Alignment rant

Why is it I can't find a DECENT ALIGNMENT shop? Imagine this scenario - 96 Impala SS. Ridiculously simple upper/lower A-arm suspension used on a few trillion vehicles in the last half-century. I just replaced bushings and ball joints. I got the quick basics close. I got camber to about 1/2 degree and toe around 1/16" in. I wanted to take it to a shop where they could dial it in.

Shop #1: They insisted on a 4-wheel alignment at double the cost. I called BS (nicely) and said its a solid rear axle and there are not any adjustments. They said it was required so that they could reference the rear wheels with the front. I politely refused service and left.

Shop #2: They had one of those fancy new machines that lets you lift the car and set the shims unloaded and it supposedly knows how far "off" it is while up in the air. The computer knows when its up and when its down. They kept setting everything up in the air and it was way off when down. I tried explaining to them that it has 1.75" lowering springs, so that machine won't work in that mode. They said that it wouldn't affect the numbers and I must have a bent control arm. I finally went over and showed them how to set the machine so they could use it traditionally (on its own weight). They said that they've never used the machine that way. So, I left with 1 degree of negative camber, unknown caster, and too much toe. Fortunately I bitched enough that I didn't pay for the 5 hours they played with it.

Shop #3: I had no choice but to drop it off this morning. At 2pm, the tech called me with "bad news." He said that he couldn't align it because he couldn't find any shims. I was so ticked at this point I said, "Every major auto manufacturer for the last 60 years has some vehicles that use alignment shims and you don't have any?" I have a coffee can full of them and I don't even have a garage. Then he says that even if he could he would have to charge me more. I asked why. He said it was because the toe was good but the camber was off. If he set the camber he would have to also adjust toe and it would cost more. I asked him what the caster was and he said "you mean camber?" I said "no, CASTER." He said (and I couldn't believe it), "your car doesn't use caster."

I didn't even wait for a ride, I walked 3 miles to the shop to pick up my car. I stopped NEXT DOOR to the shop at an Advanced Auto Parts and bought a pack of alignment shims for $2.59. I walked in, handed him the shims, and said "Merry Christmas - where are my berkeleying keys?" He asked why I was so upset. I said, "you charge X dollars and you set camber, caster, toe. Period. Its not X dollars per adjustment."

He said it again.... "your car doesn't use caster."

I have now wasted a week and my car STILL isn't aligned.

/rant

What do you expect for the got-a-promotion-at-work-from-oil-change-doofus-to-alignment-"guru"?

Sad part is I OJT'd myself into alignments and never had a complaint at the dealership about them....

That's why I have a Fastrax camber caster gauge and do my own alignments after having issues similar to what you went through. There just aren't any good shops around except for GTE, and they are quite a ways away from me

Funny thing is, I ran 13 auto repair shops for 7 years. I never personally ran any of our machines, but the finest shop I ever knew was in Glendale CA and they used rulers, levels, and chalk.

It takes smarts. Anyone can put lasers on wheels.

"Raised front suspension" mode has been around for a very, very long time, it's nothing new. Lowering springs don't enter into it.

You take a measurement at ride height, hit the button to take the current reading, then you raise the front suspension, hit the button again, and it corrects the drooped readings to the ones at ride height. Sometimes you have to iterate it twice because the way adjustments alter geometry means that a degree of caster change when drooped doesn't equal a degree when at ride height, but this is no big deal. Half of the time spent on an alignment is setting up the equipment, so doing the adjustments two or three or five times still takes less time.

When I was doing alignments, as a rule, I was never happy with anybody else's work. I still am not. I'll grudgingly accept that some people can get alignments good, but in the back of my mind, I know that I could have got it better.

Knurled wrote: "Raised front suspension" mode has been around for a very, very long time, it's nothing new. Lowering springs don't enter into it. You take a measurement at ride height, hit the button to take the current reading, then you raise the front suspension, hit the button again, and it corrects the drooped readings to the ones at ride height.

Makes me wonder if it was operator error. I recall that it was a brand-spanking-new machine. It didn't even have dust on it. My guess is that they had it installed and no one was trained on it yet.

The laser ones can fubar it if the operator sucks......that's how we ended up with a fusion that had max toe in on the back......they couldn't get the front correct either due to a bent cradle so they thought toe in on the back would make that better. It went to another shop that did it with measuring tapes, chalkboard, and levels......they discovered the screwed up cradle and got bragging rights over the other shop.

" Ridiculously simple upper/lower A-arm suspension used on a few trillion vehicles in the last half-century. I just replaced bushings and ball joints. I got the quick basics close. I got camber to about 1/2 degree and toe around 1/16" in. I wanted to take it to a shop where they could dial it in."

Their is no such thing!

Bring it to Kwik Kar in Pflugerville, Ill get you fixed up.

do you have a community college in your area that has an automotive curriculum ? take it to them .. the instructor will have a chance to show the kids how things "used" to be

too bad you're so far away .... we've go a damn good indy shop here ... the alignment guy is the press. of our a-x club and is a damn good tech

curtis73 wrote: It takes smarts. Anyone can put lasers on wheels.

This is very true. So is Knurled's comment on alignment techs believe they can always do a better job than someone else.

GTE is great at doing alignments here in Atlanta, I've had two of my cars done there before being at my current shop. I Would recommend them no problem even though they are our competitors.

At my shop, we do not do 2 wheel alignments. A car with a solid rear will just cost less than doing an E36 or something. Our tech has been doing alignments for about 20 years, he is good. He does anything from Miatas to Maseratis.

