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So my 2019 GS is approaching 1000 miles and I'm seeing folks mention an alignment being needed asap if the car isn't going to be tracked? Is this a real thing? I couldn't take the car to the track until after 1,500 miles per the warranty, so this sounds confusing to me?
Essentially the factory alignment has been shown to be questionable. GM sends them down the assembly line and as long as the alignment shows green its good to go even though there is a large tolerance for what is "green". Track alignments and street alignments generally vary from each other. A track alignment is more focused on grip and turning ability whereas a street alignment is more focused on tire life and those tend to be the opposite of each other. It never hurts to get your alignment checked out.
Does it NEED one? Probably not. Will it hurt anything except your wallet? No... In fact, I'd wait til about 6 months or 3000 miles, take it to the dealer and tell them it pulls slightly, They SHOULD perform an alignment under warranty...
Does it NEED one? Probably not. Will it hurt anything except your wallet? No... In fact, I'd wait til about 6 months or 3000 miles, take it to the dealer and tell them it pulls slightly, They SHOULD perform an alignment under warranty...
Essentially the factory alignment has been shown to be questionable. GM sends them down the assembly line and as long as the alignment shows green its good to go even though there is a large tolerance for what is "green". Track alignments and street alignments generally vary from each other. A track alignment is more focused on grip and turning ability whereas a street alignment is more focused on tire life and those tend to be the opposite of each other. It never hurts to get your alignment checked out.
Colton @ CSM Performance LLC
I'd not say questionable as much as you can drive a Truck through all GM alignment spec range. Camber for example for all C7's is +/-0.6 degrees! The rear on my Grand Sport was close to the max negative camber after I had it checked at 450 miles. There is a limit to when GM will cover a "free" alignment but 1000 miles should be OK. BUT tell them the car feels it's pulling slightly to the right (on narrow roads the crown will cause that!) GM pays for a check for a reason NOT because you ask for it!
BUT don't just say check the alignment for if it's within the wide GM range the tech will check and rightfully say, "fine." Mine only had one toe out and the Tech could have spent 5 minutes, fixed it an said fine. I gave the service writer a spread sheet and had min and max on each spec and what I wanted. The service writer gave it to the tech. Asked for -0.8 degrees for rear camber and centerline on all toes. Took him close to 45 minutes as it is irritative i.e. change toe, camber changes slightly. I got what I asked for. Was watching the tech from the open alignment bay service door (my usual MO.) Indicated there would be a tip for a good job- he did and I gave one!)
Note, many don't have the special tool OR skill to measure rear caster. It's a different set of adjustments and there are reports of some messing it up! If you're going to track get a shop with the skill to set that. Many Trackers have camber set outside he GM specs, which a dealer probably won't do!
It's insane how open their specs are, let alone for people who track their cars and run into snap conditions due to a differential side to side. It's always a challenge finding a good shop or dealership that won't just see green on the screen and send it out the door. If you ever want to start doing alignments yourself, we'd be happy to help! https://csmperformance.com/home/
Does it NEED one? Probably not. Will it hurt anything except your wallet? No... In fact, I'd wait til about 6 months or 3000 miles, take it to the dealer and tell them it pulls slightly, They SHOULD perform an alignment under warranty...
Should as long as the pulling to one side can be duplicated. If there are no measurements showing out of spec, the alignment can't be done under warranty.
I took our new `19 GS in for an (street) alignment yesterday, due to the lax alignment done at assembly. It is currently at 1646 miles. To my surprise, the front alignment was not bad, but the rear toe was WAY off. The tech tweaked the front for maximum tire wear & handling - best of both worlds. Rear camber & toe both required serious adjustment. He said I would have been replacing the rear tires within 5000 miles. Drove the car at several speeds afterwards and it is amazing how stable the steering is now.
So, I would say yes, have an alignment done to the specs you require.
I took our new `19 GS in for an (street) alignment yesterday, due to the lax alignment done at assembly. It is currently at 1646 miles. To my surprise, the front alignment was not bad, but the rear toe was WAY off. The tech tweaked the front for maximum tire wear & handling - best of both worlds. Rear camber & toe both required serious adjustment. He said I would have been replacing the rear tires within 5000 miles. Drove the car at several speeds afterwards and it is amazing how stable the steering is now.
