so i have a 98 civic, dropped not slammed. i just got some new tires and decided that an alignment would be a responsible thing to do.

i go to a local shop called Alignments Plus...it's a local guy who comes highly recommended. upon pulling into the shop he bottoms my car out so hard on his lift that it made me cringe...he then runs some tests i guess to figure out my camber, caster, and toe. big surprise...my camber is way off(-1.2 degrees front left, -1.5 degrees front right, -2.6 degrees right rear, and -2.5degrees left rear). he tells me that i need a camber kit front and rear and proceeds to take me to his office and start making phone calls.

well after about 10 minutes of sitting there he tells me that list price is $700.00 for each front control arm plus$55.00 per hour to install them. then he tells me that the rear camber kit is $100.00 per side but he'll install them for free since it's going to cost so much. I am BLOWN AWAY. i'm no mechanic but i know my fair share about hondas( thank you honda-tech).

i proceed to tell him that that price is crazy high and that i can get the top of the line skunk2 kit for less than $300.00, and i can possibly shim the back (washer trick). he tells me that he's never heard of skunk2 and that there is no way that a whole kit it that cheap. he's been doing this for 12 years blah, blah, blah.

long story short he threatened to not take my car down from the lift until i paid him $30.00. we got into a bit of an argument and he seriously almost got beat down. it just blows me away that people are seriously so misinformed that they would pay that much money for anything without double checking all options.

sorry for my rant but i just had to let you all know that this place sucks and i wouldn't take my red wagon to get aligned by this *** clown. anyone have a skunk2 kit for sale? i'll give you $1000.00 for it and still be saving $400 bucks. seriously what a tool .

Edit: broke up the big wall of text to make it readable - Targa250R

 

That's sucks. I go to TiresPlus to get my alignments done.

 

Edited to break up the big wall of text into paragraphs.

 

Or just tell them to ignore the camber and just get the toe within specs. I didnt know caster was even adjustable on civics. All the techs ive worked with wont even f with that camber bs if its not adjustable right then and there, they will just move on with the other adjustments and do what they can. If you sit there and play with it all day, your not going to make any money.

Usually Shop owners want your car the hell out of the shop if they have to argue with the owner about spending more money.

That $700 for the camber kit bs is probably their massive markup cost.

 

My entire family has been using Merchants for just about everything car related. They know us so well there that the owner swapped out some tires that i brought in free of charge. bottom line here is to find a shop that you trust and stick with them.