am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question)

gadget73 · 10-06-2007, 05:46 PM

I just picked my truck up from an attempted alignment and I was told its not possible because its too far out of whack.

Background info: I have recently replaced the upper and lower ball joints, the center link, idler arm, and steering box. The tie rod ends are tight. Control arm bushings show expected wear for 146k miles and 11 years of age, but they aren't grossly off center, they make zero noise, and they don't appear to be falling apart. Prior to replacing the center link, the steering wheel was straight, and the truck ran down the road without pulling but it did float from the dead parts. After swapping the center link, there was a drift to the right, and the wheel was about 10:30-11:00 to hold it straight. fast forward a bit later, and last night I swapped out the steering box for a ZQ8 box to replace my sloppy original. The wheel is now at 10:00 with a slightly less drift to the right.

Alignment specs are as follows:

LF
camber: 0.5
caster 4.3
toe -0.05

RF
camber: -0.5
caster: 4.0
toe: 0.18

There was also this note:
"w/ steering wheel off center. Won't read w/ wheel straight".

What this tells me is the overall toe is way far to the right, and both sides need to be moved to get the wheel right. Basically center the wheel, and fix the toe on each side till its in spec. No big deal, anyone with a brain and ability to work the alignment machine ought to be able to handle this.

Here's part I don't understand. I'm told the caster and camber cannot be brought in spec, and I need adjustable control arm bushings from Moog to fix this. I was also told to replace the non-wear pitman arm (its a 2wd) with an adjustable pitman arm. I have never heard of an adjustable pitman arm, or adjustable bushings for that matter. It looks like caster/camber would be set with shims under the pivot shaft for the upper control arm. Am I way off on this? I know the control arm bushings could stand to be replaced, but all i want is for this to go down the road straight and have the wheel on center. The tires have 20k and are not wearing, and have never had odd wear patterns. I don't really have the time available to replace the bushings right now.

Whats the deal here, do I need some special silly bushings, or is there a shim kit thats needed to make this thing go? And what would cause the caster/camber to be this far off, simply worn bushings? Its never been in an accident, or abused in any way since I've owned it. I've never had it aligned before in the 6.5 years I've owned it, but its never shown signs of needing it. No tire wear problems other than simple mileage wear, no pulling, etc.

grndscrpr03 · 10-06-2007, 05:55 PM

get a second opinion, take it somewhere else and see what they tell you

greencactus3 · 10-06-2007, 06:09 PM

yea, second opinion

nmitchell86 · 10-06-2007, 06:47 PM

Just had the same thing a month or two ago...

After a road trip front pass tire was almost bald on the outside wall. I'm thinkin something ahppened to the steering or suspension. One place says I need $1500 in parts and laber. Second place says $1200 in diffrent parts and laber. So I take it to the stealership and they say a regular alignment, think it was $100 or so.

So in my case three opinions.

gadget73 · 10-06-2007, 07:13 PM

well I did a measuring tape alignment and it drives straight and doesn't pull anymore. This will be good enough to get me home, its only 130 miles. I'll see if I can get it aligned down my way. A friend from school works at the alignment shop down the road from my uncle's shop and he says they do good work. I'll see what he has to say about it. I'm not concerned with it being perfect, I just want it close enough so it drives OK and doesn't chew tires like mad.

I remember the last thing that got aligned by the shop that said my truck needed all manner of nonsense, a VW Cabrio, they said it needed all the same stuff.

ProTouring2.2 · 10-07-2007, 03:09 AM

Adjustable control arm bushings?

neversatisfied91 · 10-07-2007, 08:40 PM

i took my truck to tons of places and they all said the same thing. it couldnt be done. finally a guy at goodyear tire co. where i live at said hed try it. came in the next day, he got it done in about an hour. said it wasnt hardly no differnt. charged me the same price as a regular alignment.

