well its been 2 weeks since i lowered my car and i set up an appoinment at town fair tire for my alignment. I go there today, come back an hour later.. the guy just gives me my money back and says he will not take the risk with my ground effects (sarona) he refuses to do it. To make long story short i go to getty, texico, fire stone, and a small local shop. no one will take the risk to align my car. they feel when you put it on the lift it will rip the front bumper off. its not like i dropped my car alot, its just h&r's. I was wondering what you guys think about what i can do. Im located in CT if anyone knows a shop that would be able to do it even with my car lowered. As a last resort i will remove the kit then put it back on but that is not fun. what to do i do not know!?!?

 

Are you sure you even need an alignment, meaning are the tires wearing unevenly? If not, you may not even need an alignment at all, so don't worry about it.

It just seems that no matter what it will cost you, either labor to take the kit off or extra $$$ to kinda grease the wheel on the alignment rack. Trust me, take it to NYC and they're gonna align it all right. But they may damage the kit and you're no better off.

If you don't need the alignment, don't bother. If you do need it, find the time to remove the kit. Good luck.

 

Alignment is necessary anytime you change spring height drastically...he SHOULD get one no matter what or his tires will probabky wear on the inner tread.

 

yeah i know that prob what im gona have to do is remove the kit.. im just looking at all the options first. it does need an alignment, its pulling to the right when i drive, not bad but it is.

thanks
eric

 

Go to high performance specialty shops. I have few in my area that set up track cars..etc. You have to pay alittle more, but they won't damage your car.

 

im having trouble finding those kind of shops around where i am.

 

Frank,
In your opinion, generally how long (on average) does one go before they need an alignment? I am talking about when one doesn't feel any pull and there is no noticeable uneven tire wear (perhaps due to frequent rotations).

When I do go to have it checked (out of paranoia), it is always out of spec by only a little. THey usually give me a nice little data sheet but I'm wondering how much they can fudge the data then NOT do an alignment because nothing was wrong to begin with.

 

what i had to do was go to a place that specializes in european cars. since theyre lower to begin with, the places use a different ramp system. i paid $80 if i can remember right.

 

Yeah..that's a good idea. Eurpoean shops usually works on high end sports car. ie. M3, Porche..etc.

 

Well, I went from about 12k to 57k between alignments, and it was only out of spec a little, left toe too little, right toe too much, but combined the total toe was within spec. It took the shop only 20 min to adjust.

Of course everyone's experiences will be slightly different. Since we're talking about $48 for the "4-wheel" alignment, though I don't think the rear is adjustable on a 4th gen, why not align every 25k or so? The worst case scenario is the tires get 25k worth of uneven wear, which on a 360-400 AA A tire is nothing!

 

take it to a local College that has an automotive program and they might do it for free. Im taking alignment class and I allign my own car but the problem with a lowered car and using the newer laser type alignment tools is that the bumper of the car blocks the beam so it will not read the specs. We had to do some improvising with the laser for it to not be blocked.
If you have a body kit or front lip then you might need to either use bubble guages or possibly the old fashioned type with the light bulbs and chart.

 

How bout bob sharp nissan in wilton, ct. heck if they can put a Z on a lift, they can do a lowered max.