My 2000 150 needs an alignment. Most of the time when I drive, I carry a pretty heavy load of gear inside. Should I assume it's best to get the van aligned with the weight in it?

Thanks

 

I'm going to guess all vehicles have sufficient front end geometry to accomodate whatever safe cargo/passenger load its designed to carry. If you add things like rear shelves or large tool boxes etc that might have to be considered---maybe requiring supplemental springs etc.

With loads that are not always on board I don't think there is any special accomodations necessary unless you're exceeding the suggested weight limits etc. If so maybe you need an E250 or E350?

Find a good independent alignment shop, not a stealership or franschised tire/wheel/brake/muffler outfit-----someone who does only alignments and suspension work, typically a big truck and/or bus shop.

 

There is another recent thread where stkshooter talks about his experience of alignment for a E-150 with load... https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...nch-ideas.html

 

The private owned alignment shop I now use was the 3 rd place I took my E150 attempting to fix the tire wear on outside edge. My van had always worn the outside edge of front tires. Every place told me it was fine but will wear the outside edge when loaded tail heavy or pulling heavy trl. because of the leveraged weight raising front end of van. The van front end only has a few inches of travel so when you put heavy trl. on rear and it raises front end this also changes alignment and causes tires to tilt inward wearing the outside edge along with causing tires to turn inward so not only will it change your contact patch to the outside edge of tire it is pushing tire down the road on that outside edge. I finally loaded my van in rear close to how I pack it when taking a trip and told the alignment shop to align it for this set up. there was not enough adj. to get alignment 100% but close. Then I went home and painted tires tread with white paint so I could see exactly how they are wearing once I removed weight. They are perfect! So why was the outside edge of tire wearing when empty before ? I took van to several shops with no luck. The tires are stock size and I didnt add Bilstien shocks till last yr. which might have raised front and made it worse. Either way it is fine now. I know once I put all that weight back on rear again it may cause tires to wear more on the outside edge but in your case if you leave van set up that way it wouldnt apply to you. If you can get it adj. right. It is trial and error with these van front ends. The alignment shop owner told me he used to service a food service fleet which had the same problem. the route guys would unload from the front first. They then realized the problem and had them unload from rear first. Remember how leveraged weight works. If you normally have 500 lb. cargo rack in rear and you dont load front end with anything, your added 500 must lift 500 from in front of rear axle. (example) If you put 500 lb. cargo rack on front of van and 500 lb. cargo rack on rear of van then with the 10 ft. between front of van to rear axle and 5 ft. from rear axle to rear cargo rack the leveraged weight is not raising front of van but still applied leveraged weight to rear axle load. In my case I use front cargo rack and add 300-400 lb. to front which along with all the other weight loaded when taking a trip will balance out over all load. But if just working the dogs I might only put rear box on van without anything inside and that is where my problem is amplified and causes front end to be raised up. decisions, decisions. good luck!