ProTouring2.2 · 10-07-2007, 11:01 PM

Yeah. That's what I thought lol.

sirironduke · 10-07-2007, 11:01 PM

gee if i was still an alingment tech, i could have fixed it.
you might have to pull the pitman arm off the steering box, rotate the shaft a little and put it back on.
if you have an airbag you are going to need to disable prior to turning your wheel

gadget73 · 10-08-2007, 12:12 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by greenflameS10

Adjustable control arm bushings?

exactly my thoughts. The adjustable pitman arm that could be found in the Help! section I also thought was interesting. Don't know what you'd adjust on a pitman arm, all the ones I've ever seen were just a dumb chunk of metal with splines and maybe a peg on them. I have a feeling they just didn't want to mess with it. They finally brought it in at 4 pm on Saturday, they close at 5, and instead of telling me they messed up with their scheduling, and couldn't fit it in I got a story to make me go away.

sirironduke: I think, I could be wrong here, but I believe the pitman is keyed in such a way that you can't move it over a spline, least that sure seemed to be how it was when I put it back together. Same on the input shaft, it has a flat to locate it.

I ended up cranking the left side toe in, and the right side toe out, both about 2.5 turns to get the wheel centered. From there I fiddled with it till I got it close with the tape. Its still got too much toe in, about 3/4 inch closer in fromt front vs back of the tire. When I have more time I'll bump it out a little. Wheel feels a bit unresponsive because of it but its at least stable feeling on the road and doesn't try to put me into a ditch if I let go of the wheel. The lousy ratio worn out steering gear is also gone so even with the wacky alignment its hugely better than before. I don't drive much, I work from home, so any running around is a couple miles here or there to the store, so this can wait till I have a little more time to deal with it. With some luck next weekend I get the Lincoln back, maybe the friday after that I can make an appointment to get it worked on and talk to the guy who turns the wrenches, not just the guy who punches appointments into the computer.

Anyway, thanks for the input, I was just curious if anyone else had heard of such a thing. I've never had an alignment done on a GM before, so I don't know. I know Fords a bit better but twin A arm suspension is all basically the same stuff, with just minor changes to exactly how its adjusted.

sixspeeddemon · 10-08-2007, 11:00 AM

Wherever you're going, stop, they are idiots. It needs a 1/32 shim in the right rear, and the toe adjusted, That's it. Should take them about 40 minutes even if they're complete morons.

chadzx11 · 10-14-2007, 01:54 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by nmitchell86

Just had the same thing a month or two ago...

After a road trip front pass tire was almost bald on the outside wall. I'm thinkin something ahppened to the steering or suspension. One place says I need $1500 in parts and laber. Second place says $1200 in diffrent parts and laber. So I take it to the stealership and they say a regular alignment, think it was $100 or so.

So in my case three opinions.

Jackasses at tire places always want to charge you 10x what the parts cost at napa + $80/hr for labor. I have a firestone "lifetime" alignment, and I have had it aligned twice under it. Every other time they find some new way to screw me out of it. I rebuilt the whole front suspension. that was the second time I actually got it aligned (they couldn't say shit about shit being broken because everything was obviously NEW!). Then, the control arm bolts backed off and the shims THEY installed fell out, so I had to take it back. Then they come up with the fact that I need a new centerlink and inner tie rod ends to tighten up the steering. They didn't offer to fix the real problem with the loose steering (rag joint with 400,000 miles on it = POS). Plus the steering box leaks. But a new center link and tie rod ends replacing stuff that is not even 3 months old will fix it.

For the low price of $500. (they were charging over $100 ea for the tie rod ends. A $10 napa part!) So I told them NFW and they said they would line it up as best they could. They didn't do shit! I heard a knock at the first red light, pulled over and checked. Loose CA bolts with NO shims. Well, I went back and bitched them out. They totally ignored my complaint about them not fixing my problem to begin with, so I got the regional managers #. This was Firestone in southhaven ms. Stateline Rd. I called the bastard and let him have it. He told me to take the truck to Elvis Presley and let them fix it. NFW. I lined the damn thing up in my driveway with a tape measure and a pair of eyeballs. I fixed the goddamn nut with permatex threadlocker red. They won't back off now without a heat wrench.