So, I would say yes, have an alignment done to the specs you require.
FYI, there is no such thing as a "best of both worlds" alignment for increased handling and tire wear. It's a common term that I see all over the forums, but increasing handling/performance requires more negative camber and maximizing tire wear is exactly the opposite. While you can have an alignment that doesn't hurt handling and helps to maintain good tire wear, it's not optimum for both.
It's insane how open their specs are, let alone for people who track their cars and run into snap conditions due to a differential side to side. It's always a challenge finding a good shop or dealership that won't just see green on the screen and send it out the door. If you ever want to start doing alignments yourself, we'd be happy to help! https://csmperformance.com/home/
Colton
Yep, that is professional stuff! If an avid tracker would be useful.
But had to chuckle as I made a own crude "alignment tools" when I was building my street rod. Fabricated a long "caliper" from 1 inch square tubing and a screw adjustment to touch the wheel rims front and back to set toe. Used a level with feeler gauges on the wheel rim top and bottom to set camber! During construction I had to drive ~40 miles round trip to get a windshield installed and ~100 miles to have the interior done. So for those drives I set up the alignment myself with those crude tools. When the car was competed, went to a shop that did alignment where I knew the owner. My crude method was very close!
Yep, that is professional stuff! If an avid tracker would be useful.
But had to chuckle as I made a own crude "alignment tools" when I was building my street rod. Fabricated a long "caliper" from 1 inch square tubing and a screw adjustment to touch the wheel rims front and back to set toe. Used a level with feeler gauges on the wheel rim top and bottom to set camber! During construction I had to drive ~40 miles round trip to get a windshield installed and ~100 miles to have the interior done. So for those drives I set up the alignment myself with those crude tools. When the car was competed, went to a shop that did alignment where I knew the owner. My crude method was very close!
Thanks for the kind words! This is a prime example of how someone can do it at home and get close ! It's all about how precise you want to be, getting within a 1/4" might cost $50 whereas getting within 1/64" might cost $2000. We definitely lean more towards the track community where they need the 1/64" but we've had quite a few street drivers pick up sets due to the cost of getting an alignment done in some states (I'm looking at you California). Some also like to leave their cars on them over the winter to help with flat spots on tires.
FYI, there is no such thing as a "best of both worlds" alignment for increased handling and tire wear. It's a common term that I see all over the forums, but increasing handling/performance requires more negative camber and maximizing tire wear is exactly the opposite. While you can have an alignment that doesn't hurt handling and helps to maintain good tire wear, it's not optimum for both.
Negative camber (correlating to better handling) and tire life do not go hand in hand! A lot of times it seems that they wind up with a middle ground that doesn't give an advantage either way. Tire life is sacrificed for a more "aggressive" alignment but the alignment isn't exactly "aggressive" enough to really help out with handling so you wind up a jack of trades but a master of none. It's really about deciding what you want from the car. Do you want to track it? You sacrifice tire life. Do you want to drive it mostly on the street? You sacrifice handling in a way. But to be honest, these cars are so capable that even with just a good street alignment the car will outperform most regular drivers. Most of the time a "track" alignment is not pleasant to drive on the street either. For those that constantly switch between a street and a track alignment (daily driver track car) our products come in handy !
To me this isn't a place to nickel and dime right after you've spent over $50k on a brand new car (with $1600+ tires)
Whatever you got out of the factory is essentially random. Some might be "ok", some are not.
Take it to a dedicated alignment shop, tell them what you want, and spend the $150 to get it done right. Why dick around with the dealer on whether it is within "GM spec", have to make up stories to try to get it set to what you want, etc, when a dedicated shop will set it to exactly what you want, for cheap.
I took my GS in last week with 1000 miles on the odo. The Tech showed me the printout, and there was more red than green on the factory set-up. It was all over the place. The way I went about it was I ask the service writer (who I know), "if I said the car drives like **** will you do it under warranty". No problem. It may just be me, but the car feels like it rolls much easier. I guess all the drag on the tires is gone now.
BTW, the left front tire had to much toe-in as well as having a ton of camber. The rear tires were at the limit for camber. The tech mentioned that the tires were already showing wear from the bad settings.
