toyota giving me a hard time aligning car

[Illorn1]

Hey guys,

I have a lowered o1 celica gt and i went to get an alignment today which is nothing outt the norm. Guy said it would be 49$ so i said ok and left and was reading my super street inthe waiting room. 45 mins later the service guy comes upto me and said..er...because your car has big wheels (18's) and its lowered its going to take more time soit will cost more money. I asked how much and was told 89$!

Ok here is the thing, this same dealership has aligned my car 2x before and it was lowered just liek it is now the only diffrencee was i only had 2 of my rims on it. I made a big fuss and just figured i would complain to toyota on monday as it was a saturday. I dont see how they can get away with doing this like that just cause mods have been done to the car and they HAVE already aligned it before!

I also just got 4 new tires put on yesterday along with the other 2 rims which was the reason for the alignment. i went to another toyota dealership and they said their machine can only fit upto 17inch rims. I thought lexus has trucks or suv's rather that come with 18's stock so should i go across the street to them? please gimme some feed back here as im tired of dealing with toyota and monday morning im sure to raise hell. Thats 1 thing i will give toyota is their customer service/complaints is usually pretty good.

mark

[Illorn1]

cmon peoples...gimme some feedback here....can they jackup the price like that just because they want to?..comments?

[Scratchmaster_J]

get it alligned at Pepboys. Man, the dealership is going to try to put the damn thing to stock setting, which is not possible. Example, my Corolla is lowered 2 1/2" in the front and about 2" in the back and they did mine with no prob. I have 16" rims and car stock comes with 14" and they still charged there usual $49. In the end they couldn't get it to stock, but pretty close. Amazingly the rear camber wasn't that off from the stock setting!! Try your luck with Pepboys and see what happens!!

[A96HondaAccordCoupeEX]

:o, my local honda dealer couldnt get my alighnment done but they said that my car was too low for their sensors to read or something like that.

[ONE EYE]

Don't even think about going to a dealer to have your car aligned. Go to a shop that specializes in Alignment. They have the right equipment and the people who really know what they are doing. I worked at a Alignment and Frame shop over the summer as a "shop rat". For bigger wheels they do need to put on extensions, but thats only for like people rollin on 20's. If their machine wont do 18's it must be old. Like I said go to a specialty shop for something like that. Hope I helped.

[QWKsilvr808]

Originally posted by ONE EYE
Don't even think about going to a dealer to have your car aligned. Go to a shop that specializes in Alignment. They have the right equipment and the people who really know what they are doing. I worked at a Alignment and Frame shop over the summer as a "shop rat". For bigger wheels they do need to put on extensions, but thats only for like people rollin on 20's. If their machine wont do 18's it must be old. Like I said go to a specialty shop for something like that. Hope I helped.

Perfectly said. My uncle owns an alignment shop, and I'm always there. You either know what you're doing or you don't. I wouldn't let someone do guesswork on my car.

[yakkosmurf]

I've never used an alignment machine, but my neighbor used to be a mechanic at the Toyota dealer near my house. He kept the stock wheels on his MR2 turbo so he could align it at the dealer. He said the machind wouldn't align right with the wide 17" wheels he had on the car. So he'd put the stock ones back on when he wanted to do an alignment. There maybe some truth to what the dealer told you.

[ONE EYE]

Yeah the the dealer doesnt know how to properly align the car. He doesnt have to right equipment to. Thats why you go to a shop that specializes in car alignment. Shops here in omaha only charge 40 bucks for a alignment. Its something everyone should have done to their car. It increases tire life, better gas mileage, and it makes your car drive straight!!! Just dont go to the dealer guys. For everything else sure why not.

[yakkosmurf]

It depends on the dealer. The Lexus body shop near me has a brand new alignment machine. Their techs also know what they are doing and take very good care of your car. I just bring them the specs, and they do it. They were able to align my Type R perfectly when Acura told me they couldn't.