Your new truck probably needs an alignment

All suspension parts break in, can take up to 5000 miles for everything to settle.

New vehicles are aligned when they leave the factory. By the time you have a few thousand miles on it, it'll probably have a little extra toe that'll make the steer ahead off center.

Here is my truck after 7500 miles, about 50 miles offroad.

Alignment isn't covered by warranty, just have your local shop dial it in after 5000 miles or so.


I made this post because I see a lot of threads about people saying their stock trucks aren't going straight, it's not a defect.

Could it be possible that your alignment went off due to off-roading? Maybe your tire hit a big hole or a rock to throw the alignment off? I’m curious because all my other “non off road cars and SUVs alignment are true after break in mileage is achieved…

Taco Ji said:

Could it be possible that your alignment went off due to off-roading? Maybe your tire hit a big hole or a rock to throw the alignment off? I’m curious because all my other “non off road cars and SUVs alignment are true after break in mileage is achieved…

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The suspension settling is probably more obvious on vehicles with more travel than cars/SUVs. If the suspension settles down by 1/2", getting .20 degrees toe out isn't hard to image.

Maybe offroading made that happen faster but it's not likely. If you hit something so hard you threw your toe out you'd probably know and I can't recall any big hits on the trails we've ridden. My alignment has been the same since the BFGs on the TRD wheels wore in, about 1000 miles after they were mounted.

Interesting, never really considered the fact, but I could see how it could get thrown off.

That said, I'm at 50k kms, with lots of rough roads and offroading, still drives straight as a whip thankfully lol.

Kielly said:

Interesting, never really considered the fact, but I could see how it could get thrown off.

That said, I'm at 50k kms, with lots of rough roads and offroading, still drives straight as a whip thankfully lol.

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You are probably due for an alignment tbh. I try to get them done every 15k mi on all my vehicles.

I've had coilover setups on cars drop another 10mm or so after they break in, which could for sure change toe some.

Mine was very good until the stock SR5 street tires wore in, then I could tell it was a little off. Then I got 300 mile take off TRD OR wheels and the new tires masked any alignment issues for another thousand miles or so.

Really wasn't that off, but I'm pretty sensitive to my vehicles steer ahead being not dead center I could feel the .10 degrees off, I'm special (ocd) about my vehicles going straight.