When I take it back, I will degrease the shit out of all that stuff, and I will take it to a different firestone. The entire auto service industry is ****ed in memphis, though.

Web-Foot Freak · 10-14-2007, 05:09 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by chadzx11

When I take it back, I will degrease the shit out of all that stuff, and I will take it to a different firestone. The entire auto service industry is ****ed in memphis, though.

I have 2 suggestions then. If you want to stay with Firestone, take it to the Collierville store and talk to Rob. Tell him exactly what happened, and what you have done. For a Firestone manager, he is actually pretty honest. I've been gone long enuff that I can't vouch for the skill level of whoever is in the shop tho. My other suggestion would be to take it to Ford in West Memphis. They are good. Donald (the normal alignment guy) drives a gen 2 sonoma, so he knows the truck already. Chad is their engine guy, and he's even better.

gadget73 · 10-15-2007, 12:02 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by sixspeeddemon

Wherever you're going, stop, they are idiots. It needs a 1/32 shim in the right rear, and the toe adjusted, That's it. Should take them about 40 minutes even if they're complete morons.

No plans to go back there. I greatly appreciate the input though. I figured it was a shim or something, just didn't know how much of one. I might actually go visit the GM dealer down the road and see what they want to do it. They're closer and my idiotic work schedule pretty much kills any chance of me getting anywhere thats not less than 15 minutes away on my lunch break. I'll pass along the info, but I'd like to think they'll understand how the suspension on a GM product functions. Heck, maybe they'll even be able to align my Ford properly lol.

***98layinframe*** · 10-16-2007, 06:42 AM

damn you guys are unlucky with alll your bullshit alignment shops around ya.

I just got my noma aligned with no complains at all from the shop. THey didnt even bitch about having to use boards to get the truck on and off the alignment rack. Guy worked on it for a good 2 hours fighting all the rust to get it right... and i still only got charged the normal price of about 50 bucks for the job. Hell i just took it back for a check up a month later to recheck make sure everythings still in spec incase the coils settled or anything. Everything was rechecked and hell they even rebalanced my tires for me at no cost.

Long story short... take the truck to another shop. The only thing you need to align the front end of these trucks are some shims. Normally, these trucks can be aligned at factory specs with no problem up to a 5" drop. After that sometimes the caster sometimes is off a little but thats it.

lowfkndime91 · 10-21-2007, 10:24 PM

I dont understand what the big deal is. Aligning an S-10 is a piece of cake, and theres such a large amount of adjustment. I do alignments for a living, Im ASE certified in Suspension and steering...

***What?*** · 10-22-2007, 05:18 AM

hate when they feed that bullshit all the time, I know few shops that will do it, before doing it, they come up and let me know 1 of my bushing or idler arm is no good and if I wanted new one or just continue, I was like, oh its there for while, I just dropped it, they're likecool, just wait 30min, and done and done. Find shop mechanics that aren't that lazy, I've done aligning before, I can understand that some vehicles are rusted and more work to get it to work, they can call it off and just make up excuse for 1 little damn thing and call it unalignable, need new part(whatever they want to replace rusted part) so they dont work hard.... lazyasses

terryl · 10-23-2007, 06:55 PM

Incompetence...It's everywhere nowadays!!

BudRacing · 10-24-2007, 03:32 PM

^^Because it's been too widely accepted.

terryl · 10-24-2007, 10:09 PM

That's true ^^. It's the norm now. Getting competent service is now a pleasant suprise. That's sad.

eatdogmeat · 10-25-2007, 04:40 PM

I agree with shops trying to rip people off. Right after I lowered my truck I went to get it aligned, they told me the suspension was "stiff" and they recommended that I replace my shocks! I had just installed drop shocks! I also told them that they apparently didn't notice that the truck was lowered. I was half tempted to not pay for the job.

