I’ve been to smaller shops, I’ve been to dealerships, and the only time I’ve ever gotten an alignment done right was after I complained to a general manager. I know alignments are hard with the laser machines. It shouldn’t be a problem, right? Are they just being lazy? I hate having to go back to the shop and wait another 2 to 4 hours to get something done that should’ve been done right the first time.
EDIT: I’ve had this happen with my 2001 QX4 4WD, 2019 Q50 2WD and now with 2019 Atlas AWD
What’s the vehicle YMM?
Most recently a 2019 Atlas AWD but experienced this with other vehicles as well. Updated original post with vehicles.
Definitely important. Almost anyone can align my pickup trucks but a performance car with AWD? That might be tough.
And some cars just suck.
I had one that would be perfectly aligned when I left the shop, and an hour later would be off. Crappy American car, subframe bushings had enough give to cause this, there was no fixing it.
I had a friend go through 3 shops before he took it to the dealer and they finally did it properly (not that I’m endorsing a dealership in any way here).
I think maybe there’s enough variability in how to adjust these vehicles that the apprentice that gets assigned to the aligning rack that day doesn’t know how to read a procedure and do what the machine tells them to do, and doesn’t do it with enough attention to detail.
Unfortunately the dealership is the one who isn’t getting it right. I figured they’d be able to do it best.
What’s your complaint with the alignments?
The steering wheel is never centered. Alignment could be off too but I have little way of knowing that in the short term.
Are you by chance a large individual? Even a smaller person sitting in the car will affect the alignment, but a big MFer will affect it a lot.
I’m not a big guy. I know it’s wrong because one time they didn’t wrong twice on my truck and after complaining they finally got it perfectly set.
The hell of it is that isn’t anything to do with alignment, that’s just laziness about finishing the job properly. After everything moves around during an alignment, then you set the steering wheel position at the end because it sometimes will change depending on what gets adjusted.
Yeah after doing some research I see there is a steering wheel angle sensor that should be reset. I’m going to ask them about it and if they can’t fix it I’ll try when my OBDEleven comes in and if that doesn’t work I’ll try another shop to see if it’s the shop or the car.
