Alignment Did the Shop Screw Up
 

So I got an alignment today, I drive off my car pulls to the right a lot. I get home and I pop the hood and both plates are adjusted the same like exactly the same. Now I don't know much about aligning tires, but I'm going to say that they screwed up. I figured they should look roughly opposite of each other.

Can anyone confirm this? I'm definitely taking it back tomorrow. They probably don't know how to adjust CC plates.


Passenger Side:
http://i810.photobucket.com/albums/z...5/IMG_1698.jpg

Drivers Side:
http://i810.photobucket.com/albums/z...5/IMG_1697.jpg

those are your chaster chamber plates which adjust chaster and chamber...what dramatically affects the way your steer is your tie rods..i would take it back..

Are they installed wrong? My J&M plates have the bottom plate for camber adjustment and the top plate (with the strut coming through) is for caster adjustment.

The way they are set up is the bottom plate is for caster and the top plate is for camber.

This is my plates:
Passenger
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...10509-1841.jpg

Driver
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...10509-1842.jpg

Not the best pics but you get the idea.

^I have MM plates so the set up is different. But they are definitely installed right. I did the install of them myself and compared to other pics they do look correct. But Fink yours are almost identically opposite in adjustment where mine are exactly the same on both sides if you get what I'm saying. I'm pretty sure they didn't do it right.

Do the CC plates affect steering too? And they do look funny?

Did the shop give you a print out of before and after? It will typically show the acceptable range too. If you don't have a machine to check it yourself you can't go off of just looking at the plates.

The green area for the alignment is >-1.3* Camber.

The shop should ALWAYS give you a print out when you get an alignment. The last time I got my car realigned I watched/helped the guy do it so I didnt want a print out. I still need to lengthen the stock camber slots so I can get less negative camber... i think im sitting at -1.2 and -1.6, fully adjusted.

Take the car in tomorrow/monday/soon and tell em "HEY, you ****ed up.. now Im gonna watch you work on my car"

No they didn't. I thought it was on the print out they gave me, but its not. Just looking at it, it does look funny.

The thing is I did an eyeball on it myself (obviously just for the meantime until I brought it for an alignment) and I didn't have any pulling on either tire. So, I don't know how I can bring it to get aligned and then it starts pulling.

Either way I'm going back tomorrow since they happen to be open and getting them to fix it. I know the top piece adjust camber and the instructions from MM demonstrate that the way I have it set one side has a negative orientation and one side has a positive orientation.

Would you ever really need to adjust caster?

well almost every cc plate on other cars will look diff cause it all depends on spring and shock rate and whether there sagging lowered lowered more and so on

first step take it back to the shop say soon as i left here it was pulling can you recheck it with a print off...

next get your tires rotated and balanced this can also cause a steering problem

for example my toyota camry was pulling hard had it aligned pulled the other way the guy said its prolly a tire cause your allignment is almost perfect...so i rotated them and then it starting pulling the other way and vibrating...then changed my tires and it was perfect

Well this is what it was originally aligned to:

Left Side Right Side

Camber: -2.5 Camber: -.4
Caster: 4.2 Caster: 4.2
Toe: .48 Toe: -0.22

Total Toe: 0.26
Steer Ahead: .35

This is what it is currently aligned to. Does this look correct for alignment specs:

Left Side Right Side

Camber: -2.5 Camber: -1.7
Caster: 4.0 Caster: 4.2
Toe: .14 Toe: -0.15

Total Toe: 0.29
Steer Ahead: 0.00

That is a lot of negative camber. Should be around -.5 for your car I'd guess. Look up the manufacturers recommended camber settings.