greencactus3 · 10-25-2007, 04:50 PM

belltire didnt notice my truck was lowered and ran my valance into a lift... which a "normal truck woulda cleared"

eatdogmeat · 10-25-2007, 04:52 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by greencactus3

belltire didnt notice my truck was lowered and ran my valance into a lift... which a "normal truck woulda cleared"

Man that sucks. Did they replace it?

greencactus3 · 10-25-2007, 05:47 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by eatdogmeat

Man that sucks. Did they replace it?

hell no. i bitched at them till i got a check for $50....
and i drove back home and back to school... an hour and a half drive wasted for that.
they wanted to pull off a "repair" not a replacement. you cant repair broken plastic valances. ive tried.

xieatcatbrainsx · 10-29-2007, 01:50 PM

about the alignment being way too far to the right... it IS possible to put in th centerlink BACKWARDS lol i did it but fortunately i caught it before i lowered the truck off the jack stands. ya, there is such a thing as adjustable control arm bushings, you shouldnt need them until past 5in of drop. the only way caster/camber shold be out of whack is ball joints or control arm bushings being worn. replace them with the cheap shit not the adjustables.

gadget73 · 07-20-2008, 02:59 PM

holy ancient thread digging batman! I had this fixed back in February. I went to a small independant shop, the one down the road from my uncle's shop that he uses for alignments. 75 bucks later and it drives fine. They moved a shim from one side to the other and that was all it needed. I also had them align my Lincoln since that went through 4 places and still drove wrong. They got it to drive properly too. At least now I know where to go if I need stuff aligned properly. So yeah, if anyone in southern NJ needs the name of a shop that can do alignments without screwing things up, PM me.

10-06-2007, 05:46 PM	#1
gadget73 Registered User Age: 27 Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 137 Location: User is: OffLine	am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) I just picked my truck up from an attempted alignment and I was told its not possible because its too far out of whack. Background info: I have recently replaced the upper and lower ball joints, the center link, idler arm, and steering box. The tie rod ends are tight. Control arm bushings show expected wear for 146k miles and 11 years of age, but they aren't grossly off center, they make zero noise, and they don't appear to be falling apart. Prior to replacing the center link, the steering wheel was straight, and the truck ran down the road without pulling but it did float from the dead parts. After swapping the center link, there was a drift to the right, and the wheel was about 10:30-11:00 to hold it straight. fast forward a bit later, and last night I swapped out the steering box for a ZQ8 box to replace my sloppy original. The wheel is now at 10:00 with a slightly less drift to the right. Alignment specs are as follows: LF camber: 0.5 caster 4.3 toe -0.05 RF camber: -0.5 caster: 4.0 toe: 0.18 There was also this note: "w/ steering wheel off center. Won't read w/ wheel straight". What this tells me is the overall toe is way far to the right, and both sides need to be moved to get the wheel right. Basically center the wheel, and fix the toe on each side till its in spec. No big deal, anyone with a brain and ability to work the alignment machine ought to be able to handle this. Here's part I don't understand. I'm told the caster and camber cannot be brought in spec, and I need adjustable control arm bushings from Moog to fix this. I was also told to replace the non-wear pitman arm (its a 2wd) with an adjustable pitman arm. I have never heard of an adjustable pitman arm, or adjustable bushings for that matter. It looks like caster/camber would be set with shims under the pivot shaft for the upper control arm. Am I way off on this? I know the control arm bushings could stand to be replaced, but all i want is for this to go down the road straight and have the wheel on center. The tires have 20k and are not wearing, and have never had odd wear patterns. I don't really have the time available to replace the bushings right now. Whats the deal here, do I need some special silly bushings, or is there a shim kit thats needed to make this thing go? And what would cause the caster/camber to be this far off, simply worn bushings? Its never been in an accident, or abused in any way since I've owned it. I've never had it aligned before in the 6.5 years I've owned it, but its never shown signs of needing it. No tire wear problems other than simple mileage wear, no pulling, etc.
	[Reply w/Quote]

