I just got an alignment done on my car...and the "SAI" is 9.4 where the range should be 12.3-15.3. What is SAI? How can I have this fixed? This is on my front left only. The guy at the shop said he couldn't do anything aobut it and his english wasnt too clear...

Also another major concern of mine was my car was pulling to the left always before my alignment. Well after the alignment, the steering wheel wants to turn a bit to the right... Is that because of uneven tires? What other reasons could it be? the point where there's no resistance on my steering wheel is a bit to the right....


Thanks alot.

 

I had this problem with the tech at the Mitsubishi dealer. I got 3 alignments from the guy and none of them were any good, and the steering wheel was always cocked to the left (I can only assume he was crooked). Anyway, I got fed up and hunted around, talked to some people, and found a place that did a good alignment. I asked for specific settings, and the guy came within 0.02 all around. It's just the difference between people who shoot for somewhere around factory tolerance, and people who actually care about what they are doing. Most people are just there to push cars through, but there are some that are actually car people and care about what they are doing. Sure I had to pay $120 for the alignment, which is steep, but to me it was worth it to have done perfectly (It took a full 1.5 hours, and they even let me climb inside to perfectly center the wheel while they were doing the front toe adjustments). The Mitsubishi guy tried to feed me some line about my tires are probably the cause. Well I have the same tires, same car, yet with a perfect alignment it handles like a dream now, and the steering wheel is centered. I don't think there are many things more damned annoying than a super quick ratio steering wheel that's off by even 0.5 degrees.

My advice would be to take the time, shop around, talk to people, etc. You can tell when you find car people. One bad sign is when people start making excuses about how your alignment isn't going to be perfect right out of the box, saying they only shoot for factory specs, bla bla bla because of this reason or that. If there is a will, there is a way. For Christ's sake it's just a matter of taking the time to do it right, it's not rocket science to turn cam bolts and look at a readout, and actually pay attention to centering the wheel.

 

A good alignment guy is a must if you mess with your suspension, or want more agressive setups.

The shop I use does a lot of the local race cars and since they knew i autocross, they even asked how seat weight I wanted in the car while they align things. After having been there a couple of times, they have told me that the evo is a great one to try to spec in an exact alignment, as long as that spec is within reason.

I drop the car off, they pull it on the rack, and put 175lbs in the drivers seat. They then aligned it to the specs I wanted within .01 Degrees on camber, and toe setting is spot right on. (-2.0 front camber and 1/32 toe in, and -1.5 rear camber and 1/32 toe in).

If the guy is telling you that he can not get the specs to what you want (within reason), either something is bent/broekn, or your guys is just lazy and does not care to try to get it close to what you want.