spoolin98

I live in northeast Pennsylvania.
I want to use a dealer as a last resort to get my car aligned. They couldn't even change my oil properly.
Does anyone know of a good performance shop that does C7 alignments around me?

Can a Mod please add Northeast PA to my title, I forgot to add it for others who might search this topic.

cvp33

DSC Jessup, MD. They will do it right. Not cheap, but it will be done right. Not sure what NE PA is, but Reading to Jessup is 2 hours.

spoolin98

Thanks CVP. I'm in the Lehigh Valley area, Allentown Bethlehem Easton. Unless I googled the wrong place, they are 3 hours from me. Their website mentions nothing about alignments. But that's definitely an option if I cant find somewhere closer.

cvp33

I had a 2016 with a really bad alignment. They did their 26 washer removing (that may be an exaggeration) rear caster magic alignment and the car was NIGHT and DAY after. Rolling into the gas the car would just squat and go, no more trammeling and frankly just poor handling. Wasn't cheap, but it was worth it.

spoolin98

I don't really have any issues with my alignment I don't think, that's why I want to get it checked out.
Car drives straight and when I get on it no issues with the rear coming out on me. What did it cost you if you don't mind me asking?

rico750sxi

Little Bear Wheel Alignment looks to be just over two hours away. They did mine and were awesome, I drove over 2 hours to get to them too based on a recommendation from a member here.

Z0HS1CK

I wouldn't use a dealer to align your car.

Take it to a specialist that either deals with corvettes or high performance cars in general as they will take extra precautions and care since they're used to special cars.

I had my alignment done last year, it wasn't that far off. It cost me 79.99 bucks and they gave me a print out of the before and after alignment specs. I could post if here if you like, just gotta look for the paper.

I will however be getting another alignment in spring, because i'm dropping the car on the stock bolts. Unless an alignment is not needed since i already got one last year??

Edit: alignment was only 79.99. I paid 200 because i had my tires swapped out same time.

Bill Dearborn

A good alignment on a C7 is a little more difficult to achieve than going to a performance shop due to the rear caster measurement and adjustment. The first thing I would do is approach your local dealerships and ask them if they have the tools to properly measure REAR Caster on the C7. You may need to get past the Service Writer and talk to the mechanic to get a clear answer on the question. Rear caster is a rare measurement and the only 3 production model cars that I know that had adjustable rear caster were recent GM vehicles. There may be a Mercedes model as well but I can't verify that. Independent shops are going to be even less likely to know what you are talking about. The first thing to know is whether the dealership has the tools or know they can borrow them from GM through the tool loan program.

The first confusion you will need to work through is EVERYBODY you talk to will assume you mean Front Caster and say "Sure we can do that." You may need to ask the question several times to get them to realize you are talking about rear caster. The second confusion point is that they will claim the alignment machine is capable of measuring it and they are all set up to handle it with their latest state of the art top of the line alignment machine. They will say the specs are loaded on the machine and they mechanic will go through the process defined by the machine to measure and correct each setting. The problem is there are no alignment machines on the market that are able to measure rear caster and none of them have the rear caster specs loaded into them.

To measure rear caster on the C7 you need a special adapter that plugs into two holes on each of the rear knuckles and you need a digital angle gauge that can attach to the adapter so the mechanic can see it as they adjust the camber measured on the alignment machine while they also look at the gauge mounted to the rear knuckle to get both camber and caster adjusted properly. Once they have them set the machine will provide the rear camber setting but the mechanic will have to write down the rear caster settings he sees on the gauge mounted to each knuckle.

It is difficult to get this through people's heads as alignments are typically easy to do and most anybody can do them with a little training. If we can do it in our home garages with a few simple tools a mechanic with some training and $20K worth of tools should be able to do it.

Here are the C7 specs from the 2015 Factory Service Manual: It is a good idea to have the printout with you as you can then clearly point out REAR CASTER Vs Front Caster.


FE1 through FE4 suspensions were for the Base Stingray through Z51. The FE6 and FE7 suspensions were for the Z06 with the FE7 being for the Z07 optioned car.

A performance shop may pay a little more attention to what they are doing and charge more but if they have no clue about rear caster (and it's likely they don't have a clue) you definitely won't get what you are looking for. Out of all the tens of millions of cars sold each year for the last 15 years only about 200K of them had adjustable rear caster. About 0.1 percent of all cars over the last 15 years.

Bill

cvp33

I sent you a PM. The real magic is in the rear diff caster adjustment, DSC has figured the C7 out. They remove a washer from every mounting point which is why it costs more than $79.99. Having said all that, my 2019 came out of the box with what feels like a perfect alignment. The 2016 felt too twitchy until DSC sprinkled their pixy dust on it.

spoolin98

Yeah I am definitely trying to stay away from the dealer. Where did you get yours done at?

spoolin98

Thanks for the recommendation, they are about 2 hours from me also. Do they specialize in corvettes? Seems like an odd shop to go to

spoolin98

First of all thanks for the info. Secondly, I laughed a lot reading that because I can only imagine how frustrating this is going to be explaining it to a dealership.
That's why Im asking for advice on where to take it, I prefer to take it to a place that 100% knows how and what to do to align my car.