I took my GS in last week with 1000 miles on the odo. The Tech showed me the printout, and there was more red than green on the factory set-up. It was all over the place. The way I went about it was I ask the service writer (who I know), "if I said the car drives like **** will you do it under warranty". No problem. It may just be me, but the car feels like it rolls much easier. I guess all the drag on the tires is gone now.
BTW, the left front tire had to much toe-in as well as having a ton of camber. The rear tires were at the limit for camber. The tech mentioned that the tires were already showing wear from the bad settings.
If a lot more RED than GREEN, that is an issue. Look at my post with the GM specs. If it's in the RED it's outside that broad range! Although I only had one toe in RED, the rear and one front Camber were near the max! As a minimum ask for them to get close to the middle.
It's recommended waiting for >500 miles for bushings to settle, etc.
SIDEBAR
Many years ago I toured the AO Smith frame line in Milwaukee when they were making Cadillac frames as a Tier 1 supplier. I was with the welding engineer. This is when all cars had frames and before microprocessor based devices recording frame measurements etc. At the end of the line 4 probes raised with screws and touched the frame corners. If the frame was in specification it passed on to be loaded on RR flatcars. IF a corner was high or low massive clamps grabbed the frame and the corner than was out was hydraulically twisted a predetermined amount. It was checked again and if it passed went on the flatcar.
I mentioned to the Welding Engineer that was simple and cleaver. He said, "Well like the stresses welding places in the frame, the first time that Cadillac goes over some RR Tracks some of the stress will be relieved and it won't be as straight as it was when it left the factory!
I made sure in that 450 miles I put on the Grand Sport before having the alignment set to my specs, I went over a number of RR tracks!
That is why the dealer can't just do it before delivery.
My GS was showing a bit more inside tread wear than outside on both front tires after 7400 miles, so I had a trusted dealer do a "street alignment" on my nickel. I tried two respected independent shops in my area but both told me the GS would not clear their lift. Here is the result, which I'm okay with except for the added toe on the rear. Not sure why the tech did that, but I didn't quibble and will keep an eye on it.
My Stingray has ~4000 miles on it. I love the way it drives, the tire wear, as measured by me, is very even, as far as I can tell, so I've no need to align, in my opinion. But when I need an alignment it will be done by a speciality alignment shop, with all the tools required to do a complete alignment on the car, not the local GM dealer.
My Stingray has ~4000 miles on it. I love the way it drives, the tire wear, as measured by me, is very even, as far as I can tell, so I've no need to align, in my opinion. But when I need an alignment it will be done by a speciality alignment shop, with all the tools required to do a complete alignment on the car, not the local GM dealer.
I don't blame you. Luckily my dealer just bought one of the state-of-the-art alignment machines. Plus, I've known the Tech that did mine for a long time. I even talked with the tech before I brought the car in, and requested he do the job on the day of the appointment. If all that wasn't in the stars, like you I would have taken mine to a specialty shop also.
Last edited by Rebel Yell; 06-21-2019 at 02:38 PM.
06-18-2019, 08:05 AM
New GS needing alignment - real thing?
! It's all about how precise you want to be, getting within a 1/4" might cost $50 whereas getting within 1/64" might cost $2000. We definitely lean more towards the track community where they need the 1/64" but we've had quite a few street drivers pick up sets due to the cost of getting an alignment done in some states (I'm looking at you California). Some also like to leave their cars on them over the winter to help with flat spots on tires. 
Negative camber (correlating to better handling) and tire life do not go hand in hand! A lot of times it seems that they wind up with a middle ground that doesn't give an advantage either way. Tire life is sacrificed for a more "aggressive" alignment but the alignment isn't exactly "aggressive" enough to really help out with handling so you wind up a jack of trades but a master of none. It's really about deciding what you want from the car. Do you want to track it? You sacrifice tire life. Do you want to drive it mostly on the street? You sacrifice handling in a way. But to be honest, these cars are so capable that even with just a good street alignment the car will outperform most regular drivers. Most of the time a "track" alignment is not pleasant to drive on the street either. For those that constantly switch between a street and a track alignment (daily driver track car) our products come in handy 
