So I go into my tire shop today to get my 5000K tire rotation and balance and the tech says I will give you the free allignment check,so I wait he comes back and the toe is out a little bit so I say go ahead and do it for $85 and if it goes out or your not happy up to 6000K we will redue it for free,it takes dude like two hours for the whole kit kat & kaboodle he said it's ready and "The Head" was never adjusted the last time you had it alligned thats why it took so long" so now my steering wheel is cocked to the right when im going straight,Whats up with that? It's so fricking anoying! so im going back next weekend when I have time,anybody ever had this happen and why?

 

Do you know how an alignment works? They just aligned it straight with the steering wheel crooked.

 

Not true... I work at midas and do alignments myself. The head isnt on your truck... you have camber, caster, and toe on the front...camber and caster on these trucks are pretty much together. toe is tie rod ends. to adjust camber and caster you have two bolts that face upward on your control arms. 7\8th ratchet to adjust those in and out. tie rod will be a 21 and a set of channel locks. For him to take 2 hours doing a basic thrust alignment (4-wheel alignment) your truck would have needed to be way out. I put control arms in my truck 2 days ago and had to adjust every single component and it only took me 45 minutes. as far as your steering wheel being off, he never straightened it when he did he caster sweep. Id have it redone and watch them this time. 99.9% of the shops that do alignments do a toe and go...set toe and call it done, caster and camber usually wont make it pull unless its way off... so they usually dont mess with it. watch them and MAKE SURE they give you a print out of before and after. and if the before specs are in the red...I would demand a refund.

 

Isn't $85 bucks a bit steep to begin with? I had it done on my last truck a couple years ago and it was around $60...

But I would be super pissed if when they got done, the steering wheel won't drive straight. I'm extremely OCD about that to begin with and if when they got done it was like that. They would be doing it over in an instant.

 

Thanks for your reply,The two hours included the balance and rotation with the allingnment,and he did do the camber and castor because i looked in my wheel wells afterwards and i see shiny new bolt threads sticking up and the manager wasn't lieing because they didn't do that the last time i had it done at that Just Tires location. I am definately going back and i will ask to see a print out of a allingnment check before they get started on the revision of the first effort since the steering wheel is cocked right going straight,i would have turned around after i left but i was there too long already and i killed 2hrs of my saturday,so they will see me this saturday coming with some new info thanks to you.

 

I agree! But if it is in the red give them one more shot to try to correct it free of charge. If the truck is lifted it may be at its limits and not able to be perfect.

$60-$90 is the typical charge for an aliment.

Also I would suggest for anyone who has a lift or offroads a lot to go with Firestone. They have the LIFETIME aliment. It is around $120 and after the first time it is free. I have had my truck aligned a good 5 times within the last year. ALL FREE. I mostly needed it to due to constant joint failers due to lift/ larger tires.

 

I have the torsion bar lift done not a body or suspension lift and I have had that since the last allignment I have had done and no wear on parts at all they said. Im just pissed I have to go back again cause they screwed up on the job the first time( steering wheel cocked right)

 

Nobody is perfect, mistakes happen. And they usually happen at that most inopportune times. They will take care of it and they will be very embarrassed to have you back.

 

or they sucker you, by effing it up on purpose the first time then have you come back and spend more money.

 

We all hope that isn't the case and it usually isn't. Especially seeing they have to fix it for free... so not too smart on their end if they actually tried that.