Here comes my mini rant about our alignment tech...

He has no idea how to string a car... I do. And I have strung my track car up to Grand Am and World Challenge cars. He thinks stringing cars doesnt work. I asked him "if it doesn't work then why the hell does near every team in sportscar, open wheel, and stockcar racing do it? What happens when a team is testing at the track and needs to change camber or toe? Do they pack up the racecar and go to an alignment rack?" He didn't have a good answer to that one. My favorite was tagging him in a post on FB with Seth Thomas standing next to one of the Bimmerworld cars on the scale pads getting strung with a comment like "making the last adjustments before the race" or something like that.

Bring it to my home/ garage and I will align it for you.

There are about 4 ricemarts and 1 big $$$ race shop with a laser alignment machine by me. Only one has a clue how to use it, guess which one?

I think I'll just do it at home and leave it at that. Maybe its time to invest in a couple tools. I have some stuff, but setting caster is always a clumsy pain in the butt. I also have nowhere on my property that is flat and level. I have a buddy with a very small garage, maybe we could clear it out and do it there.

Or maybe just the walmart parking lot in the middle of the night

Luckily we have a good independent shop here who takes great pride in doing alignments. I talked to them about doing my Spitfire and the told me they do all the hot rods that are built locally.

My other problem with alignment places is they will only do what the book tells them to, none of my interesting cars has anywhere near stock suspension geometry, the book will not work.

They either say no to the job or do it by the book anyway.

I have found a tire store who has a good tech and he will listen to me.

They get a lot of business from me because of this. "Zurcher Tire" in Monroe Indiana FTW.

Find a shop that has a race car parked out back. Doesn't need to be a top-level road racer, even a battered dirt tracker will do. Says everything you need to know about the guys who work there.

You don't need a flat and level surface to do caster. You just need an area that you can make flat and level with boards and shims. Although I do like the Walmart parking lot idea.

Also, I'll just leave this here...
http://www.flyinmiata.com/index.php?stocknumber=35-70050

curtis73 wrote: I think I'll just do it at home and leave it at that. Maybe its time to invest in a couple tools. I have some stuff, but setting caster is always a clumsy pain in the butt. I also have nowhere on my property that is flat and level. I have a buddy with a very small garage, maybe we could clear it out and do it there. Or maybe just the walmart parking lot in the middle of the night

Use shim material to level the car. Thin pieces of fiberboard/masonite (the kind with the slick or shiny side) and a large level is all you need. We use a standard home level with a long piece of aluminum angle.

We also do our own alignments and use a set of bars that are bolted or clamped to the front and rear of the car to hold the strings. This way when we adjust the suspension we don't have to reset the strings. The shims act like turntables to allow the suspension to move and settle after an adjustment. I've also used a set of jack stands to hold the springs.

The bars are simple pieces of square tube bolted to flat plate to hang them low enough to land around the middle of the wheels and long enough to get the strings out far enough. We also painted the ends of the bars orange to reduce the tendency of whacking your damned shims on the ends of the bars as you walk around the car taking measurements.

There's now a handy camber/caster gauge app for your smart phone, but used camber/caster gauges aren't hard to come by on the secondary market. The rest of it can come from your local hardware store.

Wow, I didn't realize how spoiled I was. The local indie alignment shop races dirt track cars and road races Porsches. I take my car to them, hand them the custom alignment specs I want, and they do it, no questions asked. (Actually, he recommended slightly different settings, and I went with them.)

Maybe we should start a database of decent alignment shops.

We dont have shims for the old cars either. Annoys the piss outa me cuz the boss wont order them. We do have a rack that sits level with the ground when lowered tho. Real nice. And I do alginments!

I remember back when I had a Fiat spider on the road. Nobody would touch it for an alignment. The excuse I got was "it's too rusty"

This was a car nobody even bothered to look at. If they had, they would have noticed that the entire suspension was brand new.

I made a digital camber gauge out of 2 pieces of aluminum angle, 3ea long 1/4-20 screws as the wheel contact points and a $40 digital level from Home Depot. I compared it w/ the $200 Mitutoyo from the lab and it's with 1/10th of a degree.

I do have a scale platform (used, $500) and scales (also used, $500) but I'm setting up a race car to 1/10 degree / 1/32" tolerance, every 3 weeks of so. The car has setup frames to clamp on, but I've done plenty of street cars w/ 2 pieces of conduit, 4 jack stands and some sand bags for ballast.

Mercifully the Radical is fixed caster. Makes life easier...

Sky_Render wrote: Maybe we should start a database of decent alignment shops.

Butler Frame & Axle, Butler, WI

Find a one man garage (usually a gas station) with an alignment rack and ask him if you can come in one day and do it yourself with his machine. Most tech's have never done something like your Impala before and the ones who have are well out of practice.

Several shops have told me that they can't do the job because the Valiant isn't in the computer.

One shop told me that the Valiant's suspension was not adjustable. Funny, the factory service manual didn't seem to agree.

I've also heard about how the old guy who could do those antique cars had just retired/died/moved away ...

My string/plumb bob/level job doesn't seem to be wearing the tires badly, and the car runs straight. I'd still like to get a real alignment on it.

I was lucky to find a local place that will do custom alignments to your specs, and they offer lifetime alignments for a single car for $180. Sold!!!

Before I found them, I would take mine to a race shop in Louisville (an hour away from me) just to get a good alignment.