10-06-2007, 05:55 PM	#2
grndscrpr03 Hates 'know-it-alls' Age: 28 Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 26,352 Location: SOIL User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) get a second opinion, take it somewhere else and see what they tell you
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10-06-2007, 06:09 PM	#3
greencactus3 bellcranks no more Age: 20 Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 22,127 Location: ann arbor, mi User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) yea, second opinion
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10-06-2007, 06:47 PM	#4
nmitchell86 Registered Loser Age: 30 Join Date: Jun 2004 Posts: 256 Location: CLE ROCKS User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Just had the same thing a month or two ago... After a road trip front pass tire was almost bald on the outside wall. I'm thinkin something ahppened to the steering or suspension. One place says I need $1500 in parts and laber. Second place says $1200 in diffrent parts and laber. So I take it to the stealership and they say a regular alignment, think it was $100 or so. So in my case three opinions.
	[Reply w/Quote]

10-06-2007, 07:13 PM	#5
gadget73 Registered User Age: 27 Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 137 Location: User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) well I did a measuring tape alignment and it drives straight and doesn't pull anymore. This will be good enough to get me home, its only 130 miles. I'll see if I can get it aligned down my way. A friend from school works at the alignment shop down the road from my uncle's shop and he says they do good work. I'll see what he has to say about it. I'm not concerned with it being perfect, I just want it close enough so it drives OK and doesn't chew tires like mad. I remember the last thing that got aligned by the shop that said my truck needed all manner of nonsense, a VW Cabrio, they said it needed all the same stuff.
	[Reply w/Quote]


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10-07-2007, 03:09 AM	#6
ProTouring2.2 Have a nice day! Age: 20 Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 8,568 Location: NJ User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Adjustable control arm bushings?
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10-07-2007, 08:40 PM	#7
neversatisfied91 Registered User Age: 19 Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 12 Location: User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) i took my truck to tons of places and they all said the same thing. it couldnt be done. finally a guy at goodyear tire co. where i live at said hed try it. came in the next day, he got it done in about an hour. said it wasnt hardly no differnt. charged me the same price as a regular alignment.
	[Reply w/Quote]

10-07-2007, 11:01 PM	#8
ProTouring2.2 Have a nice day! Age: 20 Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 8,568 Location: NJ User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Yeah. That's what I thought lol.
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10-07-2007, 11:01 PM	#9
sirironduke Registered User Age: 29 Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 58 Location: User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) gee if i was still an alingment tech, i could have fixed it. you might have to pull the pitman arm off the steering box, rotate the shaft a little and put it back on. if you have an airbag you are going to need to disable prior to turning your wheel
	[Reply w/Quote]

10-08-2007, 12:12 AM	#10
gadget73 Registered User Age: 27 Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 137 Location: User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Quote: Originally Posted by greenflameS10 Adjustable control arm bushings? exactly my thoughts. The adjustable pitman arm that could be found in the Help! section I also thought was interesting. Don't know what you'd adjust on a pitman arm, all the ones I've ever seen were just a dumb chunk of metal with splines and maybe a peg on them. I have a feeling they just didn't want to mess with it. They finally brought it in at 4 pm on Saturday, they close at 5, and instead of telling me they messed up with their scheduling, and couldn't fit it in I got a story to make me go away. sirironduke: I think, I could be wrong here, but I believe the pitman is keyed in such a way that you can't move it over a spline, least that sure seemed to be how it was when I put it back together. Same on the input shaft, it has a flat to locate it. I ended up cranking the left side toe in, and the right side toe out, both about 2.5 turns to get the wheel centered. From there I fiddled with it till I got it close with the tape. Its still got too much toe in, about 3/4 inch closer in fromt front vs back of the tire. When I have more time I'll bump it out a little. Wheel feels a bit unresponsive because of it but its at least stable feeling on the road and doesn't try to put me into a ditch if I let go of the wheel. The lousy ratio worn out steering gear is also gone so even with the wacky alignment its hugely better than before. I don't drive much, I work from home, so any running around is a couple miles here or there to the store, so this can wait till I have a little more time to deal with it. With some luck next weekend I get the Lincoln back, maybe the friday after that I can make an appointment to get it worked on and talk to the guy who turns the wrenches, not just the guy who punches appointments into the computer. Anyway, thanks for the input, I was just curious if anyone else had heard of such a thing. I've never had an alignment done on a GM before, so I don't know. I know Fords a bit better but twin A arm suspension is all basically the same stuff, with just minor changes to exactly how its adjusted.
	[Reply w/Quote]

