Hi,
I've got brand new technotoytuning adjustable lower control arms, hubs, tie rods, sway bar and strut rod bushings, and new sway bar end links. The first alignment I got from Firestone lasted a week, went there last weekend and the toe had gone from 0.16 to -2.06 on both sides. Now the car is feeling squirrely and there's a pull. It's also easier to steer right than it is to steer left. What's going on???
Thanks,
Nick

 

You've angered the Rotary Gods, too many upgrades at one time.

 

two choices, well three if you're an outside the box person.

first choice, is that something came loose, you should check to make sure, because loose is the precursor to falling off, which is bad.

second is that they got it in spec, and then tightened it all down, which can move things, and then didn't recheck. this is pretty common, and most cars are fine with the alignment being close enough.

third is that something happened to their rack between then and now, unlikely, its probably been off the whole time

 

I also think something wasn't tightened down.

Did they not correct it when it was measured the second time?

 

Here's the thing, I went for one alignment, worked for a week(~100mi) and then it was out so I went to get it realigned because of their lifetime warranty. It's been another 100 miles and it's out again. I keep checking if anything is lose and it's solid. Everything looks good.
I'm pretty sure they didn't recheck, they asked me to start it so the tech could go on a run, and he was finishing it up when I walked into the shop. Got it started as he was lowering it. But it's getting progressive worse every day, the steering wheel wasn't this tilted on day one.

Edit: went for a drive. Steering wheel will suddenly pull right. Enough for me to change lanes without steering. It's not instant, but if I let go, It'll pull. It won't return back to center. Could it do with the steering gears? But it looks like there's -7° camber on the drivers front. None on the passenger front. This is werid.....

 

Go to a real alignment shop and then report back. Firestone is a joke, the company I work for sends all of their fleet vehicles there for alignment after tire changes or suspension parts.

If I had a dime for every truck I got back from them after "alignment" that didnt feel right, id have roughly 44 dollars.

Every single time, I let a nearby professional go through it, and every single time he finds problems with their work with me watching in the first 5 minutes of looking.

Some examples:

Sway bar links not installed (lol)

Ball joints that had not been changed during a work order to replace them

Front camber being uneven on right and left sides.

Strut assembly not put together right, leaving things like spacers and bearings in the wrong order at the strut top.

Directional tires backwards.

After all work is completed, steering wheel pointed right where it had been center before.

My personal favorite: Drove 2013 ford work van from firestone after "front end alignment" to the ford dealership (about 2 and a half miles) for warranty on a failing torque converter, and when turning right into the dealership, suddenly there was 0 pressure on the steering wheel, and no feedback from the actual steering at all. The van listed into the lot where I stopped it and put it in park. I walked around the passenger side of the van to see the front wheel at a funny angle, looked under and saw that the upper ball joint HAD NO HARDWARE TO ATTACH IT TO THE CONTROL ARM. It popped out when I turned right.

TLDR: Firestone is a place for women to take their VW's for oil changes, not a place for any sort of critical suspension work or any possibly thing that could put the driver in danger (or other motorists)

My bet is that if you let them install brakes for you, that youll have similar repeat mystery problems with stopping

 

go find a level, or get a level app for your phone, and park the car somewhere flat and check the camber. you can roughly check toe by laying a broom handle against the tire, it should end up parallel to the car, again roughly.

going further, the phone is fine for camber, its +/- .1 degrees which is more than fine. for a street car i'd run about -1 degrees, if you're doing canyon runs, and or some auto-x track stuff, maybe -1.5 to -2, and a track car would be around -3.

toe, you want toe plates or the string method, either work fine. the professional motorsports people use string, plenty of youtubes on the subject. for a toe angle start at zero, and then try a little toe in and a little toe out, and see what you like.

the other thing you want to measure is the track rod length. you can use it to adjust caster, although it should be done evenly, so the car doesn't drive weirdly, or the control arms hit the subframe or other. caster angle is hard to measure without the rack, and its pretty subtle. we usually make sure its even and maxed out, but you might try running less and see what its like

i'd also get the torque wrench and the shop manual out, and check everything in the front end. with the race cars we do this pretty regularly, and in a street car its a good idea maybe once a year, or two.

