shop tells me i have frame damage!!
 

so i had to take my lady Z to fire stone in my town for an alignment.

i recently put 20mm H&R bolt on spacers on the rear, and soon after my alignment was a mess. did a lot of research and reading and i came to the conclusion that the alignment could go out of spec if you install spacers but not by this much!!!!!

My rear driver side wheel was at -3.7!!!

the rear passenger side was off too but not that bad.

The dude was telling me that he could only push it out 1 degree since thats how much the bolt allows for. then he goes on and tells me that something wrong with the rear, that i might have frame damage or something is bent.

Now this is not my daily driving car. in the past 2 months i might have put 5k miles on it tops. I have not hit any pot holes to bent my frame or anything in the rear! i have not been in an accident, i dont drive the car like fast and furious style, and do not track it.

so l left his shop with the rear driver side tire at -2.7.

any ideas? any suggestions? my rear tire is shot so i bought new tires and dont want to put them on cause it will just wear the hell out of them...

thanks.

It is as if you had your car totaled and repaired by the valet, while you were having dinner.

Good luck.

spacers will reduce wheel rate so the suspension will act softer, but should not make drastic changes. especially not at only 20mm on sport wheels.

he started blaming it on spacer, but i did crazy research before i put the 20mm spacers on. no where did i read that it will cause this drastic of an alignment issue

Spacers WILL NOT change your suspension providing they:
are of high quality
are hubcentric
are installed properly

maybe the firestone place's rack is out of caliberation? :ugh: you know they use it all the time for all sorts of cars from cool cars to junk cars.

You need a rear camber kit and toe bolts to get your alignment back in spec. Take a look at SPC or SPL depending on how much you want to spend.

that is what everyone is telling me. i should have spend the money and taken it to dealer or a better shop.. im kicking myself in the *** for it now..

But what would throw off the alignment this bad tho...? my car is the stock sport suspension.

If your tire is wearing out I don't think Firestone's equipt. is shot.

If you look at your wheels, does one appear to be leaning in more than the other? 3.7 degrees is pretty visible.

o yea! it was so visible! it was so bad comparing to the other side. the inner wall of the tire is so chewed up, when they jacked it up i saw the surface of the wires showing on the outer edge....

have you ever hit a curb? been in an accident?

nope never. had a flat tire once on the same side 10k miles ago and got a new tire. thats about it. when i did get a tire i had it balanced, mounted, and got an alignment to make sure all is good. and everything was good.

http://www.the370z.com/brakes-suspen...ml#post2335618

:ugh2:

yep i changed that, that was the front tire. and after it was done went and got an alignment done right away. and everything was back to normal.

the second time i went and got the alignment was because i noticed how badly the rear tire was cambered in. it was so noticeable.

No potholes were hit, no curb was hit. i just dont understand what threw off the alignment.

the alignment got all screwed up after i installed the bolt on 20mm H&R spacers on the rear. but there is no way it would threw it off by that much!....

My guess would be some ridiculous pot hole unless your frame is rotting and decided to bend. (unlikely)

Edit: 20 mm spacers will not throw off your alignment. In fact I would say that anyone adding just spacers probably doesn't need an alignment.

Not sure other than go to a different Firestone and see if they can do better. I have the lifetime alignment with Firestone and ended up going to a different one further away as I did not like the techs at the one closest to where I live. With that said I get my alignments done at a Ford dealership now as their alighnment rack is in the ground and doesn't require me to remove my front bumper to get the car up on it. They did an awesome job getting my alignment dialed in for the track.

The only thing I can think of as to why your rear is at -3.7 camber is if they didn't tighten everything up correctly and you went on some spirited runs and each time you stressed the suspension it worked its way out more and more. It happened to me at Zdayz this year. I got an alignment done before I left at Firestone. And by my last run on the Dragon one of my rears was visibly way out of spec at -3+ camber. Since then I have completely changed shops and haven't had any issues with my alignment. FYI I was running with Swift springs and 20mm spacers on all 4.

you know i bet that is what happened as well! they didnt tighten up the bolts the first time and as i drove the car it just got pulled out. now here is my question. how come the jackass keep telling me that he cant push it out anymore and this is as far as it goes? couldnt he just keep pushing it out till it get back to where its suppose to be?!..

