Took my car in to the Suby dealer this morning, and apparently they do a quick alignment check as they are writing up service orders. Kind of a cool service and I'm sure they make a ton of money with it as a sales tool.
As he shows me the alignment printout he says "your front camber is out of spec." Yep, the negative camber is too much for you but it's just right for me. Thanks but no thanks for the alignment recommendation!
I have heard of drive-thru alignment machines. Pretty cool technology. Of course some of us prefer to be "out of spec"
Boy, they would hate my cars.
At one point the Swift had -4.5* of camber up front....that was interesting.
Also... apparently C4 corvettes can get almost 5.5* of negative camber in the rear. Did you know that much negative camber and you can litereally put your finger under the outer tread block?
Yup been there done that. Typically it is a young kid at the NTB that is trying to up sell and impress the boss. Every time the sales guy I deal with has to explain that this customer is different and that the camber is perfect (they even do the final adjustments with me in the car to get it perfect.)
I think they forgot to mention that if you didn't get it done right then and there that it would void your powertrain warranty.
Klayfish wrote: I think they forgot to mention that if you didn't get it done right then and there that it would void your powertrain warranty.
+eleventy million.
Klayfish wrote: I think they forgot to mention that if you didn't get it done right then and there that it would void your powertrain warranty.
With 114k miles, I've got nothing to lose!
I called an NTB location once to verify pricing and availability of a set of tires for my wife's car. The conversation went like this:
Me: "Hi - do you have 4 Toyo Proxes 4s in 195/50-15 in stock, what the price out the door, and if I get there in an hours, about how long is the wait"
NTB guy: Ummm...those don't roll well"
Me: "I'm sorry - That sounded like you just said "they don't roll well"?"
I brought in my specs to a tire shop once and they came out and told me they couldn't get the camber to where I wanted it. I asked for 2.5 degrees which was easily doable so I didn't understand the problem. Then the tech showed me the printout and I then realized he was trying for 2.5 degrees POSITIVE. Guess I didn't even think that I would actually have to specify that. Lol
dealerships nor tire places will even touch my Miata once they see it.
We have one of those Adesco machines, it's a pretty cool setup. It's aimed at Mr and Mrs Joe Average, though.
There was a time I clipped my back driver side wheel on a curb in winter in my old quattro A4 wagon, it drove SCARY in the snow the ride home.
So I take it to the alignment shop and they give me the print out showing whats in spec and whats not, the rear toe is way outa wack (possible pun) and I'm looking at the the print out and there is green and red all over on the various geometry angles, and towards the bottom the page it is pink (IE printer is low on ink) and the guy is trying to explain to me that it is really bad specification, hes never seen that before.
This is the bullE36 M3 they told me:
low ink in printer meant that I needed the frame to be straightened.
front outer tie rod ends were VERY seized (tie rod ends were replaced only a few months prior from germanautoparts.com with the full metal ball version instead of cheapo plastic)
there is no way to adjust the toe in the rear on these cars.
so I got a second opinion at a reputable shop and they said I bent my driver rear knuckle.
Sketch balls. This is why my car only goes to shops whose owner I know personally.
My last alignment they spent 4 hours making sure everything was perfect, including sandblasting all the camber bolts because "You race the car and we want to make sure it's right". They charged me for 2 hours.
We had a Hunter $45000 drive up machine in our service lane for a couple months. drive it up, put the things on the wheels, roll it back the forward, shows the "measurements"
iirc every single car had camber out in the right rear. all of em. Coincidence? =]
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