civic alignment issue

[Mark]

This may sound paranoid, but from my past experience, I'd drop off the car at the alignment place and then discretely hang around (maybe across the road) and make sure they actually move the car into the bay and put it on the lift. This is honestly what I'll do in the future. I don't have the lack of tact to tell them I suspect them of fraud and ask if I can watch the alignment procedure to make sure they actually do it.

[dlb]

haha, yes i remember your experience in vic. there is a shop in duncan that i have used several times for alignments over the years and they have been really good. i'll be sure to post what the outcome is though.

[marlinh]

Gee Mark, I have never heard of a shop not even bringing it inside yet claiming to do an alignment. How do they explain that it drives the same as it did before. Besides, if they don't bring it in how can they not up sell you hundreds of dollars of front end parts you surely need! A friend of mine does all the alignments for me. I can hang around all I want , no problem.

[dlb]

finally got this sorted out. i took it to the shop in duncan that i've had several good experiences with, dixon and fraser. the same guy there has done all the alignments for me, his name is ben. after 30 min, he came and said i could come take a look at it while it's on the hoist so he could point a few things out. he showed me that the caster, camber, and toe were all pretty close, if not within spec, but that a few of the suspension bushings were pretty fatigued. i thought i remembered the car always pulling a bit, even with the winter tires on, so i hadn't bothered swapping the front tires. he suggested i try it though, and said there wasn't much point in him adjusting anything. total bill was $33.

i got home and looked at the front tires, and they still look good and appear equally worn, but i did what i should have done in the first place and swapped them. surprise, it now pulls to the left. so i then swapped the front left with the rear left tires, and that cleared up most of the pull. there is still a tiny, tiny pull, and only sometimes, so i might be looking too hard for it.

the moral of the story is that in the future, when a vehicle still pulls to one side after i've gone through the front end stuff, i'll try swapping tires before taking it in to a shop. i'm lucky they only charged me $33 this time, and even then i could have saved myself the $33 with just a few minutes of work.

[lannvouivre]

Sometimes the guy I go to for exhaust mods does work free of charge, so last time I have him two exhaust tips in retalia-I mean...return.