The problem isn't the fact you can go -3.7 give or take. It is trying to go back in towards spec. -1.5 let's say. When lowering depending on other variables you will most likely need the rear camber arms and toe bolts to get the Camber and Toe back to spec in order to prolong tire life. I would go to a different shop as they sound incompetent at your current one. See if they can do a better job with the alignment with what you have now. It won't cost you anything if you got the lifetime package. Then if they confirm that is the best they can do with the stock hardware you will need to upgrade to aftermarket arms for more adjustability.

yea i do have the lifetime warranty. they did the second alignment for free. I will try and take it to a diff firestone. and hope they can do a better job.

what i am scared of is that they had forgotten to tighten the bolt, and as a result of me driving, something is now actually bent.....

what would be a correct camber adjustment for rear anyways? i really dont want to keep chewing the hell out of my tires..they arent cheap..

I haven't needed an alignment w/my 20mm spacers. Something else is going on me thinks.

Depends on your purpose. Just for street and only worried about tire life. You would want to be around -1.5. Obviously this has an effect on handling but you can't have both. I would shoot for -1.5 camber and close as you can get to 0 toe if your goal is to preserve your tires. Toe is worse than camber when you have a misaligned car. Toe angle will eat a brand new set of tires up in a few months time.

Stock specs for rear:

Camber
-2.16 to -1.17

Toe
.09 to .21

That is strange. Spacers shouldn't get you that much negative camber. And you stated you didn't have any collisions. Car is on stock suspensions. I'd re-check if the spacer is installed correctly. Are there any loose bolt? Re-tighten them but don't over tighten too(80ib of torque).

The spacer was a bolt on. used a torque wrench to get it exactly at 80. i have checked the spacer its not loose or damaged or bent..

Hmmm... very interesting. So if you take the spacer off will the camber back to normal? If not, then something else is up.

na once the alignment goes off you gotta readjust by the 2 bolts underneath the car. i am so convinced that the spacer has nothing to do with the camber and alignment issue i have.. i bet these jackasses forgot to tighten one the bolts the first time, and over time as i drove the car the bolt became lose and pushed the alignment off...

now here is a question...if either bolts were loose and not tighten properly it would deff cause the alignment to get thrown off..now will it damage or bend anything?...

loose camber/toe bolts will throw off your setting, but does not bend or damage anything.

if it really bent or broke, you probably wont be able to drive your car at all. :icon17:

in fact, some shop that people recommended in my area did my alignment on my dd. i asked the tech (who also rang me up to pay which i though was odd) wat torque he used on the camber bolts. he said 'i gave a few zips, that's all that's needed.' :ugh:

zips as in impact gun zip noise. i was like WTF :ugh: ... so when i got home, i torqued the camber bolts. sure enough, not enough torque.

i never go to that place any more.

:ugh2: I haven't encountered any mechanics or alignment techc that use torque wrenches. All of them "give it a few zips" :eek:

:icon18::icon18: Coz he thought your alignment would be off in two weeks and you'd be back to pay him to give a few zips again.:icon17: But he didn't know he was dealing with Mr kenchan.:rofl2:

why don't you try taking off your spacer while you are getting the alignment done. That way you can rule it out if the numbers come out the same.

that's wat the guy at the shop said to me as well. and my reply was, that's why i dont take my car to the dealer for service. :icon17:

:icon18: i hate paying $ for a few zips. i can zip my own zip if i just needed a zip. :mad:

:ugh2: that would make it too easy.

i am ruling it out cause the right side is to spec. if the spacer would have caused the alignment issue it should be both side. but it was only my left rear that was out of wack.

Just get a new car and try again.

seriously, go to a different Firestone or any other place and have them do the alignment again without the spacer on that side. I know that your other side is to spec but what if the spacer on the side that you are having issues is bent or has some type of defect.

That is what I would try if I was having this issue.

here's wat i would do.

put car on ramps and take a flash light and inspect the rear for any damage.

if everything checks out, order up some camber bolts, install them (will need to boar out some metal, but you can find the DIY in the DIY section) and take it back for realignment.

if the car runs fine afterwards, just leave it.

Any 'mechanic' or 'alignment tech' that doesn't own and use a torque wrench is an f$%*#' douche. I've made tire techs loosen the lug nuts and hand torque them to the proper torque with a calibrated torque wrench. The tire shop I go to hates to see me coming because I'm anal about the torque on my wheels. I watched one 'mech' throw the torque wrench across the floor when he was done, I made him go get another wrench and retorque the lugs. :mad: :shakes head:

Dealership
 

I never had any issues with dealerships other than spending more and having to schedule things done way in advance. I had my previous sports cars lifted wrong few X's by the Tire shops. imho leave Tire shops are good for only 1 thing for 370z's:
Installing Tires and Rims

Nothing else...

I only go to Discount Tire too..

i really made a big mistake trying to save a few bucks by taking the car to firestone..

lesson learned. i will take the car to a performance shop and hope for best..