well after installing my lowering kit i took the balt to firestone and they tell me they cant do it cuz it has the electronic strearing control and said the only place to get the alignment done would be at the stealership

 

bs. but to be fair, depending on your drop the bump steer ( the amount the toe-in changes as the wheels go up and down) can be not nice, so normally on a lowered car I put a 1/4 inch shim underneath the rack block mounts with longer bolts and away you go....it all depends how much you have lowered ur car. Too much sucks anyway... i run cobalt ss s/c springs in a redline s/c (they are lower ) and its good. any more than that,you need to think about raising the rack. If you take a tape measure and measure the height at the wheel center from the ground to the fender lip, I can prolly tell you what size spacer to put in. But remember too low takes away from the enjoyment of the car so be careful...pm me if u want to go further with this so it doesnt clutter up the forum...

oh and you could set the toe in yourself with a tape measure and some chalk.... you need level ground, a tire pressure gauge, a nice big piece of pavement chalk, and a jack and jack stands. Make sure the car has no junk in the trunk, a half tank of gas maybe, and always use the same weights, fuel fill and place to measure your toe in.

Go inside the car make the steering wheel straight with the front wheels straight and find a way to lock the steering wheel in place. ( Rope? a girlfriend maybe holding it steady? lol) Set the car tire pressures correctly, jack the front of the car (not on the oil pan lol) put jack stands under the car, and hold the chalk against the tire (you have to make sure the chalk is set against the ground and the tire, so it doesnt wave all over the place. A screw driver can do the same job you want to make a true circumferential mark on the tire tread.

While the car is jacked up on jack stands, mark the tire rods with chalk and unlock the locking nuts ( 21mm wrench i think) and a 13 mm wrench to rotate the tire rod when u are ready.

with me so far? now jack the car down, roll it back and forth and pushdown on the front a bit to settle it. Then measure across the front tires with your tape measure (get your other girlfriend to hold one end of the tape against the tire mark you have made and you hold the other end to the other mark. THen measure from left to right the distance between your tire circumferential mark. write it down (chalk on the road he he) then measure the back of the front tires from left to right.

You want zero difference. trust me , zero. some guys will want 1/8 total toe in (smaller distance at front than at rear by 1/8th) if it makes you happy adjust to that. Loosen off the tie rod end nuts, and rotate each tie rod exactly the same amount (1/4 turn each side will do at a time) then re tighten lock nut and check the measurement again.

move each tie rod the same amount. Make small changes. Lock the nuts each time. Roll the car back and forth in between each adjustment... best of luck...

 

One more thing: camber and castor is preset and while it can be changed, it takes a lot of work and fabrication (ground control top plates, cut the towers etc) so that means the two things you can change are toe in (easy like i have explained) and " four wheel square" , which is harder and not really worth fooling with (you need to move the rear twisting beam ) so hammer down buddy re set the toe there is no snow where you are , go ahead and do it!

 

Well firestone just doesnt feel like making money then. I own a lowered RL and I've aligned it plenty of times myself(everytime i swap from the winter wheels to summer wheels). The electronic steering thing on the first screen is just a warning. Will anything happen? Most likely not but its a warning. If anything happens you bring it to the dealership to recalibrate it.

Toe isnt going to do too much. It rarely ever makes a car pull. It will wear tires if it is extreme. Is the steering wheel crooked? There is very few things you can adjust on these cars(assuming its like an IRL.)


Toe and camber are the only adjustments going by the likelyness of the balt and ion being the same.


Toe you can do yourself like the above poster mentioned.


Camber isnt that hard seeing you would have to jack up the front end, loosen the two bolts holding the strut to the knuckle and bore out the bottom hole a little.


Basically go somewhere else. Firestone sucks the big one.

I know for a fact that it can be aligned. Ive aligned cars with cruise control and electronic p/s numerous times with nothing bad happening afterwards. I am also Hunter certified(company that makes alignment machines etc)


Hope that helped.

 

Those guys just don't know what they are doing. Find a different shop b4 going to the dealership. I went through the same thing with Merchant's here and went to Just Tires and the alignment guy there basically said that the guy at Merchant's was a complete moran and had my car aligned in no time.

 

I have Eibach Sportlines in my car and my shop was able to get the alignment within factory specs without doing anything drastic.

 

thanks for all of ur info guys

 

i have aligned many cars with electronic assist steering. go somewhere else. any competent alignment shop will be able to set you up easily. with sportlines, increased bump steer will not be a huge problem. Its not a major issue, you probably wont notice too much of a driveability difference since the drop is not that extreme. Some cars with huge drops do require adequate measures like re-centering the rack and shimming to correct steering angles that are changed and to get the car to handle remotely close to the way it was intended to.