Got my car aligned again for 3rd year in a row. Except brought it to a different place this year. They charge $140 for a 4 wheel alignment. But they are more meticulous and don't let employees take customer cars out for joy rides....so there's that.
The last straw for me was getting charged last year an extra $50 on top of the $99 fee for alignment bc they claimed they needed to use torches to free a couple bolts....mind you they aligned the car the year before in late spring...and the car was only driven to October....so they seized up after 3k miles of summer/fall use? BS! Well after I got the car back from them last year, my steering wheel was not straight, was to the left a little and it seemed to pull a little from one side to the other...but it seemed to happen only on certain roads...so I thought well maybe the slant of the road changed a little. It seemed odd but I overlooked it.
This year, I had both front knuckles off, passenger axle out, installed new front struts and when I gave it a test drive to do the break in procedure...and go for a tune log...the alignment was wayyyyyyyyyyyyy off. It was angled to the left to go straight...but sometimes it would then change to angled right to go straight. And it seemed to have a dead spot of no steering. And of course I still did a 3rd gear pull......so at the top of 3rd about 100 the road I was on curved to the left and my car wasn't turning at first...experiencing that dead spot in steering during that moment was SKETCHY! So I was done doing any logs or driving it really until alignment at this place I get my exhaust work done. It also just so happened Brad still hasn't sent me a new revision or anything. Said he was looking at it on Sunday...today is now Thursday the following week.
Dropped it off Tuesday night for alignment Wednesday (yesterday). I also had then touch up my exhaust....when I had the 3rd cat deleted and an x pipe in its place...the guy doing it reused the 2 bolt 2.25 flanges from it and some of the 2.25 pipe...so it still went 2.5 - 2.25 -2.5. So stupid. The 2bolt 2.5 flanges I bought are stainless and I had some 2.5 stainless left over...so it is finally now all 2.5 stainless all through out with double x pipes and no mufflers. What sucks is their welding is pretty crappy. So I'm at a loss of words on the welds.
After the exhaust they started the alignment. They call me tell me my splitter is in the way of the beams. So I explain on how to remove the splitter/lower chin spoiler combo. Then I get a call asking me if I loosened my sterrinf rack bolts? "What? No. I removed both knuckles, had the passenger axle out, did the brakes, but I didn't touch anything with the steering rack", I said. He goes well they're loose, when I start making adjustments it just turns freely...I can barely get to the top bolt but I wonder how long it was like that. So I remembered after getting my car back last year it exhibited some strange steering characteristics but it wasn't like holy s*** like this year. I told him where I had it aligned last...he said there's no reason to ever have to loosen the steering rack to align the car. He was able to tighten them and the alignment is now perfect. I was relieved as I was starting to wonder if I would have to buy a new steering rack. Glad I brought it somewhere different....even though they charged the crap out of me. To weld those two 2 bolt flanges and new hangers, a few inches of pipe, 4 wheel alignment and they charged a half hour to remove reattach my splitter/chin spoiler was $370. And on top of that they tried to get 3.5% for using a card over the phone....I said you guys are still trying to charge a fee for using a card? What's 3.5 of 370? 13? He goes I'll wave the fee. Gee thanks
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