I finally got my suspension altered to Prodrive settings yesterday but when I drove out of the garage (Feltham Tyres in Slough) I found that I needed to have the right side of the steering wheel an inch or so higher than the left side for the car to go straight!

When I got back to work I phoned the garage and he said they'd have to re-check the settings even though the readings from the laser alignment equipment were exactly the Prodrive settings I'd asked for. So I'm intending to go back Monday lunchtime.

Not knowing much about suspension alignment, can anyone explain why this happens and whether the garage has messed up or is it just 'one of those things' that sometimes happens and should be rectifiable on a 2nd attempt?

BTW, I love the more precise steering and lack of understeer.

In case anyone's interested, my 98MY UK car could only manage camber of -0.9 deg on the left and -0.8 deg on the right, which was fine since I only wanted around -0.7 due to fear of inner edge tyre wear.

Paul

 

Paul...

It's because the company is a muppet.

The first thing you do before altering suspension setting is to line up the steering wheel to make sure its central.

All they have done is equalised the suspension settings with the wheel not straight first.

They will simply make sure the steering wheel is straight and then reset the geometery to prodrive specs, when u revisit them

If their alignment kit says the settings are correct.... then it doesnt really matter what position the wheel is in afterwards... you have the right settings, just the wheel is slightly off... lol

Tell them to sort themselves out..

J.

 

Jesus !!

The number of times I have heard of this. J sums it up nicely, muppets. (I like that :-))

Usually you set the steering wheel dead centre first and then lock it off (with a widget) to stop it moving. Then you make all the adjustments. Easy.

And you paid them to do this work ? I know, been there myself but with the steering wheel ~55 degrees out once. Took me a couple of miles to work it out too :-)

Of course, they are under an obligation to fix the problem, so please give them a chance to put it right. And if they cannot do it, take it somewhere else (after getting your money back, maybe)

Cheers

Ian Watkins (GT4)

 

Thanks for the explanation guys. It's interesting that when I spoke to the manager on the phone afterwards he said he was puzzled why the steering wheel wasn't straight. I bet his "we'll have to re-check the settings" is to cover the mistake made by the mechanic.