Need advice/question on evo alignment

NYSpeed Automotive
1

Ok, well yesterday i took the evo to Manko automotive to get aligned. The car is lowered with tien s-tech springs (2in drop in the front, 1 in the rear) and before they were going to attempt they said it would cost me between $200-$400 bucks to get it aligned. They said they would have to take the car back to all factory specs, take out my springs and put the whole car back to stock ride height, align it, then lower it and align it again. :wtf: i have never heard of this before, the car has been lowered for quite some time and it was aligned perfectly, but i never remember spendng $400 for an alignment. The only reason the cars needs an alignment is because it now pulls to the right a little after i did the clutch this winter and put the car back together.

can anyone help me on this? i dont know if this is true what they are telling me or not, because i sure have not heard of doing this to align a lowered car.

2

They are screwing you…STS on George Urban did a good job on lowered cars for people on the board in the past. Shit I had my 300ZX aligned by a gay dude at a Dunn Tire like place in Cleveland and it was spot on.

Tell them to DIAF and take it some place that knows what they are doing.

3

[quote=“2TurboZ,post:2,topic:26410"”]

They are screwing you…STS on George Urban did a good job on lowered cars for people on the board in the past. Shit I had my 300ZX aligned by a gay dude at a Dunn Tire like place in Cleveland and it was spot on.

Tell them to DIAF and take it some place that knows what they are doing.

[/quote]

thanks, they told me with lowering it it was changing the toe of th car and if they aligned it with it lowered the car would be way out of wack

4

I could be wrong but I am pretty sure in spec is in spec lowered or not.

5

Those people are idiots. Go to Suburban Auto on George Urban. They will do it right. Do a search for their address/phone or check the yellow pages.

6

Yeah…Suburban Auto…used to be STS…They have vettes and vipers parked our front from time to time

7

Or paul, you could go to Licattas on walden…He’s a pretty cool dude and has a pretty nice alignment machine…Im sure he’s got reasonable prices…

8

when you lower the car some of the adjustments that the factory offfer are not enough and you have to spend extra time and sometimes modify stuff to get them back whithin specs they just dont want to waste thier time for 69.95 they want to make sure if the spend all day on your car thay are going to be getting paid id probably shoot high also cause you never know wahat thier getting into my .02

and yes i can do alignments

9

LOL. I’ve sent tons of people with lowered cars to Sears even with no issues at all. They did mine to my specs no questions asked.

10

^
i used to go there, they would do it, but always cried… and i always had to take it back. they never did it right the first time

[quote=“BIGHANDS,post:8,topic:26410"”]

when you lower the car some of the adjustments that the factory offfer are not enough and you have to spend extra time and sometimes modify stuff to get them back whithin specs they just dont want to waste thier time for 69.95 they want to make sure if the spend all day on your car thay are going to be getting paid id probably shoot high also cause you never know wahat thier getting into my .02

and yes i can do alignments

[/quote]

:tup:
he did my last alignment… he didnt cry, and i didnt have to take it back.

11

lol. that’s BS.

Just tell them what specs you want. Especially the toe… that’s the money one for a street car, because that’s what will kill your tires.

However, they may not be able to do a lot with any other adjustments on your car, unless you have camber plates… or bolts (yuck).

I have heard good things about suburban auto from carnut. That’s where i am going. (my car wouldn’t fit on the lift at fox…)

Speaking of fox tire, i will never go back there ever again. I took my car there saturday morning, they said “we’re not sure it will fit onto our machine”. Fine, I said, let’s give it a try, just take it slow. So the guy jumps in my car to pull it in, but instead of pulling in, he leaves the parking lot, and HAMMERS on it down the street, misses third and just grinds the fuck out of it as he’s flying down the street, makes a right turn and he’s gone for 5 minutes. Then he comes flying up from the other direction, almost goes over a curb coming in then stalls it like 5 times trying to pull it up to the alignment lift… Which it doesn’t fit on. I ask him why he took my car down the block, and he said that they road test all the cars before aligning them… I was pissed, took my keys and left.

12

^Thats some fucking bullshit. You should have talked to the manager.

13

actually, he is SUPPOSED to “test drive” it.
hes not supposed to beat it, however.(was this with your ST-hear me from 10 miles away-I? cause if so, he is dumb, he should have driven it nicely until he was out of sound range :slight_smile: )

BUT, with an alignment, it is pointless. b/c if some1 comes in for 1 the car is obviously in need of 1 and all you have to do is get it on a machine, set it up, do a caster sweep and then youve got real-time measurements as to how far out of spec it is. and all you have to do is make the adjustments.

alignments are seriously the easiest way to make money(besides tuning) when it comes to cars. (that is of course, you dont work in buffalo:D )

oh and toe is the #1 cause of premature tire wear.

