4 Wheel Alignment

[Purplecty]

Originally Posted by 80stech

Free alignments are worthless if they are not done properly. If the shop has proper staff and equipment there is no way they can survive doing lifetime alignments unless they make it up by selling you tires which you will need more of if the alignment is not done properly. How many red flags here! If you like DIY maybe look into getting a quick trick like was mentioned before. makes for a good learning tool and you will at least be able to bet your tow set right and steering wheel centred.

Finding a go to Forestone with competent techs may be something I need to do. I believe the lifetime alignments is allowed at any and all firestones and not necessarily the one you purchased it at...

[Purplefade]

Their lifetime alignment can be used at any Firestone . And I can also confirm that there are guys at Firestone that do know what they’re doing - for sure. Guy at my local, I talked to years ago before he did my first alignment and at first he was butt hurt that I would ask him, “can you align an X5”, he barked for a minute and said if it isn’t perfect when it comes off the rack it’s free - I’ve gone to that Firestone ever since and we get along wonderfully.

They have been slammed before and I’ve had to take it to the other Firestone, wait was over a week, their front slide plate had failed, and Andy called them, talked for a few minutes and my car came out of F2 better than F1 had ever done - and Andy’s awesome - come to find out Aster, guy at F2, was a prior BMW Tech.

Short answer, lifetime is good at any Firestone, even the franchise stores


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[Purplecty]

Im pretty sure the front caster is not adjustable? Is the front camber adjustable? Front right is out of spec...

[oldskewel]

Originally Posted by Purplecty

Im pretty sure the front caster is not adjustable? Is the front camber adjustable? Front right is out of spec...

True on caster not being adjustable, except slightly, as mentioned below.

As mentioned in post #40, front camber is kind of adjustable. I would not expect those guys to know how to do it. You've got enought to worry about there just getting them to do everything else right. For now I'd focus on that. As others have said, there have got to be some competent Firestone techs out there, you just have not found them yet.

Basically on the front camber, looking at the strut mount nuts from the engine bay, you'll see that there is some play (the clearance holes are bigger than they need to be). If you were to loosen the 3x nuts, you could then pry the whole strut assembly left-right and even fore-aft (tiny adjustment of caster, I guess), and then tighten those nuts again to lock it in place. The amount of adjustment, as I recall is only about +/- 0.2 degrees.

What I did, with a similar alignment deal I bought after doing suspension work on my 2001 3.0i was to get it aligned, see which way front camber needed to be adjusted, did my own manual adjustment, then got it realigned again. Close enough, especially since it was the best possible without modifications.

If you have significant remaining issues, it could be due to failed components you have not found yet, or maybe some remaining tweak from collision damage.

In addition to all the other advice you're getting, I'd crack open the Bentley manual or some other source and find for yourself what exactly the alignment specs are, independent of the aspiring techs at Firestone. Hopefully once you find the right place to go (and even then, there may be only one tech there that can do a decent job) the readings you get each time will settle out so it's not a new mystery to solve each time you take it in.

[Purplecty]

Found this information in another post regarding the front camber adjustment...

[Purplecty]

Just picked it up from a local firestone and the shop manger is a german car enthusiast. He got everything within spec and the wheel straight! He said the right tension strut bushing has play in it and that it will need to be replaced which I will DIY and have them check the alignment again after. He said he thinks the other shop used the wrong wheel clamps to do the alignment and if you look at the before specs they are pretty different than the after specs of the last firestone I used yesterday. Here are the current settings that are all within range. Disregard the color as their printer color ink was going out so all are yellow...

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/cop...r-31121096170l

[Purplecty]

I ended up purchasing the control arms for both sides and the ball joints that they connect to as well...

[80stech]

You guys are trying to set toe at 1/16 by measuring at the tires not the rims ? Maybe try spinning the tire to see how much run-out there is in the sidewall

[andrewwynn]

without some form of spacer you will need to measure from the fattest part of the sidewall but for most cars that will works out to bet close to 24” making the math easy

for cars with stagger wheels you would have to measure the track front and back to know if you need more spacers for a proper string alignment

[andrewwynn]

I think the guide link you describe is for camber. I thought toe is on the big lower arm but I haven't find out myself yet. (Though will be soon)