Furious about botched alignment and damage

[RA1]

Two years ago I did a little front suspension rebuild/refresh and the springs were shorter than the old ones. As expected this threw my alignment off and tore up just the insides of the front tires, which were already old so I didn't care just for the time being until I got in for an alignment. My normal trusted shop doesn't do alignments so I found another shop and they performed the alignment as well as installed two brand new tires.. I noticed they put 25 miles on the car which I thought was strange but I didn't say anything as my car drove straight and there was no damage.

The problem started this week when my normal shop was booked and I just needed a simple NYS inspection so I took it back to the same shop again. They first took my car for a 15 minute joy ride. The mechanic didn't even wait to get out of earshot before he got on it. When asking they said it was to "check alignment" for the NYS inspection.

Then, they failed the car because the two front tires were completely worn down. Having replaced them 4k miles ago, following a set that lasted almost 30k miles, I couldn't believe it, however the new tires were worn all the way down to the cords on the inside inch of the tire just as the last set did right after the suspension work w/out alignment. Clearly they didn't fix the issue at all, and now I need to get ANOTHER alignment and ANOTHER set of tires because this shop screwed it up.

On top of this, I discovered some relatively minor, but still frustrating damage, where the mechanic got a little careless with the wheel gun and put some deep scratches in the finish on the wheel around the lug nut.

Personally, I think the shop should be liable for all/most of this. At the very least I think they should pay for another alignment and the damage to the wheel. And even help me buy 2 new tires, as I'm confident if they performed the alignment correctly, I'd still have another 25k miles in them.

Thoughts? Opinions? When the shop inevitably refuses to help, what are some avenues/options I have or am I just SOL. Thanks!

[JFP in PA]

When you lower a car simply by changing the spring rates, you also alter the suspension geometry and limit travel range, unless you also change the control arm and front spindles to units with altered geometry to regain the correct overall suspension geometry and travel. As such, the tires can wear appreciably more on the inner edge during normal driving. And the more you lower the car, the worse this becomes, and the faster the tires wear due to the tire going into negative camber when moving, even with the car properly aligned in a resting position.

[RA1]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

When you lower a car simply by changing the spring rates, you also alter the suspension geometry and limit travel range, unless you also change the control arm and front spindles to units with altered geometry to regain the correct overall suspension geometry and travel. As such, the tires can wear appreciably more on the inner edge during normal driving. And the more you lower the car, the worse this becomes, and the faster the tires wear due to the tire going into negative camber when moving, even with the car properly aligned in a resting position.

Makes sense but about 6x the normal rate? The write up for the car stated that the alignment was visibly off. There are loads of people who installed springs much shorter than mine on this forum who report no uneven/strange tire wear after installing actual lowering springs up to 1-1.5 inches.

[Gilles]

RA1, usually an alignment shop give you a before and after alignment spec sheet, by any chance you kept the copy?

[RA1]

Originally Posted by Gilles

RA1, usually an alignment shop give you a before and after alignment spec sheet, by any chance you kept the copy?

I didn't receive one. Not sure why I didn't think to say something at the time.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by RA1

Makes sense but about 6x the normal rate? The write up for the car stated that the alignment was visibly off. There are loads of people who installed springs much shorter than mine on this forum who report no uneven/strange tire wear after installing actual lowering springs up to 1-1.5 inches.

A lot of how and where the vehicle was driven comes into play; lowered cars that are not really pushed hard tend not to see the impact to the same level, cars driven harder, or tracked, it shows up more pronounced. Type of tire (durometer value of the rubber) also comes into play as softer tires are always going to wear faster, particularly in hot climates. Another comment would be how well it was aligned after you first lowered it; little things combine to count for a lot in this area.......

[RA1]

Originally Posted by JFP in PA

A lot of how and where the vehicle was driven comes into play; lowered cars that are not really pushed hard tend not to see the impact to the same level, cars driven harder, or tracked, it shows up more pronounced. Type of tire (durometer value of the rubber) also comes into play as softer tires are always going to wear faster, particularly in hot climates. Another comment would be how well it was aligned after you first lowered it; little things combine to count for a lot in this area.......

Sure. but don't you think it's most likely they just didn't fix the alignment issue? There's no way that they did a thorough alignment if they let the car leave with the camber and toe in that the car has now. Or at least without saying anything about it on the way out. I'd be surprised if they did an alignment on the car at all.

[Gilles]

Originally Posted by RA1

on the way out. I'd be surprised if they did an alignment on the car at all.

It seems very probable, and will explain the same exact wear on the new tires..

[78F350]

The shops I've used always present a chart after completing the alignment and explain if they encountered any problems. Did this shop have any discussion other than the tires needing to be replaced?
Sample of a chart:

[husker boxster]

I can't say how much negative camber you can put into a stock 986, but in a 987 it's around -1.5 deg. Should prob be the same on the 986 since they use similar components. IF that same amt could be done as positive camber, 1.5 deg is not going to be enough to overcome the neg camber YOU'VE created with your lowered springs. With stock suspension components, the shop can only do so much and it won't be enough to get camber back to specs.