What do you think about DSC's alignment specs?

Z0HS1CK

Thrust performance in south amboy NJ.

spoolin98

Oh that's a good choice for me, its only an hour and 15 minutes away from me. And they adjusted your rear caster? Gave you before and after print outs?
Would you suggest them?

Z0HS1CK

Honestly, i don't know lol

I have to find the paper and then i'll post it. Otherwise maybe they have it on file? I can call them on monday and find out. However i doubt it if they have those filed saved. I was only a one time customer.

I'll try to find the paper tonight and i'll post it in the morning. It was a full detailed alignment print out though. From what i remember it showed everything with green meaning within spec and red meaning out of spec. Only 2 things were red, and they adjusted those. But again this was last march.

rico750sxi

They don’t specialize specifically in Vettes but they do several C7 alignments and are very familiar with DSC’s recommended settings. As I mentioned in my other post they were recommended to me from a forum member and I know that member brought his C7Z and recently his ZR1 to them. I was very pleased with them, it’s a great, family shop.

Bill Dearborn

The problem is the dealer is the most likely to be able to figure things out. There just aren't that many performance shops that are into C7 Corvettes and know all of the particulars.

The dealership I take my car to has a very good mechanic that does all of the Corvette work. When I first went asked about the alignment I asked the Service Writer and he told me you better talk to David. So I talked to David and showed him the copy of the specs from the service manual. He then went and checked on the computer and found all of the info on what tools were needed and told me he wouldn't have a problem doing the measurements/adjustments. He then asked the shop manager who orders and tracks all of the GM Specific tools owned by the dealership if they had the tools. The shop manager told him NO and he wasn't going to order $1000 worth of tools to do the alignment on one car and then he told me he wasn't going to order them. David just raised his hands and gave me that look of what can I do? They support a number of C7s but I was the only owner that asked about rear caster. The big problem is they really don't use the FSM when doing alignments. The numbers are all in the machines they trust the machines since the specs are kept up to date. The problem is the machines don't measure it so the mechanics don't know it needs to be done. If you find a dealer that used to be a Pontiac or Saturn dealer they may have the $600 gauge since the gauge was designed for those cars. Then all they need is the $200 adapter to adapt the gauge to the C7. However, if they have the gauge any gauge will work as long as it is accurate enough and has sufficient resolution. There are plenty of them on the market for less than $50. I live in the Charlotte area and when I went through this in March of 2016 I found 5 of 6 dealers I checked with including the largest didn't have the tools and didn't know about the measurement. The one that said they did was 35 miles away on the other side of Charlotte. When I got there they had the gauge but didn't have the adapter so that flopped as well.

When I ran into the problem at the dealership I posted a question to Tadge about the problem of getting rear caster measured and set. He answered the question and said they were going to put the tools in the tool loan program so dealers could borrow them instead of purchase them. To make things simpler for myself I purchased the gauge for $40 and the adapter for $200 and either do the alignment myself or take my equipment to shop and let the mechanic use my tools. This worked nicely when I put my car into a tire wall last fall and bent the right rear control arms and toe link. Once the parts were replaced the car needed an alignment so I took my tools to the body shop and the body shop mechanic used them to set rear caster while I watched. It was the first time he ever performed the measurement and got the setting correct. He had never heard of Rear Caster before and he has been doing alignments for 30+ years.

I like the DSC alignment specs with a variation. I have -2.2 front camber because I use Pirelli Slicks and I have -1.7 rear camber with +0.7 caster. The rear settings are the original DSC recommendations. I used to use the original DSC front settings but I reduced outside cornering wear by by increasing the negative camber by -0.2 degrees. I did not remove the spacers behind the rear upper control arms like DSC says to do mainly because GM says there should be at least one spacer installed behind each UCA dog bone mount.

Instead of setting front toe out like DSC says to do to get better turn in I set a little toe in so the car doesn't wander as much when driving on the street. I also have the Granatelli Toe links which let me set rear toe in. The first time we tried to put the DSC numbers in a couple of cars we ran into the problem the stock toe links were not long enough to permit toe in when the rear camber was set at -1.7 and caster was set at +0.7. The Granatelli toe links provide additional adjustment range so rear toe in can be achieved if desired with the DSC settings.

One thing you will find is setting both rear camber and caster to the DSC settings can take a lot longer since the adjustments are very touchy. Figure on 2 to 3 extra hours to do the job. That is why a lot of independent shops charge $400 to $450 to do a proper C7 alignment.

Bill

Kracka

The dealer has done a perfect job for me numerous times on multiple cars. It isn't rocket science so no reason to be paranoid.

cvp33

i think you're missing the point. If you read Bill's post you'll see the reality of a dealership alignment. It truly is a shame that GM has this chassis and adjustability and dealers just do a standard 4 wheel alignment. Too many stories of Z06's leaving the factory with bad alignments. To Bill's points earlier without removing the washers you can't pull the Z06 into proper street/track alignment specs and without the rear diff caster tools you are literally flying blind.

spoolin98

Thanks again, well that sucks to hear. So if I do have to drive 3 hours to get an alignment its going to be an all day event...