Ever hear of an alignment shop that does not do Caster/Camber?

F

fitz3820

Active Member
Joined
Oct 4, 2002
I bought two new tires for my 87 GN and the tire shop (Town Fair Tire in Milford MA) offered a free alignment with any tire purchase.

I have just installed G-Body parts tubular upper control arms and 5658 springs in the front so a full alignment is needed.

The tire shop only adjusted toe - said that they don't sell "parts" (shims) for alignments - after a long argument I got my money back for an alignment somewhere else.

Is this common? They advertise "Full alignment service" but don't do camber/caster adjustments. Buyer Beware.

Mark F. 87 GN 11.5 @ 115
 
Definitely a place that's used to slapping tires on Honda's, not doing a real alignment.
 
I recently met a cool guy that owns a shop in Milford, Ma. It's called Accurate Auto Care. He's got a nice 11 second GN. He might be able to help you out. Don't think he gets on the board much but is knowlegable.
 
fitz3820 said:
Set the Toe - collect the Dough!
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Hate to say it but this is becoming more and more common.:mad: Most of the real alignment "techs" these days have no clue what camber, caster, SAI, or even a basic alignment means.o_O Loo at the stickys in this section and it will give you an idea of what you need to do. If the shop doesn't understand the lingo pull the pin and throw the grenade.:D
 
fitz3820 said:
I bought two new tires for my 87 GN and the tire shop (Town Fair Tire in Milford MA) offered a free alignment with any tire purchase.

I have just installed G-Body parts tubular upper control arms and 5658 springs in the front so a full alignment is needed.

The tire shop only adjusted toe - said that they don't sell "parts" (shims) for alignments - after a long argument I got my money back for an alignment somewhere else.

Is this common? They advertise "Full alignment service" but don't do camber/caster adjustments. Buyer Beware.

Mark F. 87 GN 11.5 @ 115
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I tried to get my car aligned a while ago and ran into the same thing. I went to 4 different places and they all told me the same story. "If we have to add or pull shims that will cost you extra". WTF?!! I have never heard of such a thing. An alignment is an alignment! Shims or no shims. Atleast that's what I remember it to be. I was tired of looking for a place so I gave in at the last shop. It cost me $179!! They charged me by the hour for the so-called shim work. I shadowed the guy doing the work and he knew what he was doing atleast. 15k on the tires and they still look new. Times have certainly changed!!
 
If you want I can look up the actual time on Mitchell Dave. This is the ASE time and if they charge more for time you have a case. They can charge for shims though but 99% of the time they're less than $0.10 each.o_O
 
charlief1 said:
If you want I can look up the actual time on Mitchell Dave. This is the ASE time and if they charge more for time you have a case. They can charge for shims though but 99% of the time they're less than $0.10 each.o_O
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The guy at the desk quoted me $75hr for the shim work. The mechanic actually went over for what I paid. And he wasn't sandbagging. He knew that I wanted it right so he took extra time. Made adjustments after his test ride also. He said the car's power scared him!! He told me to come back every 6mos or so and he would re check it for free because he liked the car so much. Thanks for the offer Charlie. I had this done over a year ago anyway. My anger has long passed!
 
none of the alignment shops in my area would mess with shims. Finally, one of the techs im friends with at my job took on the task. The problem is, when you start adding shims to adjust the caster, it will change the camber. Also, both sides can have irregularities in the frame due to age, so you have to guess and keep going back and forth. We were shooting for 4.5* positive caster and .2 negative camber, the passenger side was able to achieve this but the driver side was only able to get 3.5* so he had to go back to the passenger side to even it out.
 
kidglok said:
none of the alignment shops in my area would mess with shims. Finally, one of the techs im friends with at my job took on the task. The problem is, when you start adding shims to adjust the caster, it will change the camber. Also, both sides can have irregularities in the frame due to age, so you have to guess and keep going back and forth. We were shooting for 4.5* positive caster and .2 negative camber, the passenger side was able to achieve this but the driver side was only able to get 3.5* so he had to go back to the passenger side to even it out.
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To get that much caster out of a G body chasis you need to understand how they work and it's limitations. If all the suspension parts are in good shape and the frame hasn't been tweek in some way you can get some really high caster numbers but you end up with a shim pack that's so large it puts stress on the bolts holding the upper arms on. Also, on most alignment machines made in the last 20 years there's an adjustment screen that will show you how many shims go in each location so you don't have to think about it. If not, then there's a math formula that tells you how many to take out or add so you get the results you need. Unfortunately most of the "techs" these days don't have the training so they don't have a clue when it comes to aligning a car. The old saying is "set the toe and let her go" is very common and on a large portion of cars now that's all you can do.:(
 
Good to know Im not the only one that cant find a reliable place to do an alignment.

Brought my cutlass to a small town shop, caster, camber all OK, 2 years later my drivers front tire is almost bald after 10k miles and passenger side is perfect. Pulls to the right. Camber all screwed up. I told them it needed to be changed, they say its OK, I take their word for it. Not going back there again.

Brought my firebird to a large 'warehouse' store thinking they wouldnt BS me about stuff, just set the stuff. Get a call 45 minutes later saying it cant be aligned. Aparently both wheelbearings were wore out, both rod ends were wore out, and they couldnt align it because it has 17's and the book calls for 16's since its not a T/A. Go home and check the front end thoroughly and decide it could maybe use one steering rod end. Bearings are fine, I had just swapped LS1 brakes over the LT1 brakes the day before. Bring it to a local tire store and they acutally touched the caster and camber. Steering wheel is a little off, still pulls to the left but its better than it was. Didnt say anything about the wheelbearings.

I want to get my cutlass aligned but im not wasting the money when they will say there isnt a problem. If I had the tools Id just do it myself but I cant adjust stuff to .2 of a degree.
 
If you look at the stickys there's 1 that has suspension and brake info in it. I also made sure to add some vids on how to do your own alignment in one of the links and it only requires some simple tools. I believe it's at the end of the drag car alignment link.;)
 
Not uncommon.....My tire shop did my 55. But, they had to scrounge shims up. The local NAPA store didn't even know what I was talking about! I ended up at another shop, digging thru a bucket of used shims, from alignment jobs of the past....:mad:
 
Toe and go, take it to an old timer like me. I busted lots of knuckles going alignment on these cars in the 80's. They where all out of wack right from the factory.
 
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