This past December I replaced struts, steering rack, tie rods, and LCA’s (with balljoints) on my '93 SHO. A diy garage alignment yielded a level steering wheel and a car that tracked straight. The only thing I noticed after ~2000 miles was some camber wear to the passenger front tire. I swapped this tire to the passenger rear about 2 weeks ago, and yesterday took the car in for an alignment to Goodyear in EA.
$76 later I left the shop to drive home from work after giving them the afternoon to align the car. As soon as I got out of the parking lot I noticed the car pulling to the right. Shortly thereafter a clunking sound from the driver front. Got home, made a call that I’d be in the next day as their work wasn’t done…car sat untouched (by me) for the remainder of the night.
Today, drop the car off again. Phone call comes a few hours later to inform me the car cannot be aligned due to a worn ball joint…one that “has been going bad for a while it looks like”…and “a fresh alignment will expose faulty parts blah blah blah”. My reply was that the part was all of a few months old, with ~2000 miles on it, and that the symptoms the car was showing were not evident upon dropping it off. I told them I do all the required maintenance to my car, and have successfully kept it on the road as proven by the odometer which now reads 250K…I plan to look over this alledged ball joint and will talk to them tomorrow.
Tonight, I begin to inspect by raising the front end to do the 12 o’clock/6 o’clock ball joint test…which it failed. Then the 3 o’clock/9 o’clock test…failed here. Hmmmm…that’s wierd, no mention of a bad tie rod? Pop the center cap off to remove the wheel…come to find 1 tight lug nut and 4 loose enough that I removed them by hand. I always torque my wheels to 95 lbs…and the current wheels is my winter set that have been on since Dec. (with exception to the pass side from 2 weeks ago). Looking deeper I see no evidence that the tie rod jamb nuts, the inner tie rod, ball joint, etc. had seen a tool. Winter muck is good for something I suppose…
So, tomorrow morning I’m heading back…with tightened lug nuts…to speak to the owner. I’m livid right now for them putting me, my car, and others at risk here. It’s obvious what they were up to…I’ll report back the results tomorrow.
Moral here…I don’t know, but I felt like people need to know this story for their own safety should they ever run into a similar situation.
wat goodyear is this i work at the one on french and union my last day is next thurs cause i cant stand the place what so ever! ive been there for 4 years and have been unhappy with the place every since i was hired… i can get you the district managers email if you would like.
never mind i missed the east aurora part. ill get you the district managers email. email him directly. i know for a fact you will get your money back
---------- Post added at 10:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:48 PM ----------
this happened to me once with my gf’s minivan and a shop that shall go unnamed in batavia. all i have to say is tightening the 2 remaining drivers side front lug nuts (other 3 the studs broke clean off) on the side of the 90 as cars whiz by you is fucking sketch… be happy you made it home. i was just happy i decided to go with her that weekend, i dont even want to think what would have happened if she was driving alone
things could have been a lot worse, and im glad they werent in both cases
That’s really shitty that this happened to you. I happen to know one of the guys down at the EA store personally and have trusted them with all my alignment and tire needs for years. Hopefully you can get this worked out though, 4 loose lug nuts is inexcusable.
Before you go in big swinging dick mode, it could just be an honest fuck up. Some new idiot could have loosened the lugs and never tightened them or some shit, maybe he loosened them and then got a bite to eat and someone else pulled the car on the rack for an alignment-who the fuck knows. Nothing horrible happened, you are not dead, your wheel didn’t fly off. Shit happens.
^I didnt read anywhere that he was going to go in and swing his dick around.
That being said… just because he DIDNT get hurt, doesnt mean he wasnt 1 bump in the road away from killing somebody. Perhaps your first born child, wife, sister, mother, etc… think bigger picture and realize that this sort of thing is inexcusable. Especially when its something that should be double checked.
At the very least, somebody should be reprimanded. And put on notice so this doesnt happen again.
Show me an alignment that requires the wheels to be removed.
Regardless of what the excuse/reason was…in a job where people’s safety is at risk care must be taken. When it’s intentional, that’s a whole separate issue that really deserves some stern punishments…the fact you’re trying to play devils advocate here astounds me.
My inspection of all the parts shows no signs of adjustments, despite a print out showing they did so. All they claimed to have done was a toe adjustment because my car “does not allow for camber adjustments”. It does, and in past alignments has been brought within spec.
Took some pics…looks like 3 loose lugs, with the 4th happening during my commutes home yesterday, and to/from work/Goodyear today…45 miles total. Note the 3 studs with more visible rust on the driver side…and all 5 clean studs on the passenger side.
well coming from a goodyear employee… when a wheel is taking off it has to be torqued by a torque stick first then by hand with a torque wrench by not one but two technicians… so either way this should have not happened… def email the district managers email i gave you. he is a very “safe conscious” person and will get back to you asap!
I know the wheels dont get removed for an alignment. What I was saying was that maybe someone thought that the car was in for brakes, loosened the lugs, went to lunch, dropped the ball, etc etc. You didn’t die, fucking tighten the lugs, get the alignment done, and move on. Tell someone and leave it at that- you don’t need to lament on this issue, you learned to never trust people to do a simple fucking task as 99.9% of the population is so fucking stupid that is a mystery that they have made it this far.
No, it would have flown off and killed one of those hipster fixie riding faggots. The wheel would have been sucked into the vortex generated by the faggots skinny jeans.
Hey everyone look, instructions on how not to handle a shitty situation. He needs to make this known to the higher ups so that next week a family of five isn’t on the news because their wheel fell off and they crashed into a semi at 65 mph. Incompetence not addressed is incompetence not fixed.
:fail: You’re right dude. You show that person who makes $8 an hour and his boss that makes $9 an hour whats up. Get a congressional sub comittee involved, call for reform in the auto industry, go nuts.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! Tighten the lug nuts, tell the manager that his glorified tire monkey fucked up, get the car aligned, fucking move on!