I had Mr. Tire perform a 4 wheel alignment on Monday of last week. I thought everything went well other than their BS that it would take an extra hour because corvettes required additional "tweaking" but it was such a struggle finding a local shop because of how low my corvette sits. Anyway, so this weekend I was driving my son down some back roads and I noticed the back end broke traction going around simple twists (traction control kicked in). Then yesterday I was going for a quick run and noticed when shifting (M6) it felt like the transmission mount was loose, every shift and the rear end squirmed. I noticed a noise from the rear left wheel but didn't see anything unusual in the driver side mirror (focused to the tire) while I was driving. As I was backing into my garage onto the lift I noticed in the mirror that the rear driver tire jumped outside of the well. Up on the lift I immediately realized the upper control arm was loose and low and behold the upper left bolt on the control arm was missing. So I did the normal thing, called Mr. Tire and bitched them out and they promised to repair and replace the bolt as well as re-align free of charge. The only problem I'm having is locating a replacement bolt. Does anyone have the part number? Also, looking at the control arm mount it seems to have been bent outwardly towards the shock mount.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/damxcW56X36naZaP7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/2muokaPrgGuvEGX99
https://photos.app.goo.gl/699dZhy7F6xAbWjZ7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/k9bYeH9gKjqJgMjZ6 - video of the movement

 

The rear upper control arms have no adjustment. Both the right and left upper A-arm attachment points are fixed and have no effect on alinement providing nothing is bent or actually broken. There would be no reason the tire shop would need to loosen the upper bolts. I have never seen one of the upper bolts missing or backing out on their own. I agree the shop most likely loosened the bolt for some reason or maybe removed it. Find another shop next time.

 

No disrespect, but I would never trust a Mr. Tire shop to do an alignment on a Vette....or any other service for that matter. I don't know of any of those type of shops, whether Mr. Tire, Mavis Tire, Pep Boys, etc, who have techs that are truly knowledgeable on Corvettes. I'm not familiar with shops in your area, but a quick Google search turned up Corvette Motorsports in Chantilly & Jim McKay Chevrolet in Alexandria. I'm willing to bet that either of them have trained techs who can do an alignment properly.

 

Hi Dave, no disrespect taken I don't get butt hurt by what anyone on the internet says :-)

It was a series of unfortunate events, I had scheduled the alignment to be done at a reputable shop and had taken the day off. The day of I was informed the shop was short staff and needed to reschedule but in my job taking time off isn't a luxury. So I shopped around and was referred to Mr. Tire which was 50 miles from where I live but went based on the timing. Finally, the reason I wanted an alignment was due to the steering wheel not being in sync when the wheels were forward and a slight pull to the right. We had planned to take a fall cruise down skyline drive next weekend... but lesson learned.

Thanks for the feedback!