm guessing weight distribution of the engine/etc. up front.

 

[GFrosty]

One-eighth of an inch difference in the front-left versus the front-right? An eighth is quite a small distance.

One question: Was there zero gap prior to doing all the mods and swaps you've recently done?

As a guess, I think it's likely there is an ever-so-slight difference in the manufacturing tolerances of the parts on the left side of the vehicle versus the right side. Either that, or there's a slight torquing involving, say, the bushings on the right side that isn't occurring on the left side (ie, tightening everything up prior to the suspension being fully weighted [by the car]). I don't know which, if any, of the arm/bar bolts are instructed to get tightened prior to or following weighting the suspension, but it's worth checking.

 

[N7turbo]

One-eighth of an inch difference in the front-left versus the front-right? An eighth is quite a small distance.

Yes, but it's enough to catch my attention, as I expected it to be zero.

One question: Was there zero gap prior to doing all the mods and swaps you've recently done?

I don't know. The only other time I worked on the car before the springs was the oil change, but I used my ramps for that.

As a guess, I think it's likely there is an ever-so-slight difference in the manufacturing tolerances of the parts on the left side of the vehicle versus the right side. Either that, or there's a slight torquing involving, say, the bushings on the right side that isn't occurring on the left side (ie, tightening everything up prior to the suspension being fully weighted [by the car]). I don't know which, if any, of the arm/bar bolts are instructed to get tightened prior to or following weighting the suspension, but it's worth checking.

That is a possibility, like if the alignment shop tried to wrestle the front end into spec? But shouldn't the car sit on all 4 jack stands?

 

[ch3no2]

1/8" is a lot. I am a metric guy, all my mechanical engineering is in metric. Given, it is within drivetrain components, where we say "a millimeter is a mile", and deal in microns.

I believe your attention is justified.

 

[stickerbush]

How do you know that the ground (I assume you mean concrete pavement) where you made these measurements is perfectly flat? You could use a laser level and take measurements at all 4 tire contact points to determine this.

 

[N7turbo]

How do you know that the ground (I assume you mean concrete pavement) where you made these measurements is perfectly flat? You could use a laser level and take measurements at all 4 tire contact points to determine this.

I will investigate further. However, these observations were made with the car facing both forward and backward in the garage.

 

[jadmt]

I think it is normal....my 2023 cx5turbo is the same driver's front fender 31.5 to bottom of fender passenger 31 5/8. I can have all 4 wheels off the ground with two jackstands...these are mechanical machines so there will always be variances . my garage floor is level side to side and 1percent slope front to back. I have about 22000 miles on mine and I am guessing over half of that is with only a 140lb driver (wife) and the other half with a 200lb driver (me) and 140 passenger so maybe that is why. Visually my eyes are not good enough to see a difference when looking at it parked...

 

[ceric]

When I owned a '05 Prius, one owner on the forum found a similar issue.
Most people could not believe it... but it was true.

 

[erhayes]

As we move on to the important things in our lives

 

[Lazy2.5]

I'm guessing weight distribution of the engine/etc. up front.

How do you know that the ground where you made these measurements is perfectly flat?

I believe your attention is justified.

I believe.... No....

As we move on to the important things in our lives

Let's all take this advice into consideration.

 

[elementCX5]

People were saying the same thing when I had my 22 civic si in the civic forums. One user said the front passenger side was 16mm difference over the driver's side.

My guess is due to weight distribution, or the engineers countering bad weight distribution for benifit in corners.

Either way I really wouldn't worry about it. Seems to be normal.

 

[N7turbo]

People were saying the same thing when I had my 22 civic si in the civic forums. One user said the front passenger side was 16mm difference over the driver's side.

My guess is due to weight distribution, or the engineers countering bad weight distribution for benifit in corners.

Either way I really wouldn't worry about it. Seems to be normal.

The problem with that argument is that the engine is shifted toward the passenger side, not the driver side.

 

[dunhillmc]

Maybe the added weight of a person in the driver's seat vs no one in the passenger side as often caused the front left corner to settle a tiny bit more

 

[ceric]

In the case of Prius, no. The right side was lower since new.
By about 1 inch if I recall correctly.
I think the weight distribution was not computed correctly at planning stage.