10-08-2007, 11:00 AM	#11
sixspeeddemon Gear Banger Age: 27 Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 428 Location: COLORADO User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Wherever you're going, stop, they are idiots. It needs a 1/32 shim in the right rear, and the toe adjusted, That's it. Should take them about 40 minutes even if they're complete morons.
	[Reply w/Quote]

10-14-2007, 01:54 PM	#12
chadzx11 420k POS Dime Drivin' Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 703 Location: Memfrica User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Quote: Originally Posted by nmitchell86 Just had the same thing a month or two ago... After a road trip front pass tire was almost bald on the outside wall. I'm thinkin something ahppened to the steering or suspension. One place says I need $1500 in parts and laber. Second place says $1200 in diffrent parts and laber. So I take it to the stealership and they say a regular alignment, think it was $100 or so. So in my case three opinions. Jackasses at tire places always want to charge you 10x what the parts cost at napa + $80/hr for labor. I have a firestone "lifetime" alignment, and I have had it aligned twice under it. Every other time they find some new way to screw me out of it. I rebuilt the whole front suspension. that was the second time I actually got it aligned (they couldn't say shit about shit being broken because everything was obviously NEW!). Then, the control arm bolts backed off and the shims THEY installed fell out, so I had to take it back. Then they come up with the fact that I need a new centerlink and inner tie rod ends to tighten up the steering. They didn't offer to fix the real problem with the loose steering (rag joint with 400,000 miles on it = POS). Plus the steering box leaks. But a new center link and tie rod ends replacing stuff that is not even 3 months old will fix it. For the low price of $500. (they were charging over $100 ea for the tie rod ends. A $10 napa part!) So I told them NFW and they said they would line it up as best they could. They didn't do shit! I heard a knock at the first red light, pulled over and checked. Loose CA bolts with NO shims. Well, I went back and bitched them out. They totally ignored my complaint about them not fixing my problem to begin with, so I got the regional managers #. This was Firestone in southhaven ms. Stateline Rd. I called the bastard and let him have it. He told me to take the truck to Elvis Presley and let them fix it. NFW. I lined the damn thing up in my driveway with a tape measure and a pair of eyeballs. I fixed the goddamn nut with permatex threadlocker red. They won't back off now without a heat wrench. When I take it back, I will degrease the shit out of all that stuff, and I will take it to a different firestone. The entire auto service industry is ****ed in memphis, though.
	[Reply w/Quote]

