Alignment Mission: Impossible

[spideyrdr]

Just looking for a reality check here. I think I got hosed out of $130 on an alignment.

I replaced basically everything involving my front suspension over the last week. New steering knuckles, new lower control arms, inner tie rod on the driver side, outer tie rods on both sides, both CV axles are new, brand new hubs, new sway bar bushings and end links.....

The upper control arms are the old school JBA non-greaseable parts, but I replaced the upper ball joints with the MOOG's as one would do when you're in this deep, so I would have thought there was no way I would end up with that much positive camber.

Took it in for an alignment to a shop and they literally only adjusted the toe - and made the camber WAY worse. Caster is somehow virtually unchanged.

A visual inspection of the LCA bolts shows there is a LOT of space left to adjust outward for caster and camber.

Are they incompetent or am I misunderstanding the reason they went 'fix the toe first' approach?

 

[duderz7]

That cost for an alignment is good, but it seems they're incompetent. Take it back and ask them to try again.

 

[spideyrdr]

To follow up on my post, I called the shop and explained the issue, and they asked me to bring it back in.
They fiddled and twiddled with it for the better part of the day, and now the alignment is much closer to spec. Still not 100% for whatever reason, but they fixed it as much as they could. The guy cited the age and the POTENTIAL of out-of-spec parts as a possible cause.
The guys at the shop genuinely seem like good dudes, but it really ***** they botched the initial attempt. I guess the moral of the story is don't assume even a reputable shop is going to get a good alignment on a lifted Liberty.

 

[Luke]

I had similar problems and a very competent (off road and racing) shop. After my lift and JBA’s it took quite a few trips and messing around before they got it right.

 

[lfhoward]

What I remember Tommudd saying is that you have to sacrifice a little caster to get the camber and toe in spec. Those two are the most important for handling and tire wear. The caster being a little out means the steering wheel doesn’t return to center on its own as easily as before, but I can live with that.

 

[mercdudecbr600]

Lifetime alignments are great for this exact reason.

But never fool proof. Right now I can’t keep the toe in spec because (I think) of bad steering rack bushings. And this makes my kj drift pretty good to the right and wonder a bit down the road.

 

[lfhoward]

Lifetime alignments are great for this exact reason.

But never fool proof. Right now I can’t keep the toe in spec because (I think) of bad steering rack bushings. And this makes my kj drift pretty good to the right and wonder a bit down the road.

Check out new bushings by a company called Creative Steel. I just replaced my old worn out steering rack bushings with these and it is a night and day difference in terms of predictable handling.

 

[cas123]

Even without a lift I had to have mine aligned twice. Not a lot of faith in garages these days.

 

[Shankster]

The double wishbone setup on the Liberty is more performance car than 4x4 and more sophisticated than your average vehicle so needs a skilled alignment tech to understand it and requires an iterative process to get everything in spec. I'd think any dedicated alignment shop would be familiar with it and should be able to dial it in but taking it to an off-road specialist would not be best since they might only be familiar with much simpler systems - many vehicles only have front toe adjustment (e.g. my daughter's Ford Freestyle, Jeep Wranglers, etc) so I wonder if your initial tech assumed that for the Liberty? I gave up on my local shops for my race / sports cars (mainly because they refused to go outside of factory specs) and got my own basic alignment tools (camber gauge, toe plates) for less than the cost of an alignment - it can be a very frustrating and time consuming process without a fancy alignment rack but if you have the time and like tinkering I think it's a good skill to learn. The vehicle needs to be on a perfectly level surface or shimmed to be level so unless you can do that it's not worth buying the tools. Anyway, bottom line in my opinion is that the shop you used is incompetent. You might want to find a shop that specializes in sports cars (like Mazda Miatas) who'll be super familiar with complex double wishbone style alignments - after they've fixed it you could take the results back to the original shop and demand a refund.

 

[cas123]

Shankster that makes perfect sense. I guess I can understand why they screwed mine up the first time and I had to go back again.

 

[mercdudecbr600]

The double wishbone setup on the Liberty is more performance car than 4x4 and more sophisticated than your average vehicle so needs a skilled alignment tech to understand it and requires an iterative process to get everything in spec. I'd think any dedicated alignment shop would be familiar with it and should be able to dial it in but taking it to an off-road specialist would not be best since they might only be familiar with much simpler systems - many vehicles only have front toe adjustment (e.g. my daughter's Ford Freestyle, Jeep Wranglers, etc) so I wonder if your initial tech assumed that for the Liberty? I gave up on my local shops for my race / sports cars (mainly because they refused to go outside of factory specs) and got my own basic alignment tools (camber gauge, toe plates) for less than the cost of an alignment - it can be a very frustrating and time consuming process without a fancy alignment rack but if you have the time and like tinkering I think it's a good skill to learn. The vehicle needs to be on a perfectly level surface or shimmed to be level so unless you can do that it's not worth buying the tools. Anyway, bottom line in my opinion is that the shop you used is incompetent. You might want to find a shop that specializes in sports cars (like Mazda Miatas) who'll be super familiar with complex double wishbone style alignments - after they've fixed it you could take the results back to the original shop and demand a refund.

Tmk most ifs 4x4 use the same combo front control arms. It’s not an unusual setup. But the kj has adjustable camber bolts which does make it more complicated than most alignments.

I almost always tell the techs about the camber bolts ahead of time and SOMETIMES it makes a difference.

Already have creative steel bushings awaiting install, including front diff. Fingers crossed they make a difference.

 

[James Akemon]

Just looking for a reality check here. I think I got hosed out of $130 on an alignment.

I replaced basically everything involving my front suspension over the last week. New steering knuckles, new lower control arms, inner tie rod on the driver side, outer tie rods on both sides, both CV axles are new, brand new hubs, new sway bar bushings and end links.....

The upper control arms are the old school JBA non-greaseable parts, but I replaced the upper ball joints with the MOOG's as one would do when you're in this deep, so I would have thought there was no way I would end up with that much positive camber.

Took it in for an alignment to a shop and they literally only adjusted the toe - and made the camber WAY worse. Caster is somehow virtually unchanged.

A visual inspection of the LCA bolts shows there is a LOT of space left to adjust outward for caster and camber.

Are they incompetent or am I misunderstanding the reason they went 'fix the toe first' approach?