I lowered my car on the stock bolts, well, I actually removed the front bolts all together Anyway, I work at a Ford dealership with a really nice alignment rack and figured why not just let them do the alignment for me.. Well 3.5 hours later the Tech tells me he did the best he could with it but that he couldnt get it to spec.. He showed me the sheet (which I have attached).. They charged me 140.00 bucks for this!!! My question is.. if I take it to an actual Chevrolet dealership will they be able to do a better job?? If the guys at my work cant do any better than this I would hate to see what a place like NTB would do

I didnt realize it would be so hard to align the car after lowering.. perhaps I have lowered it too much and it simply cannot be corrected??

 

Ahhh, stealerships.....

Take it to another garage that can do 4 wheel alignments. I lowered mine and he had no problem doing it. $99

 

Could the car be driven onto the alignment rack? You can't a Vette onto most racks that sit above ground using the standard supplied ramps.

I have no idea why it would take over 3 hours to align it to those numbers. The car has eccentric bolts on the lower arms. Just loosen the bolts and turn them and it's adjusted. Worst case he could have fixed the camber by adding a few shims to each bolt on the upper control arms, taking it for a quick drive and then back on the alignment rack. Even doing that should not have taken over 3 hours.

On a similar note, having both rear tires pointed to the left certainly won't help the car drive straight. See the spec that says -0.06* to 0.06* is within range. That is complete crap. Setting it at 0.02* exactly at each wheel is within range. The thrust angle should be 0 since that's the angle at which the rear end tries to push the front.

Try settings like this.
-0.4* to 0.6* is a good range for camber to keep tire wear down for a car that sees lots of highway miles.
0.02* of toe in at all 4 corners.
Around 7* of caster in the front with a little more in the right to compensate for road crown.

 

I had to supply some oak boards for ramp extensions to get my lowered FRC on the 4 wheel machine. Boy was it worth it, I never thought a proper alignment could make so much difference. Got mine done @ Black's Tire in Florence, SC., Coit street location (ask for Chris he's the alignment man) Oh yea, they kept the boards for future use.

 

The machine here at my work is an inground unit.. we just bought it a few months ago and I know we paid BIG money for it.. Looks like having a Ford tech do it just isnt going to work :/ Time to head to Joe Holland Chevrolet and see if they have a Vette tech there.

 

Anyone other than lionelhutz have suggestions for settings?? the car NEVER see's the highway.. I use it mainly at the dragstrip and weekend warrior kinda stuff.. I might take the wife out once a month for a Sunday cruise but would take the backroads in that case..

 

I had mine aligned for $70 at a ma and pop shop after lowering on stock bolts. No reason why it should be difficult to align.

 

When u lower a car u affect the camber and you can only fix it soo much until u need to get a camber kit ... Everything looks fine to me as long as your toe is within spec I wouldn't worry about it too much toe kills tires alot more than camber

 

Go to a place that specializes in alignments. Why does everyone seem to think the dealership is the best place to take their car?

 

Thats true^^^ any tire shop will have techs that perform alignments far more often than dealership techs.

 

Well then dial in about 0.8* to 1* of camber. Get more in the back and less in the front. Get the rear thrust angle fixed too and you'll be good to go.

 

Just some food for thought.
It's not rocket science.