10-14-2007, 05:09 PM	#13
Web-Foot Freak Yes... those are my feet Age: 35 Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 403 Location: Jenks, OK User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Quote: Originally Posted by chadzx11 When I take it back, I will degrease the shit out of all that stuff, and I will take it to a different firestone. The entire auto service industry is **ed in memphis, though. I have 2 suggestions then. If you want to stay with Firestone, take it to the Collierville store and talk to Rob. Tell him exactly what happened, and what you have done. For a Firestone manager, he is actually pretty honest. I've been gone long enuff that I can't vouch for the skill level of whoever is in the shop tho. My other suggestion would be to take it to Ford in West Memphis. They are good. Donald (the normal alignment guy) drives a gen 2 sonoma, so he knows the truck already. Chad is their engine guy, and he's even better.
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10-15-2007, 12:02 AM	#14
gadget73 Registered User Age: 27 Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 137 Location: User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Quote: Originally Posted by sixspeeddemon Wherever you're going, stop, they are idiots. It needs a 1/32 shim in the right rear, and the toe adjusted, That's it. Should take them about 40 minutes even if they're complete morons. No plans to go back there. I greatly appreciate the input though. I figured it was a shim or something, just didn't know how much of one. I might actually go visit the GM dealer down the road and see what they want to do it. They're closer and my idiotic work schedule pretty much kills any chance of me getting anywhere thats not less than 15 minutes away on my lunch break. I'll pass along the info, but I'd like to think they'll understand how the suspension on a GM product functions. Heck, maybe they'll even be able to align my Ford properly lol.
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10-21-2007, 10:24 PM	#16
lowfkndime91 Registered User Age: 23 Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 292 Location: Mass User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) I dont understand what the big deal is. Aligning an S-10 is a piece of cake, and theres such a large amount of adjustment. I do alignments for a living, Im ASE certified in Suspension and steering...
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10-23-2007, 06:55 PM	#18
terryl I'll do it tomorrow Age: 50 Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 2,837 Location: Kingston Springs, TN. User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Incompetence...It's everywhere nowadays!!
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10-24-2007, 03:32 PM	#19
BudRacing Molon Labe Age: 22 Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 3,737 Location: Decatur, Ga User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) ^^Because it's been too widely accepted.
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10-24-2007, 10:09 PM	#20
terryl I'll do it tomorrow Age: 50 Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 2,837 Location: Kingston Springs, TN. User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) That's true ^^. It's the norm now. Getting competent service is now a pleasant suprise. That's sad.
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10-25-2007, 04:40 PM	#21
eatdogmeat Valued Customer Age: 25 Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 145 Location: User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) I agree with shops trying to rip people off. Right after I lowered my truck I went to get it aligned, they told me the suspension was "stiff" and they recommended that I replace my shocks! I had just installed drop shocks! I also told them that they apparently didn't notice that the truck was lowered. I was half tempted to not pay for the job.
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10-25-2007, 04:50 PM	#22
greencactus3 bellcranks no more Age: 20 Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 22,127 Location: ann arbor, mi User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) belltire didnt notice my truck was lowered and ran my valance into a lift... which a "normal truck woulda cleared"
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10-25-2007, 04:52 PM	#23
eatdogmeat Valued Customer Age: 25 Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 145 Location: User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Quote: Originally Posted by greencactus3 belltire didnt notice my truck was lowered and ran my valance into a lift... which a "normal truck woulda cleared" Man that sucks. Did they replace it?
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10-25-2007, 05:47 PM	#24
greencactus3 bellcranks no more Age: 20 Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 22,127 Location: ann arbor, mi User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) Quote: Originally Posted by eatdogmeat Man that sucks. Did they replace it? hell no. i bitched at them till i got a check for $50.... and i drove back home and back to school... an hour and a half drive wasted for that. they wanted to pull off a "repair" not a replacement. you cant repair broken plastic valances. ive tried.
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10-29-2007, 01:50 PM	#25
xieatcatbrainsx meh... Age: 20 Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 422 Location: nowhere, MI User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) about the alignment being way too far to the right... it IS possible to put in th centerlink BACKWARDS lol i did it but fortunately i caught it before i lowered the truck off the jack stands. ya, there is such a thing as adjustable control arm bushings, you shouldnt need them until past 5in of drop. the only way caster/camber shold be out of whack is ball joints or control arm bushings being worn. replace them with the cheap shit not the adjustables.
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07-20-2008, 02:59 PM	#26
gadget73 Registered User Age: 27 Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 137 Location: User is: OffLine	Re: am I being fed a line of bull here? (alignment question) holy ancient thread digging batman! I had this fixed back in February. I went to a small independant shop, the one down the road from my uncle's shop that he uses for alignments. 75 bucks later and it drives fine. They moved a shim from one side to the other and that was all it needed. I also had them align my Lincoln since that went through 4 places and still drove wrong. They got it to drive properly too. At least now I know where to go if I need stuff aligned properly. So yeah, if anyone in southern NJ needs the name of a shop that can do alignments without screwing things up, PM me.
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