Why can't any shop/dealership I've been to do an alignment right?
Why can't any shop/dealership I've been to do an alignment right?
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 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.
Probably because it is quicker to align one wheel to the other, rather than align two wheels to a centred steering wheel.
I never really thought about it before, but I used to have a car where the steering wheel was about 10 degrees off after having the wheels aligned. I assume they used the nearside wheel as the datum and aligned the offside wheel. Unfortunately the nearside wheel was getting a beating when I was curbing it.
How far off is the steering wheel? Is it possible it is very slight to account for highway crowning?
Gotcha! I can't say I've had the same experience. I've had good luck with Les Schwab and the one PointS that I've used.
I wonder if they're passing it off to junior techs?
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.