Rather than blaming that shop for something they did 2yrs ago, you need to decide what your next move is - go back to stock springs or find a shop that's done race alignments. If you choose the latter, there may be parts necessary to get it into the neighborhood of reasonable, like a camber plate. And if you do get the tire sitting upright, will it be rubbing on the fender?

And if you leave neg camber in, you will NEVER get 30K mi out of a set of tires. I have GT3 control arms on the front of my Cayman S Sport with -2.3 deg camber. With stock setup, I could go thru 2 sets of rears to 1 set of fronts in 30K mi. With the GT3 arms and camber, I now wear the fronts and rears out at the same rate - around 15K mi. But my 15K mi worn out fronts don't even look close to your 4K mi fronts, so you have WAY more camber than -2.3 in yours. Like I said earlier, chances are with stock components your alignment shop couldn't come close to getting your car w/in specs.

[JFP in PA]

Originally Posted by RA1

Sure. but don't you think it's most likely they just didn't fix the alignment issue? There's no way that they did a thorough alignment if they let the car leave with the camber and toe in that the car has now. Or at least without saying anything about it on the way out. I'd be surprised if they did an alignment on the car at all.

Without records, you have no evidence of that.

[redpepperracing]

While negative camber (or positive, but that's a different problem) will wear the tires a bit more, the worst wear I've ever seen was with excessive toe settings. If that is off by a lot, you will get the same type of wear, but in my experience, much quicker.

[RA1]

Originally Posted by husker boxster

I can't say how much negative camber you can put into a stock 986, but in a 987 it's around -1.5 deg. Should prob be the same on the 986 since they use similar components. IF that same amt could be done as positive camber, 1.5 deg is not going to be enough to overcome the neg camber YOU'VE created with your lowered springs. With stock suspension components, the shop can only do so much and it won't be enough to get camber back to specs.

Rather than blaming that shop for something they did 2yrs ago, you need to decide what your next move is - go back to stock springs or find a shop that's done race alignments. If you choose the latter, there may be parts necessary to get it into the neighborhood of reasonable, like a camber plate. And if you do get the tire sitting upright, will it be rubbing on the fender?

And if you leave neg camber in, you will NEVER get 30K mi out of a set of tires. I have GT3 control arms on the front of my Cayman S Sport with -2.3 deg camber. With stock setup, I could go thru 2 sets of rears to 1 set of fronts in 30K mi. With the GT3 arms and camber, I now wear the fronts and rears out at the same rate - around 15K mi. But my 15K mi worn out fronts don't even look close to your 4K mi fronts, so you have WAY more camber than -2.3 in yours. Like I said earlier, chances are with stock components your alignment shop couldn't come close to getting your car w/in specs.

Ok, so this very well may be the case, and I'm not saying you're wrong. However this is the problem. It is the shops responsibility to bring issue's like that to my attention. If I was told that it wasn't possible to get the camber back into spec on the stock suspension components, then no problem, I would've gone home and ordered the necessary parts and brought it back so the alignment could have been done properly. BEFORE I ripped through a set of tires in 4k miles. Whether I created the issue or not, it's not my responsibility any more when the shop tells me that the car is in good alignment and is good to go.

[husker boxster]

Originally Posted by RA1

Ok, so this very well may be the case, and I'm not saying you're wrong. However this is the problem. It is the shops responsibility to bring issue's like that to my attention. If I was told that it wasn't possible to get the camber back into spec on the stock suspension components, then no problem, I would've gone home and ordered the necessary parts and brought it back so the alignment could have been done properly. BEFORE I ripped through a set of tires in 4k miles. Whether I created the issue or not, it's not my responsibility any more when the shop tells me that the car is in good alignment and is good to go.

And I don't disagree with what you said, but expecting some sort of retribution when you don't have a recept (data sheet) AND it was 2 yrs ago is wasted energy. If you bring this up to them and they offer some good will discount on your next alignment, that will prob be the best you'll be able to do. But if they're a shady merchant to begin with, is that who you want to deal with? And there's no way they're going to buy you 2 new tires. It was 2 yrs ago. No way they can guarantee an alignment for 2 yrs and how do they know you didn't just put that worn set on last wk? So again, expecting to be made whole from them is wasted energy.

Focus your energy on finding a better shop. Tell them what you've done so they can go in with an eye towards your situation. Then see what they can do or what they recommend for fixes.

Where do you find a better shop? If you don't already have an idea, ask members of your local Porsche club. Ask the DE folks in your club. Or ask here on the forum. Someone in your area may have a suggestion.

[JFP in PA]

And before anyone goes casting aspersions on the shop, just remember that no shop doing alignments can or will offer any kind of time or distance "warranty" on their work, if for no other reason than the fact you could leave the shop, go down the street and hit a pot hole or hit a curb, throwing the fresh alignment out of wack. When you own a shop, you quickly see what kind of stupid things people do to their cars, and then try and put the shop on the hook for what the car owner did. We use a state-of-the-art Hunter four-wheel alignment system, and we warranty our alignments to the end of our parking lot.