Are they always this much of a *****?

I brought my car in for state inspection and emisions today and decided to align it because I noitced my one inner edge was slighty feathered. I rotated the tires for the first time in 5k miles as well.

When I got the car on the rack, the rear camber was cake, but the right rear toe bolt was SO SO SO finicky. It took my about 3 minutes just to get it to settle on a steady number. It feels weird. Not the car, but the adjustmnet bolt.

The front, good god. I was the last one to align the car, and my front right tie rod adjusment nut was siezed like a mother. I NEVER make **** that tight! I had a few bigger guys give it a shot and it wasn't coming loose. When it did, it would turn the entire inner tie rod. Does this happen alot to other people? I'm pissed.

The specs came out like this

Front camber: -1.5 -1.2 (bolts on -2 setting)
Front toe: -.05 .05 <----pissed. The car drives straight though
Rear camber: -1.3 -1.3
Rear toe: 0 0

The car drives fine, I'm just unhappy with the front toe. Think the front toe will have a big effect on handleing? I was planning one getting some Bilstein HD's soon which will require another alignment, but I'm kind of reluctant now because I hate aligning this stupid car I know of a local guy whose VERY good with alignments. I might just take it to him with "custom" specs.

Sorry, this is mainly just a rant thread, but I just wanted to know if alignments are this lame for everyone else as well.

 

I think when I install the struts, I'm going to pull the outter tie rod ends off completely and lightly torch the adjustment nut to get the nut broken loose before I pull it onto the rack... That's how I USUALLY do it on every car I do. Not the torch thing, but break the nuts loose But I decided to do the alignment at the last minute and didn't think of it... oh well.

 

Everything you described is normal. You could get more negative camber in the front and get it equal if you wanted by loosening the knuckle connection bolts loading it and perhaps loosening the top strut mounts then re tighten. Front toe is good, you have to look at the total toe which is zero, only thing is the steering wheel will be ever so slightly off you may not even notice it.

 

Yeah, the front camber I'm ok with. I work at a Honda dealer, so when I align cars, they're usually Hondas and Hondas are CAKE to align. The Evo isn't bad, it's just that some of the adjusment bolts are weird. One's super sensative. You move one 1/32 of a tun and the adjustment shoots like 0.4 degree off and the other I'd move about a 1/4 turn just to get it to move 0.1 degree. Just didn't seem right :-/ I'm no expert alignment tech, but that just seemed weird to me.

 

I had the opposite problem. The last time I did alignment I found one of the tie rod nuts so loose I could spin it with my fingers. After I laid on it with a big wrench it was still loose.

 

I just got my car aligned at firestone and now my car pulls the right very badly. I need to get it fixed

 

I like turtles.

 

I've never done an alignment myself, but have been right next to the tech doing the work. He didn't seem to think it was all to bad of a job, then again it was a non specific make repair shop. So they get all sorts of cars and trucks. They also do work for a few local race teams.

 

It's not so much difficult, but the adjustments just felt very strange to me.

 

Once you've done it a few times it's really pretty simple. Watch out for the rear adjuster bolts they strip very easily, I always keep spares on hand.