I had my tc lowered about 6-7 months ago on Hotchkis springs. I have 18's on and now i'm having really bad alignment problems. I took it to the dealership and they happily took my $200 for an alignment that still had my car pullin to the right. The major problem i'm having is that my tire is being eaten away until the steel strings show. it only happens on the inner part of the tire (closest to the body frame) but not inside the tire, its on the outside.





I took my car to Goodyear and the guy told me that no alignment is gonna help my car and that i would need to get aftermarket parts to do it. I'm tired of spending $115 every month on tires. I'm in the Houston area can anybody help me out??

 

you probably need a camber kit

 

yea camber kit most likely. I'm surprised you need one though being lowered on springs.. Im lowered on JIC coilovers over 2 inches and have some negative camber in the back (just barely) and my car is straight as an arrow....for now. lol

 

Camber kit or Spacers. What's the offset of those rims? Any number larger than +48 would be bad.
It's most likely a camber kit though.

 

You SHOULDN'T need a camber kit... unless something with the 18's is throwing off the geometry even more. I had Hotchkis and never needed a camber kit - but on OEM wheels.

And why in the hell were you paying the dealer $200 for an alignment?! You need to find another place to get it aligned (besides goodyear too). My dealer charges $75 for 4 wheel alignment. No problems.

Most Important:

If just the inside of your tire is wearing, you have toe issues, not camber issues. You need to try another shop.

 

I appreciate the feedback. im takin it back to the dealer after work to get a refund and see if they'll pay for my new tires. this started happening after they did the alignment. As far as the offset i dont know how to find that out....i'm a noob with cars

 

hello there! i got hotchkis springs with aftermarket wheels and i had lots of problems too!

first: dealerships refused to do the allignment on my car because i was lowered. i didnt care because none of the dealership did a good job anyway...

2 sets of falken tires was eaten away in 15k miles each! ( not just 1 tire but all four!!!)

so i got front camber kit and no more feathering on the outsides of the tires. plus i went kumho instead of falken and i just take it to a shop on the corner. not to the dealer____

 

most probably they wont pay your tires. probably they will do nothing:D maybe they refund the money what you have spent on the alignment.

 

dealerships don't seem to understand camber. The tire shops understand it very well.
Going in for an alignment there, they understand more about suspension
geometry than the dealer does.

but i'll agree with everyone else, camber can be adjusted to stop wearing
the tires.

 

So the Dealership redid my alignment today and refunded me $200 to "go towards the tires". They explained the camber deal and they set it to 0.06. In the beginning it was driving good but after driving it around its startin to pull to the left again. Not as bad as before but still noticeable. They also told me that since they werent factory springs the factory seetings they put it back to might not be right. I was asked to get the specs on the Hotchkis springs so they would know wat to set it to

 

At least they went that far. Most dealerships will not even touch a car with aftermarket springs on it.
Although it's an inconvenience to you, keep taking it back until they get it right.

 

next time dont go to a dealer for alignment. they dont need to know anything about your springs, they are just BSing you. just go to a tuning shop or something, they do it for less and to YOUR standards. you tell them what you want, 0 toe, 0 camber etc, and they will set it to that until you are happy. but once you leave their garage, they arnt responsible anymore.

 

I have good luck with dealer alignments here. $70 or something... but never had any problems. I trust them more than any little "tuning shop" around here. The other option around here are the tire shops... I do use them from time to time, but again, no issues getting stuff done at the dealer. They don't hassle me about aftermarket stuff and don't feed me lines of crap because the f'd up the work.

I would guess though that I'm one of the lucky ones.

 

Um, wow another dealer lying and putting out false information. Springs don't have a "camber setting". That's in the tC's suspension! And that was engineered to have a certain range of setting, based on the factory parts. If you've gone beyond the ability of the factory parts in the rear, there's always aftermarket camber kits that can help you get it back to 0.9 camber (that's nominal for the rear camber). they got it to 0.06degrees? That's 0.0 so what are they talking about?

As far as your pulling coming back, it's most likely the tires that are worn causing a pull. Get yourself a depth gauge and check the tire depth from inner tread to outer, you'll notice there's a big difference. And that is causing the pull. Once you get the alignment set, replace the tires.

And in my opinion that dealer you went to is really clueless.