[quote=“newman,post:11,topic:26410"”]

lol. that’s BS.

Just tell them what specs you want. Especially the toe… that’s the money one for a street car, because that’s what will kill your tires.

However, they may not be able to do a lot with any other adjustments on your car, unless you have camber plates… or bolts (yuck).

I have heard good things about suburban auto from carnut. That’s where i am going. (my car wouldn’t fit on the lift at fox…)

Speaking of fox tire, i will never go back there ever again. I took my car there saturday morning, they said “we’re not sure it will fit onto our machine”. Fine, I said, let’s give it a try, just take it slow. So the guy jumps in my car to pull it in, but instead of pulling in, he leaves the parking lot, and HAMMERS on it down the street, misses third and just grinds the fuck out of it as he’s flying down the street, makes a right turn and he’s gone for 5 minutes. Then he comes flying up from the other direction, almost goes over a curb coming in then stalls it like 5 times trying to pull it up to the alignment lift… Which it doesn’t fit on. I ask him why he took my car down the block, and he said that they road test all the cars before aligning them… I was pissed, took my keys and left.

[/quote]

14

I went to firestone on mckinnley. They had a lifetime alignment for $120, so anytime I feel like getting it aligned I just go in and they do it. My car is too low to go on the lifts at any other location of firestone. They did a decent job of getting it back into spec. My camber was +3 on the passenger front side and driver rear side. and they managed to get it pretty close to 0

15

Why would you want 0 camber? Although it’s a lot better than +3…

Does firestone do custom specs?

16

yea, just tell them what you want. I told them I wanted -1 in the front but they couldnt get it that close. After I change my knuckles tho, it shouldnt be a problem. I don’t want to go too negative because I do alot of highway driving.

17

[quote=“newman,post:11,topic:26410"”]

lol. that’s BS.

Just tell them what specs you want. Especially the toe… that’s the money one for a street car, because that’s what will kill your tires.

However, they may not be able to do a lot with any other adjustments on your car, unless you have camber plates… or bolts (yuck).

I have heard good things about suburban auto from carnut. That’s where i am going. (my car wouldn’t fit on the lift at fox…)

Speaking of fox tire, i will never go back there ever again. I took my car there saturday morning, they said “we’re not sure it will fit onto our machine”. Fine, I said, let’s give it a try, just take it slow. So the guy jumps in my car to pull it in, but instead of pulling in, he leaves the parking lot, and HAMMERS on it down the street, misses third and just grinds the fuck out of it as he’s flying down the street, makes a right turn and he’s gone for 5 minutes. Then he comes flying up from the other direction, almost goes over a curb coming in then stalls it like 5 times trying to pull it up to the alignment lift… Which it doesn’t fit on. I ask him why he took my car down the block, and he said that they road test all the cars before aligning them… I was pissed, took my keys and left.

[/quote]

Test drives before alignments are necessary to see how the car drives before any work is done. Looking for any loose, broken parts or improper steering. Not joy rides.

Take it to suburban on George urban, tell them I sent you they will take care of you.

18

[quote=“Carnut,post:17,topic:26410"”]

Test drives before alignments are necessary to see how the car drives before any work is done. Looking for any loose, broken parts or improper steering. Not joy rides.

Take it to suburban on George urban, tell them I sent you they will take care of you.

[/quote]

yeah, that’s my plan.

But as far as i am concerned, if i bring a car in for an alignment, i want an alignment. I did not bring the car in and say: my car is pulling to the right, i think i might need an alignment. In fact, i told them that all i wanted was for them to set my toe and thrust angle to Zero and tell me what my camber was. That does not require a test drive.

19

It is still smart to cover your ass by test driving the car to make sure that everything is in order (no worn tie rods, wheel bearings etc) because that would need repair first.

In a tech perspective you need to do this to prevent a customer from stating that you didn’t do the alignment properly. This is just plain smart practice and common practice. Joy rides are not.

20

[quote=“Inn-Tune,post:9,topic:26410"”]

LOL. I’ve sent tons of people with lowered cars to Sears even with no issues at all. They did mine to my specs no questions asked.

[/quote]

lol Sears couldn’t even get my car on the allignment machine without the front dragging…so it was a no-go

but i was recommended to this suburban auto as well…