Ok so there are 2 national chains that do Lifetime alignments from what I can see on Honda-Tech: Firestone/Bridgestone and Discount Tire . I really need this because I bought Ground Controls to be able to change my ride height. Firestone wont do it because my car is lowered and wont fit on the alignment lift.

There are lots of local alignment shops that will do it. They use the same type of lift but are willing to use wood to modify the ramp so my car will fit on the lift without scraping. But of course none of those will offer a lifetime warranty so I can go back after I change my ride height.

Firestone isnt willing to do the wood idea. I even spoke with the manager. My question is how the hell do you guys with lowered cars overcome this problem and where do you get an alignment? Im not even that low (maybe 1.5" lower than stock - 2 finger gap). Wouldnt everyone run into this problem?

The whole point of getting coilovers was to adjust my ride height. But if you want to properly adjust your height you need to get an alignment. And if I have to pay $70 each time I want to change it, thats bullshit. Im starting to think coilovers are a waste of money.

 

my civic is lowered 1.75", and it fit fine on the rack at the Honda dealer,
try buggin the firestone people more, i've dealt with them on more than a few occasions, and they are pretty stubborn people.

 

depends which shop

firestone did it for me...
another firestone didnt


lowered 1.75"

 

My car fit on the ramp at being about 2" low without even scraping. The JDM 4-1 manifold didnt allow those "slider" things to go underneath the car.

 

I measured a stock GSR tonight and apparently my car is lowered roughly 2" I think it would fit ok. It would be dumb to make it that close to scraping with stock height cars. Ill to find another Firestone.

How close were you guys to scraping at 1.75" ??
And has anyone used a modified ramp to make the ramp angle less extreme? such as wood steps?


[Modified by Muckman, 8:50 PM 9/18/2002]

 

I called up tires plus and they quoted me $100 dollars!! I think they are just trying to rip off what they think is an ignorant kid(me). I'm going to try to have my high school do it tomorrow. As long as it can get on teh rack they will do it.

Most of the places are just bitches and they don't want to deal with a car lower than stock since it will make them do maybe a little extra work. They are so slack.

 

How do all these ricer ******** get alignments who are slammed with ground effects that are 1" off the ground? heh

 

ricer ******** dont' get alignments. People who are like 1 inch off the ground usually have crazy camber and would be wasting their money on an alignment. Worst comes to worst, just pay for the alignment twice a year, and have a summer and a winter height for the car.

Jon

 

got my alignment done at Mr.Tire for 55 bucks... droped over 2 inches

 

I have lifetime at Discount tire center...they usually don't say $hit to me cuz I'm coo w/ the manager.. but one time this worker decided to give me a hassle..Its like $149 now for a 4 wheel lifetime alignment plan.. back when I got it (mid 90's) it was like $100....



https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=233766

 

yeah i need an allighnment bad, but its impossible to get my car on the rack considering im droped 3 1/2"

 

funny, i felt exactly the same way about 2 years ago. now i regret selling my GC's height adjustability or not, they're better than most springs in terms of handling. and honestly, the ride quality was better too. i sold them because i thought they were a waste of money since i wasn't adjusting the height at all

 

the thing about coilovers is that you can adjust them to the perfect riding hight for your situation and thats it. if you want to constantly go up and down, then get airbags/hydrolics, not coilovers.

 

is the discount tire you're talking about the same as america tires? cuz the america/discount tires around here don't have an alignment rack.

anyways, the first time i went to a firestone they said my car was too low and to goto a shop down the street that had an open pit alignment thing. I went to another firestone and it fit on the rack with no problems. I also got the firestone lifetime alignment thing and brought it to the shop that said my car wouldn't fit and they didn't say anything this time.

oh yeah, my friend with a civic that was about 2 inches lowered brought his car to the same firestone and the workers helped him lift the fenders of the car while it went up the rack so it wouldnt' scrape...

 

My gsr is lowered about 2" and I too had this same problem. Well the guy at the shop told me that there wasn't too many places where they would align my car but he told me about this tire shop that was hidden in an industrial area that would do it.

The weird thing was that I had passed by this shop several times because it was near one of the long, empty, industrial streets that we used to race on. But I had thought that they only did tires for big trucks and semi's and what not so I never even thought about going there. But once I was recommended to go their it turned out that they can do all cars. I even spoke to the manager personally and he even drove the car on the rack himself to prove to me that my car wouldn't scrape

Moral of the story; check around some smaller shops in your area, maybe a shop near by that you least suspect is able to do the job.

david

 

Really I only intended to have two heights: One for Summer and one for Winter. What I am thinking now is take it to the shop that will work with me to get it on the rack, have them do an alignment for my low - summer height. But have the guy note how much he adjusts the tie racks to set the toe. Then I was thinking for winter I could raise it up to stock height, and reverse the tie rods an equal amount. Sure it wouldnt be perfect but it would be close enough

 

I wouldn't trust firestone to wash a Yogu. Let alone actually do any work on a car.

 

just build your own alignment rack and stop compaining
u can either buy one for like $200 or make it with home depot parts for like $15
its not 100% acurate but its better then nasty camber. plus i hope ure all not as rice as u seem and know that camber/toe can effect your handeling (another thing u can mess with all you want for free)

i have a link somewhere i'll try to post later.

 

those alignment racks are only 200 bucks??? they look pretty sophisticated to me... all that computer alignment stuff and being able to measure to the hundredth's place.

 

I think he's sayin you can "make one"/ghetto rig one for about $200 and probably using level/water level scale levels on the rims to dial in the camber or whatever method is used.. no computer/electronics...

last time I looked I think the computerized alignment racks were in the thousands....

 

i think the alignment computers are aorund 50 grand if you want one...

 

Ok summary to this thread. I called the 3 Firestone/Bridgestone Master Car Service Centers in my town. The first one would do it but my car clearly would not have fit up the ramp to the rack. The 2nd shop flat out refused to align a lowered car claiming that an alignment was not possible with a lowered suspension. lol The 3rd shop said "no problem". I brought it down to test it out. This shop had a much more gradual ramp than the other shops. At its lowest I had about 1/2 inch clearance from my sideskirts to the ramp. And Im lowered about 2.75"

So I got it aligned. Since I dont have a camber kit now, camber could not be adjusted, which is ok. Toe was my major concern as it visibly wore my old bald tires in as little as 3 weeks. Front Camber is a whopping 2.2 degrees Im deffinitely planning on getting a camber kit soon.

This Firestone shop was very cool about the lowered car part. I bought the 4 wheel, lifetime alignment package for $200 so I can get alignments as many times as I want for free for the life of my car. And I had them write in the lifetime warranty that it was lowered before they aligned my suspension -> Thanks to GSRaCeRbOI's Discount Tire story

 

Why was it $200? I thought firestone lifetime alignment was $149?

But $200 is still a great deal considering most places don't even do bother to work on lower cars.

 

wow its up to $200 now? when I got my lifetime alignment it was $100.. last time I was at discount tire center it was $149 for 4 wheel computerized lifetime ($69.99 for 1 time computerized 4 wheel)... when I was checking around for prices.. firestone had their Ford Explorer/tire blow out problems all over the media and it was $99... I went w/ discount tire centers since their closer and abundant in my area... wow its $200 now? crazy....

 

mother beeper!

i wish i had seen this post about 45 days ago