I recently had the very first alignment done at 149851 miles since new. I had destroyed the ride leveling bolts on the worst ever 50 mile section of road while on a road trip. By the time I got home about 600 miles later, I had also destroyed both front tires because the alignment had changed. After changing all 4 bolts and acquiring new front tires, I gave the Phadt specs to a recommended indie shop for the alignment. I told them I occasionally drive fairly fast, so make damn sure it's good. The following day I was back to get the steering wheel corrected from being 11 degrees off from center. The next day I went back to tell them it pulls to the left. Two more days and I went back to get the tires re-balanced. I reminded the owner about the high speed driving and their commitment to get it right. Finally they rechecked everything and said it was fine. One week after the first visit, I took them a photo of the speedometer at 150 mph and mentioned that if I had done that speed when they finished the first time, the photo could have been of a wrecked car. Now that they understand the difference between just OK and damn good, I'll continue to use them and mention the photo as a reminder.

 

I can understand if a shop won't install tires that have a manufacturer date of 5-6 years. With a lot of Corvettes you may even see the original Goodyear tires last that long.

However I would never sign a waiver stating that I accept rim damage just because their tech is not careful enough. I usually use Discount Tire, the last one the sales manager stated "I know Corvettes have rims that are hard to work on but we will take care of yours". They did, not a scratch.

I would just go with two separate set of wheels if you have a summer/winter sets of tires. I just bought A/S tires for my 13 GS but plan on buying a set of rims/summer tires in summer 2019.

Alignments are not a hard concept. I tell my dealer I don't just want it "within specs". Center of specs is ok and it is perfect for me. If they can't agree to that I tell them to don't bother and I'll take my money somewhere else. It isn't hard for a dealer to get it within the center of specs if he actually tries.

 

IIRC and without looking it up, the Pfadt specs are within the tolerance range of the factory specs, but just closer to the center.
I remember something about the height adjustment requiring a full gas tank and that GM does their design specs based on a 5'9" 175# driver. I have no knowledge if that also applies to an alignment.

 

very well said and a good example to/for others to use.

 

What a nightmare . I been doing this stuff all my life and never had to deal with anything like this.
I ended up driving from shop to shop working my way down the quality list , I even went to a euro car shop and they said no.
I ended up at a used tire place and took them off myself because I didn't want them touching the car.
The next day they were done but not perfect the back of the rim edge was scratched and one chip on the outside that they touched up to hide , the wheels were filthy and the cheapo weight were ready to fall off already . they took the old weights off with a screwdriver and dug into the aluminum so I spent hours fixing all that.
For the alignment I went back to the dealer .
I got there at 9am and at 10am they told me they cant do it because they cant figure out how to get it on the rack and asked if I put on the ground effects , I said yes but they are stock zr1 .
So I went home and removed all the ground effects and got back at 11am ,I waited nervously until 3.
The checkout lady said its done and knew nothing about a printout sheet or anything so I paid and left .
As soon as I hit the road it pulled right and the steering wheel was off center so I turned around and went back.
I waited another hour for it and seems to be right but who knows what they really did for the alignment specs.
At least its done for now and the larger pilots make it ride so much better , it seems to handle better too.

 

I bought some used winter tires for my daughter's Cruze. 6 years old. took them to Discount Tire and they mounted and balanced them for me no questions. They did say that 10 years old is their limit for mounting or repairing a tire. But.... once went into the same Discount Tire looking to buy a pair of drag radials and the twerp at the desk told me that they would HAVE to put them on the front because all new tires had to be mounted on the non-driven wheels. turned right around and walked out without saying a word. How do you argue with logic like that?