 

Went to firestone again because of their warranty and their manager said no, so I got my money back. Going to go to a specialty shop Tuesday. Got it to a level area, and the camber is -1ish. The toe is a whole other story. There at least the same on both sides. But it looks like 2/3 degrees on either side. What could be causing this???

 

either something is loose, or it moved when they tightened it down and they didn't care to do anything about it

 

It would be the tie rods that are loose if it's toe, right? How can I adjust them on the car? Sorry for silly questions, I'm quite new to all this haha

 

Not necessarily, all the other adjustments will affect the toe, so if anything is loose and getting out of adjustment it will usually affect the toe as well.

for instance, if the camber adjustment on the lower control arms moves, it moves the wheels in or out, changing the toe setting even though the tie rod ends are tight.

 

string is straight, so you simply put the string parallel to the car and measure to the front of the wheel, and the rear of the wheel, the difference is your toe. the guy in the video used the rear wheel to find parallel, and a real motor sports team would have found the center of the car and made some kind of jig, as they will check the alignment almost every session and they will change things a lot too, so they need something that is quick to setup.

the pros literally use fishing line, and often the reel too.

we use toe plates, don't be put off by the features these have, you could use a pair of 2x4's, the only important thing is that you use two tape measures that are similar

 

true, you generally wanna set the caster (track rods) first, then camber and toe as toe changes with all of these and ride height

 

Emailed corporate too.

Edit, missing pics, will add when I'm home.

 

It could be the track rods....checked the bushings and they're no bueno. But nothing is loose. Where's the nut that controls camber? Car is a bit mind of its own right now and it seems like the camber is going back and forth from meh to above....really thinking it's the track rods.

 

Holy!.... Looks like they didn't tighten up the the spindle bolts to the strut.

Or your lower ball joint is all shorts of fubaref

 

Hmm, the spindle bolts where? The inside of the hub? Or at the top of the shock?
Brand new ball joints....I don't think they're an issue, but I'll check when I change the lugs to bolts tomorrow. No wiggles or klunks from the tie rods or bearings or ball joints(using the 12 and 6 test).
This is a real head scratcher for me.

 

how about the camber plate on top?

 

The nut in the center at the top is tight as, dead center too. Same with the four that form a square around it. The first time I got it aligned at firestone, the noted RF camber is maxed out....at pos 2.2degrees.

 

Firstly, wasn't firestones' fault.

Have you shaken down the front end completely? No play? What about the notorious idler arm. Most front end guys, if they see a bunch of new stuff under a car, won't shake the front end down. I didn't see idler/pitman arms on your list.

 

I did do the idler arm bushings as a preop to see if they would fix the issues that I had, which then resulted in all of this work.

 

You camber is excessive - just from looking at the picture you posted. That car isn't going to drive nicely at all, and unless you're tracking that car exclusively and need that kind of camber during heavy G turns, your tire mileage is going to be dismal.

Whatever you did to the lower control arms, I would remove them and replace them with factory Mazda LCA's with new inner bushings and outer ball joints. This will at least set the bottom of the suspension to the correct dimensions, and from there you can adjust camber slightly using the shock mounts at the top.

Just my suggestion for a car that you want to drive predictably on the street.

 

I would appreciate some pics of the TTT front end hardware installed also.

TTT stuff gets excellent reviews, I assume all of this is not hardware related.

Not sure how solid hiem joints rod ends could possibly drift out of their setting.

 

I agree, some pics of the installed bits might help us help you better. Get it up on stands and
take a bunch of pics of the front suspension from various angles.

You definitely have way too much camber on there.

 

Here's a little update. Tonight I took the car to a dedicated motorsports shop who specializes in Mazda, Honda, and Acura. I explained what had happened and they took a look at it. They came back to me saying that the two track rods had not been touched in years, and the wheelbase on either side was off. They adjusted the track rods and got the wheelbase equal.