This place that my friend went to with his lowered car did it and I believe the hooked up a machine at first but then did the rest by hand because the computer can't calculate lowered cars. My car drifts slightly to the right (no, not the roads because on the freeway it's the same) and I wanted to know what I would have to do to play with changing the alignment slightly...
Thanks in advance

 

Don't even try it by hand, the alignment machines work with very small tolerances. if you make a change in the camber it will effect the toe and that can wear tires. The likely cause for a pull would be a tire with a radial pull, tire pressure low on the side of the pull or an alignment spec not that was not adjustable or "within specs". For instance, my old Pontiac specs where 0.5 to -0.5 camber or something like that. If the right front was at 0.5 and the left front was at 0 or -0.5 degrees you would have a pull to the right. The car would be in spec and the lazy alignment tech thinks he has done his job. It could also be a caster pull and that is not adjustable on many cars. You can compensate by trying to give it an opposite camber pull.

 

I took my car to get the front end aligned and they told me they could not do it. Not because it was lowered but because my aftermarket rims did not have enough "bead" where the machine could grab onto the rim. Luckly I,ve got a buddy who has stock rims that I can borrow for a day and get the alignment done. I never even thought of saving my old rims but it looks like I should have. Also unless you install camber bolts or install a bolt of a slightly smaller size, camber is not adjustable.

 

Go to another place! The place that you went to either has a bad machine or doesn't know what they are doing. The alignment machine sensors should have two ways of mounting. Sounds like your rims don't have a protruding lip like the stock rims do. What they do is turn the mounting hardware around on the sensors so it grabs the between the tire and the rim. Unless your rims are really weird, I'm sure they can do it.

ZuM

 

The other problem I,ve dealt with is some places don,t want to do it because after the car was lowered (about 1.7 front) I installed a different size bolt on the upper strut/spindle connection and left the bottom one stock. Original size is 14mm so I put in 1/2inch bolts to allow for a camber adjustment to be done. Guess I,ll have to keep calling around or actually show these people what I want done and maybe I,ll get better results. As for the alignment machine I don,t know much about them so I,ll ask about it while I,m there. Thank you for your input.

 

Okay, I have stock rims but my car is lowered about 1.75". Let me explain this next part. I did cut my front springs (intrax) 1 full coil so the car sits better but that did not have any effect on the allignment because before the drop, it still pulled the same. Also, my friend that I bought it off of had a pull to the left and after the lowering it was the same. I don't have an uneven tire wear but I think I will check around other places to see if they can do a better job.

 

for $50 get the thing alligned professionally!!!!

 

As Zum said the good Hunter machines have 2 ways of mounting. The most common is the inside lip mounting but they all should have adaptors that allow the alignment heads to grip the outside of the rim at the tire bead. It's a pain to use them and set up but it can be done. Lowering does have an effect on the angles and most shops say they can't do it just for liability, they can't garuntee it won't wear the tires. If you swap you front tires left to right and the car still pulls to the same side you know it is alignment, you can visually kind of tell if the camber is different by comparing the apparent lean of each. That would leave caster as the culprit in that case. If it is not adjustable a body alignment shop may need to tweek the unibody or cradle. Otherwise if you can adjust camber try to give it an opposite camber pull. I did this on an old Century I had and it worked well.

 

I think your problem is just finding a place. You have to find a place that is run by a car enthusist or something. Lots of places don't want to deal with you because they don't understand whats going on. They just have the alignment machine tell them what to do. But since your car isn't stock. They don't want to take the chance of the machine being wrong and you comming back 5 or 6 times. They'd rather not deal with you. Just find a good place. Ask local car people in your area where they go.

ZuM

 

Thanks for your input. I,ll keep trying