My car pulls right and I'm hoping that all it needs is an allignment. The tires are only 280 miles old and the pressure is fine all around. Being that 16Again lowered it about a month ago, it needs an allignment anyway

But does it matter who I use as long as its a Hunter machine? What about a machine called "Beam?"And how do these machines account for lowering?

if the allignment doesn't resolve the problem, what might my next move be?

 

I used Firestone about a month ago. Four wheel alignment for $59.95.

 

I found a local Firestone shop with an older experienced alignment tech who agreed to set to my personal alignment specs for best tire life. Instead of paying each time I bought the lifetime alignment for a coupon price of $135 which is little more than the cost of two alignments. The plan is good at any Firestone store nationwide and allows an alignment every 5K miles or 6 months whichever is first.

 

Here in town AZ. on a Hunter machine 49.00 and we send customers there at our price normally a stiil reaonable 65.00.Dave S.

 

That may depend on what specs you want to use, also. If you are using stock specs, I suspect it's just a matter of getting your lowered car onto the machine.

For custom specs, you'll have to find the right technician. I have mine done at NTB, but only one guy can handle the work.

 

Hmmm ... Firestone down here offers the same lifetime allignment but for $89.95. The thing is, if you lower the car, how does the machine account and adjust for the lowering? If its alligned to facctory specs on a car thats already lowered, won't it still be out of allignment? And what difference would the experience of the tech make, as long as he knows how to operate the machine?

 

Mark, who you have align the car makes 100% more difference than what equipment they use. A good alignment technician can give you a good alignment with less than the best equipment, but a poor alignment technician can't get it right no matter what equipment they use. Ask around first to get others opinions on a place you're thinking about going. The newer laser equipment provides a printout of before and after specs for your review, if you know what you are looking at. A friend recently had his C5 aligned and then brought the papers to me to ask if he got what he wanted. He wasn't famaliar with all the terms and numbers shown on the printout.

The raising or lowering of the car has nothing to do with where the tires are set for proper alignment. The tires are positioned or aligned, in relation to the earth, or more precisely, a perfectly flat surface that the car is setting on. The tires are attached to the car, and adjustments to position the tires are made on the car, but the tires are positioned (aligned) in relation to a flat, level surface on the ground, not in relation to the car. So the height of the car, being raised or lowered, has no effect on the final alignment settings.

 

Anyone know of a good place in Chicago to have this done???

 

When you find that right alignment tech and give him the specs you want it is most important to give the specs that you truly want and make sure to stress you want the settings right on your target numbers with as little tolerance as the tech can manage. The GM tolerances are so broad that I found them useless.

In selecting your target specs the decision is to either have top notch handling without worrying about tire wear or select specs for best tire life. Since I went with best tire life my tires are wearing very smoothly across the tread. There is no question I gave up some cornering ability with these settings but I don't of get to the point of continual tire screeching on curves anyway. :rolleyes:

The long tire life settings have been listed on CF many times:

Front
Camber: 0.0 degree, (error to the pos. side less than .10 degree if not exactly 0)
Caster: 5.0 degree,
Total Toe: 0.1 degree pos.

Rear
Camber: 0.0 degree, (error to the neg. side less than .10 degree if not exactly 0)
Total Toe: 0.0 degree to neg. 0.1 degree

 

Well now I'm really confused. My car was lowered. Everyone says when you lower the car you should get it aligned. But based on what you are saying, allignment has nothing to do with lowering :confused: . Now some say to allign so you can take advantage of a negative camber, or something like that. OK, fine. But basically, my car is pulling right and I'm assuming an allignment will correct it 'cause the tires are brand new and radial pull is rather remote at this point. If the pull is corrected then I'm happy. But what about this negative camber stuff? How do I know if a tech knows what he's doing? I really didn't think this was so complicated. :confused:


[Modified by MarkFLC5, 3:37 PM 7/28/2002]

 

Mark, isn't getting the alignment just right for the way you drive your car fun. :jester
If your car is pulling to the right or left and you have new tires, you need to get it aligned. The fact that your car was lowered probably did change the alignment, because the tires are connected to the car by the suspension components, moving the body up or down can change the alignment of the tires. The process of aligning the tires actually adjusts the tires according to the level surface that your car is setting on, which is the alignment rack, which is setting on the shop floor, which is on the ground. Basically alignment is done by a series of levels, which works off of gravity. Laser alignment introduces light beams to the alignment process that are projected around the car and compares the positions of the right side tires to the left side tires making it less important that the surface the car is setting on be perfectly level. The alignment process doesn't care if one side of the car is higher than the other side, but a good tech will check to see if the car rides reasonably level before the alignment process is started.
If you drive as a daily driver, or straight line race, and want your tires to wear even and last a long time, mozin, above, has listed my alignment specs that I posted in a thread on tire wear and have been running for the last couple of years. The only update I would add to those specs is to reduce the allowed error form .10 degree to .05 degree. Laser alignment can easily hold the error to less than 1/2 of 1/10 degree. I check my alignment about every six months since I can do it myself, just to see that it is still at the same setting.
If you want to road race, need the best cornering ability and aren't concerned about irregular tire wear, then go with the big neg. camber specs that are suggested above.

Now that I have everything clear as mud for you, you can go have your alignment done.
:confused:


[Modified by alanh, 5:06 PM 7/28/2002]