Silverstone2k4

I took my car in to the local dealer for the first time for mounting and balancing of two tires as well as a wheel aligment. Once the work was done, I noticed that my steering wheel is no longer level at dead center. In other words, the Honda H is tilted towards the right when the car is not turning. Needless to say, I'm going back to have this corrected. I understand that this is just a cosmetic issue, since the actual aligment settings may still be correct. It is possible the tech set the aligment with the steering wheel slighly off center. Readjusting front toe to the same degree on both sides should bring the steering wheel back to level, no?

Still, this lack of attention to detail makes me worry about the rest of the alignment settings. Here is the alignment sheet I recieved.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36861522@N03/4819968514/

I'm having some trouble interpreting it. Everything else look ok? Car is a stock suspension AP2.

rioyellows2k

The alignment settings look to be ok, but fron camber on a stock US vehicle is -.5 in the front, so it should be corrected.

What most likely happened is that the technician didn't lock the steering wheel properly when he did your alignment. They'll just need to re-do the front alignment which is very easy.

Another thing that may have happened is that the tie rods were seized up when they started the alignment and the car moved on the alignment rack when they were breaking the tie rod adjusting bolts loose. That's why I always put water resistant anti-seize on mine. It's a PITA to break those loose, if a car doesn't get aligned regularly. 6 mos to a year.

I'm still going with the first scenario.

Froth.

If they're using a Hunter alignment rack I'm not exactly sure how they managed to get the steering wheel crooked, Hunter has a feature called "Win-Toe" which compensates for the turning of the wheels once dead center has been found and set. Basically, You can level the steering wheel and then enable "Win-Toe" at which point you could basically turn it to full lock and still adjust it correctly and end up with a level steering wheel. Honestly, it's just lazy tech work IMO...I test drive every alignment to make dead sure the wheel is straight.

-Froth

MurderS2K

good 411 here thanks!!