I never had much luck with the bigger shops (firestone,conrads) doing alignment, they could never get it right and I have to keep buying new tires every single year, and alignments every month, and my D has always pulled to the right no matter what, I wonder if it has anything to do with the engine weight offset on the right side. But every shop is different, yours might have good employees who are dedicated to do the job right and not get you out the door as fast as they can. It's sad to say but you usually won't get the job done right unless you take it back, complain, and they know who you are.

 

Oh, I agree. Problem is I've also had plenty of small shops screw it up too. My thinking is that if I just go ahead and drop the extra 30 bucks for the "lifetime" option, at least I can keep taking it back until they get it right.

I freakin' hate alignments. It's the one job that nobody gets right, and I've always wished I could do myself, but I have neither the money or the space for the machine to really do it properly.

In fact, I've done front end alignments with a tape measure and gotten about as good results as a lot of shops produce, but a 4 wheel alignment is more than I'm going to attempt that way...

 

You just gave me an idea, next time they mess up mine, I'll just toss them a tape measure and say here this might help. I swear the shop techs just guess at alignments, but I've also heard from the techs that alignments are a horrible job they dread.

If the next shop I take it to doesn't do it right, I'm going straight to firestone and buying me a lifetime alignment, and make sure I have from them, in writing, if any of my brand new tires starts to wear unevenly, it will be completely on them, there is no reason for me not to get at least 60k out of my tires with them aligning it regularly.

 

mine does this too alot of the time, but i know it is bc of the crown on the roads near me, i live right above a flood plain and most of my driving around town is done it it, so the extreme crown causes a slight pull towards the shoulder, i have also noticed on occasion a pull towards the left in the left lane of the one highway i used to take to work (this past summer) the drainage for the highway was done from the center so it was crowned to run all the water to the left, it also made the cars want to go that way if the driver stopped paying attention. just something to think about

 

Hell ya!

I buy the Lifetime alignments offered by Firestone on every truck I own. But I would di it myself if I could.....lol

 

I don't believe in lifetime alignments, it should need to be done once and right, however if firestone is desperate enough to offer such a service, of course I'll take advantage of it since every other shop failed me (including firestone) at providing me with a proper alignment.

 

Ya, they screwed mine up to but I can always take it back. One way or another they will get sick of me........LOL

 

Make sure you have a nice, new set of Goodyear tires on there when they agree to that....

 

That's a bit naive when we're talking about a 4x4 that frequently travels "questionable" roads out in the boonies.... Trust me, I could get an alignment done perfectly and have it knocked back out of whack before I even got it home from the shop...

If this was a Ford Escort forum, then I would tend to agree with you....

 

Ha true corey. But I do all of my off roading right before I have another $80 to dump on an alignment. I've noticed my tires wearing out from only street driving at a very fast pase and I keep telling them every alignment to check or anything lose/broken onthe front end and they always say nope you just replaced all the parts and everything looks perfect. It just makes me mad that out of all the shops I've been to NONE have actually aligned my D correctly and I'm out $600 a year on new tires.

I got smart this time with this set and now when they try talking me into rotating tires I say don't you even touch them why would I put perfectly good rear tires on the front that will tear them up in less than a month with your alignment.

Unfortunatly out of all the repairs you can do at home, a wheel alignment is not one of them.